A Comparison of Language Change between German and English : A sociolinguistic Study
| Project/Area Number |
18520340
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| Research Category |
Grant-in-Aid for Scientific Research (C)
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| Allocation Type | Single-year Grants |
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| Section | 一般 |
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| Research Field |
Linguistics
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| Research Institution | Fukuoka University |
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Principal Investigator |
MORISAWA Mariko Fukuoka University, Faculty of Humanities, Associate Professor (70279248)
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| Co-Investigator(Kenkyū-buntansha) |
YANAGI Sayo Fukuoka University, Faculty of Humanities, Professor (10117278)
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| Project Period (FY) |
2006 – 2007
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| Project Status |
Completed (Fiscal Year 2007)
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| Budget Amount *help |
¥2,250,000 (Direct Cost: ¥2,100,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000)
Fiscal Year 2007: ¥650,000 (Direct Cost: ¥500,000、Indirect Cost: ¥150,000)
Fiscal Year 2006: ¥1,600,000 (Direct Cost: ¥1,600,000)
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| Keywords | Sociolinguistics / German Language / English Language / German Language History / English Language History / Relatives |
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| Research Abstract |
For the purpose of observing the relationship between language change and social factors, Morisawa and Yanagi focused on the usage of relative pronouns in the German and English language.
Morisawa carried out a sampling research with respect to the usage of the German relative pronoun welcher that is said to have often been used still in the 19^th century, but rarely if ever appears in present-day German. Three kinds of texts used here were: a literary work, private letters and a treatise, which were all written by Goethe in the early 19th century. The examples demonstrated the possibility that Goethe might have regarded welcher as a stylistic means and elaborately changed frequency in the use of this relative pronoun according to sort of text. Consequently this has led Morisawa to add to the description of previous research a new interpretation from the viewpoint of a device for varying the proportion of stylistic means according to text type and also to develop a possible hypothesis explaining the decreasing usage of welcher.
Yanagi, who has attempted to explain sociolinguistically the origin and diffusion of WH-relatives, is bound to conclude thus:-(1) a small number of WH-relatives (not generalizing relatives) seen in the twelfth-century cut-and-paste homilies came from OE texts other than Catholic Homilies, (2) WH-relatives used with prepositions showed marked increase throughout the medieval period, while the occurrence of TH-relatives with prepositions remained low; and (3) taking account of an audience of hearers and readers for which prose texts between the 12^th and 16^th centuries were intended, this striking contrast was likely to be mainly attributed not only to syntactic requirements, but also to sermons translated word for word from Latin and French into English for the benefit of the unlearned: WH-relatives, unlike that, had Latin and French (backed by monasteries before the Reformation ) as supporters.
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Report
(3 results)
Research Products
(7 results)
