"Historical sociolinguistics has successfully challenged the traditional focus on standardization in linguistic historiography. Extensive research on newly uncovered textual resources has shown the widespread variation in the written language of the past that was previously hidd…
"Historical sociolinguistics has successfully challenged the traditional focus on standardization in linguistic historiography. Extensive research on newly uncovered textual resources has shown the widespread variation in the written language of the past that was previously hidd…
"Historical sociolinguistics has successfully challenged the traditional focus on standardization in linguistic historiography. Extensive research on newly uncovered textual resources has shown the widespread variation in the written language of the past that was previously hidd…
SMS communication: a linguistic approach
"The media often point an accusatory finger at new technologies; they suggest that there is always a loss of information or quality, or even that computer-mediated communication is destroying language. Most linguists, on the contrary, are firmly convinced that it is better to co…
Given the extensive use of LOL (Laughing Out Loud), MDR (Mort De Rire) and PTDR (PéTé De Rire) in French texting and the inclusion of lol in the Oxford English Dictionary in 2011 and in Le Petit Robert in 2013, this paper aims to study the functioning of these three initialisms.…
This article opens with a brief discussion of the fundamental issues of usage, structure, grammaticalization and reanalysis and then introduces the key concept of an empty distinction, which is defined as a conventionalized distinction of expression that has lost its former moti…