Is literary language a development of ordinary language?

Tools

Fabb, Nigel (2010) Is literary language a development of ordinary language? Lingua, 120 (5). pp. 1219-1232. ISSN 0024-3841 (https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2009.07.007)

[thumbnail of NF_Lingua_2009.pdf]
Preview
 PDF. Filename: NF_Lingua_2009.pdf
Accepted Author Manuscript
Download (147kB)| Preview

Abstract

Contemporary literary linguistics is guided by the 'Development Hypothesis' which says that literary language is formed and regulated by developing only the elements, rules and constraints of ordinary language. Six ways of differentiating literary language from ordinary language are tested against the Development Hypothesis, as are various kinds of superadded constraint including metre, rhyme and alliteration and parallelism. Literary language differs formally, but is unlikely to differ semantically from ordinary language. The article concludes by asking why the Development Hypothesis might hold.

ORCID iDs

Fabb, Nigel ORCID logoORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-4820-7612;
CORE (COnnecting REpositories)