1st Edition
The Hidden Politics of Grammar Unveiling Discourses of American Identity in a Corpus of Historical American Grammar Writing
List of Figures
List of Tables
Acknowledgments
1 Introduction
1.1 Research Aims
1.2 Positioning the Study and Key Terminology
1.3 Mixed Methods Approach
1.4 Overview of the Book
2 Historical Grammars of English: A Mirror of Ideologies?
2.1 Language and Ideologies in Historical English Grammar Writing
2.1.1 The HeidelGram Project
2.1.2 Studies of Historical Grammar Writing
2.2 Characteristics of Early American Grammars
2.2.1 American Grammar and Education
2.2.2 American Grammar and Religion
2.2.3 Prescriptivism in Early American Linguistics
2.2.4 Noah Webster: The “Schoolmaster to America”
2.2.5 American Grammar and Patriotism
2.3 Concluding Remarks
3 The Notion of American National Identity
3.1 The Cultural Climate Shaping American Identity
3.1.1 Historical Overview
3.1.2 The Role of Language in Early America
3.2 Defining American Identity
3.2.1 Tracing the Origins of an American Identity
3.2.2 American Identity in this Study
3.3 Linguistic Approaches to National Identity
3.3.1 Prescriptivism and Verbal Hygiene as Drivers of National Identity
3.1.2 Investigating National Identities Through Enregisterment
3.1.3 Analyzing Discourses of National Identity
3.4 Concluding Remarks
4 Constructing the Corpus of Historical American Grammars (HistAGram)
4.1 Selection of Early American Grammars
4.1.1 A Principled Sampling Approach
4.1.2 Discussing Corpus Representativeness
4.2 Digitization and Annotation Process
4.3 Corpus Composition
4.4 Concluding Remarks
5 A Mixed Methods Approach to Grammar Discourse
5.1 Methods from Corpus Linguistics
5.1.1 Concordance Analysis
5.1.2 Frequency Analysis
5.1.3 Collocation Analysis
5.1.4 Keyword Analysis
5.1.5 Type– Token Ratio
5.2 Methods from Network Analysis
5.2.1 Citation Networks
5.2.2 Network Visualization
5.2.3 Network Metrics
5.3 Methods from Discourse Analysis
5.3.1 The Discourse- Historical Approach (DHA): Overview
5.3.2 Context in the DHA
5.3.3 The Three- Dimensional Approach of the DHA
5.3.4 The DHA Research Process
5.3.5 Criticism of the DHA
5.4 Analytical Procedures
5.4.1 Extracting and Visualizing Onomastic References
5.4.2 Identifying and Extracting Search Terms: A Recursive Approach
5.4.3 Analyzing the Discourse Data
5.5 Software and Corpus Tools
5.6 Concluding Remarks
6 An Analysis of Onomastic References
6.1 How: Exploring Reference Types
6.1.1 Exploring Examples
6.1.2 Exploring Quotations
6.1.3 Exploring Opinions
6.2 Who: Person Types
6.3 A Holistic View: Citation Networks
6.4 Concluding Remarks
7 Branding America as a Nation
7.1 America as a Nation
7.1.1 Establishing America in its Own Right
7.1.2 America In Contrast with Great Britain
7.1.3 Speaking of Nations and Countries
7.2 Characterizing the Prototypical American
7.3 Reinforcing a National Language
7.3.1 Establishing the American Language
7.3.2 A Shift in Spelling
7.3.3 American English as the Superior Variety
7.4 Concluding Remarks
8 A Call to Shared Heritage and Beliefs
8.1 Recalling a Shared History
8.2 A Shared Set of Socio- Cultural Beliefs
8.2.1 The Role of Philosophy
8.2.2 The Role of Religion
8.3 Shared Sense of Politics
8.3.1 Establishing Political Values
8.3.2 Establishing the Political System
8.4 Concluding Remarks
9 Delineating Historical American Grammar Writing
9.1 Delineating Historical American Grammar Writing
9.1.1 Delineating American Grammars of English
9.1.2 Delineating American Grammars of English
9.2 Shared Strategies for Onomastic Referencing?
9.3 Characterizing Nations
9.3.1 Characterizing America and Great Britain
9.3.2 Claiming the English Language
9.3.3 The Shift to American Spelling Variants
9.4 A Shared Heritage Across Genres?
9.5 Concluding Remarks
10 Conclusion
10.1 Main Findings and Reflections
10.1.1 National Identity Discourses in Early American Grammars
10.1.2 American Grammars of English in Comparison
10.1.3 Methodological Reflections and Limitations
10.2 Possibilities for Future Research
10.3 Concluding Remarks
Appendix
A.1 The HistAGram Corpus
A.2 Sample Header and Author Information
A.3 Annotation Scheme
A.4 Indegree Centrality Scores for the Networks
Index
Biography
Sophie A. L. Du Bois is a researcher and lecturer at the University of Cologne, Germany.
“Using a combination of critical discourse analysis and computational methods, The Hidden Politics of Grammar explores how early grammars of American English led to the creation of an American national identity. It has much to offer to linguists and historians alike. This book sets a new standard for historical linguistic research.”
Prof. Dan McIntyre, Uppsala University, Sweden
