ORTHOEPY — HISTORY OF LINGUISTICS — HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

Abstract

The definition of orthoepy as “a branch of linguistics that studies pronunciation norms” tends to determine the understanding of its tasks as exclusively prescriptive, and that of orthoepy as a whole as an applied area, par excellence. Its other component, purely linguistic, is present in the problem of the correlation between the system and the norm, traditionally central to the school of Lev Shcherba. In essence, this problem is a particular case of the Saussurian “language — speech” dichotomy, which is the reason for regarding orthoepy as a purely linguistic discipline and for discerning two points of view on its object, those “from within” and “from without.” The latter implies a conscious attitude towards the choice, from several possibilities, of one unit as a normative or “correct” with the establishment of the systemic status of this unit. This point of view on language, which emerged almost simultaneously with the awareness of it as an inherently human capacity (Plato), is reflected both in the early evidence of “language prestige” (Catullus, Cicero) and in the works of “intuitive linguists,” either relying on a certain norm (Alexandrian grammarians) or creating it (English orthoepists). In turn, the norm is synonymous to speech, which exists at a given synchronic stage; it changes either as a result of the alternative possibilities offered by the system (language dynamics) or due to the transition of the system to another synchronic stage (linguistic change per se), cf. Ludmila Verbitskaya’s formulation in The Linguistic Encyclopedic Dictionary: “The phonological system of a language completely determines the pronunciation norm. The norm can change within the system provided new forms gradually replace the old ones under the influence of extralinguistic factors or as a result of changes that have taken place in the system.” In this context, the primary task of interpreters of early orthoepic evidence (first of all, historians of language) is to identify factors belonging to two fundamentally different spheres. Ignoring this circumstance in the research procedures, characteristic of (chronologically or ideologically) pre–Saussurian (pre–Baudouin de Courtenay) linguistics, leads to a confusion of factors, including systemic and extra–linguistic ones, and, moreover, of the fundamental notions, (diachronic) change and (synchronic) variation, which, among other things, is reflected in the idea of ‘recent changes’ in the system (in fact, in the norm) and in the popular notion of “language in the state of (constant) flux.” On the contrary, the consistent differentiation, in research procedures, of different factors interacting in the functioning of language system, and thus discerning between the two points of view on it, “from within” and “from without,” makes orthoepy an integral part of linguistics as a fundamental science of language, providing theoretical justification for its applied component, the latter’s goals having been formulated, for all times, as a maxime to “speak properly and correctly.” Refs 29.