The Tyranny of Writing: Ideologies of the Written Word

Title Page......Page 4
Copyright Page......Page 5
Contents......Page 6
Preface......Page 7
List of Contributors......Page 10
 The potential of writing......Page 12
 The ‘tyranny of writing’ in modern linguistics......Page 14
 A double agency......Page 18
 No dichotomy but a continuum......Page 19
 The ‘tyranny of writing’ in this book......Page 21
 References......Page 26
 Introduction......Page 30
 What Saussure said......Page 31
 Antonio de Nebrija’s idea of writing......Page 32
 God, nature and society......Page 34
 Nature and culture......Page 35
 Can we do linguistics without writing?......Page 37
 References......Page 39
 Rus’ and Novgorod......Page 42
 The two orthographies......Page 43
 A modern parallel......Page 46
 Origin and spread of the Novgorod vernacular orthography......Page 48
 The vernacular orthography against the tyranny of the standard orthography......Page 53
 References......Page 54
 Introduction......Page 58
 Rise and fall......Page 59
 Language culture of the Renaissance......Page 60
 Fear of language change......Page 61
 First rips and cracks in the language culture of the Renaissance......Page 63
 The impact......Page 66
 Conclusion......Page 69
 Acknowledgement......Page 70
 References......Page 71
 Introduction or: What does ‘tyranny of writing’......Page 74
 The construction of a monolingual republic......Page 76
 The tyranny of writing: School, orthography, and dictation......Page 77
 The Frenchification of the Bretagne bretonnante: Diglossia and its consequences......Page 83
 Conclusion......Page 89
 References......Page 90
Chapter 5: Ideologies of Language and Literacy in the German Educational Reform Movement at the End of the Long Nineteenth Century......Page 92
 Introduction......Page 93
 Literacy and orality as a central dichotomy in Rudolf Hildebrand’s view on language education......Page 95
 Otto’s discovery of child language (Kindesmundart)......Page 98
 A political case: Otto’s treatise on ‘Poles and Germans’ and the Wreschen affair......Page 102
 Conclusion and discussion......Page 103
 References......Page 105
 Introduction......Page 108
 Social stratification in the Anglo-Egyptian Sudan (1899–1956)......Page 110
 The RLC and the construction of ideological categories of interaction......Page 111
 Conclusion......Page 119
 References......Page 121
 Introduction......Page 124
 The sociolinguistics of English in Sri Lanka......Page 125
 Elite privilege, written English and the politics and tyranny of standards......Page 127
 Writing cricket, Englishness and privilege......Page 129
 Majoritarian nationalism and English......Page 131
 Sanath Jayasuriya’s code-switch, sociocultural censure and the tyranny of language......Page 133
 Conclusion – the tyrannies of writing and English language standards......Page 135
 References......Page 136
 Setting the scene......Page 140
 Spoken and written multilingualism in West Africa......Page 141
 Performative contexts leading to language-independent regimes of writing based on a lead language......Page 144
 Normative writing contexts and standard orthographies expressing strategic essentialism......Page 148
 Lead-language writing as a model for multilingual literacies......Page 152
 References......Page 155
 Introduction......Page 160
 Hong Kong SAR: Language needs and the Chinese literacy gap......Page 165
 References......Page 172
 Introduction......Page 176
 Writing fangyan in heritage tourism......Page 179
 Conclusion......Page 190
 Appendix: Fangyan signs in Enshi Tujia Girls Town......Page 191
 References......Page 192
Chapter 11: Dialect Authenticity Upside Down: Brabantish Writing Practices of a Black Comedian on Twitter......Page 194
 Setting and background......Page 196
 Black and White stand-up comedy......Page 199
 Conclusion......Page 204
 References......Page 206
 Language politics on the Balearic Islands......Page 208
 Theoretical assumptions......Page 211
 Tracing the salty article in Facebook communities......Page 213
 Discussion......Page 221
 References......Page 222
Thematic Index......Page 224
Languages and Scripts Index......Page 240