Proper English Usage : a sociolinguistic investigation of attitudes towards usage problems in British English
2017
Focusing on the general
public, an often-forgotten key player in the debate on correct and proper English
usage, this dissertation provides a current perspective on attitudes towards
fourteen usage problems, including literally as an intensifier and the
notorious split infinitive, in British English. Proper English Usage
investigates the impact of the social variables age, gender, language
nativeness and level of education on attitudes towards the usage problems
investigated. The results of various attitude elicitation tests, including an
online questionnaire completed by 112 respondents, have shown that social
variables such as age play a crucial role in the social stratification of usage
attitudes.
Using a mixture of different attitude elicitation techniques has shown that
both subconsciously and consciously offered attitudes need to be taken into
account in order to circumvent the issue of obtaining socially desirable
answers. Besides applying a mixed-methods approach, qualitative and
quantitative attitudinal data contribute further to a fuller picture of current
usage attitudes. A historical dimension is added to the study by exploring the
Hyper Usage Guide of English (HUGE) database, which allowed for a systematic
assessment of percept data found in advice manuals spanning 240 years.
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