PRONUNCIATION NORMS THROUGH THE EYES OF A LEXICOGRAPHER

Abstract

One of the most controversial issues of orthoepy is the criteria for making codification decisions in the case of coexistence of pronunciation variants. For the authors of dictionaries, this question is especially important, since its solution determines the logic and procedure for the transition from pronunciation in the sounding speech of educated people to a codified norm. There are two approaches that determine the decision-making algorithm for the transition from pronunciation in live speech to codification recommendations — subjective and objective. A subjective assessment of the facts of orthoepic variability is called the position of an unconditional idea of the normativity of a variant based on tradition, following authoritative samples and the personal taste of the author of recommendations. An objective assessment of orthoepic variants can only be the result of representative sociolinguistic studies of the usus, which were started on the material of the Russian language in the 1960s under the leadership of M. V. Panov. The definition of the methodology is inextricably linked with the question of choosing criteria for recommending one of the coexisting pronunciation variants as a codified norm. The article discusses various reasons for making a decision to recommend a specific pronunciation variant as the norm: 1) compliance with the internal language law; 2) compliance with the cultural and historical tradition; 3) the prevalence of the variant and the statistics of the norm; 4) public approval and recognition by society of the variant as normative. It seems that the pronunciation variants identified in the sounding speech of educated people during representative and systematic sociolinguistic studies should be taken into account when developing pronouncing recommendations. And the only argument that prevents the usual variant from being given the status of a codified one is a violation of intra-linguistic laws. All other criteria — cultural and historical tradition, the authority of experts, speech skills and language taste of the author of the dictionary, etc. have a secondary character. Refs 16.