昨日の記事「#2741. ascertaining, refining, fixing」 ([2016-10-28-1]) で，17世紀までの英語標準化から18世紀にかけての英語規範化へと続く時代の流れを見た．
一言で「標準化」 (standardisation) といっても，その過程にはいくつかの局面が認められる．Haugen の影響力の強い論文によれば，ある言語変種が標準化するとき，典型的には4つの段階を経るとされる．Hudson (33) による社会言語学の教科書からの引用を通じて，この4段階を要約しよう．
(1) Selection --- somehow or other a particular variety must have been selected as the one to be developed into a standard language. It may be an existing variety, such as the one used in an important political or commercial centre, but it could be an amalgam of various varieties. The choice is a matter of great social and political importance, as the chosen variety necessarily gains prestige and so the people who already speak it share in this prestige. However, in some cases the chosen variety has been one with no native speakers at all --- for instance, Classical Hebrew in Israel and the two modern standards for Norwegian . . . .
(2) Codification --- some agency such as an academy must have written dictionaries and grammar books to 'fix' the variety, so that everyone agrees on what is correct. Once codification has taken place, it becomes necessary for any ambitious citizen to learn the correct forms and not to use in writing any 'incorrect' forms that may exist in their native variety.
(3) Elaboration of function --- it must be possible to use the selected variety in all the functions associated with central government and with writing: for example, in parliament and law courts, in bureaucratic, educational and scientific documents of all kinds and, of course, in various forms of literature. This may require extra linguistic items to be added to the variety, especially technical words, but it is also necessary to develop new conventions for using existing forms --- how to formulate examination questions, how to write formal letters and so on.
(4) Acceptance --- the variety has to be accepted by the relevant population as the variety of the community --- usually, in fact, as the national language. Once this has happened, the standard language serves as a strong unifying force for the state, as a symbol of its independence of other states (assuming that its standard is unique and not shared with others), and as a marker of its difference from other states. It is precisely this symbolic function that makes states go to some lengths to develop one.
当然ながら，いずれの段階においても，多かれ少なかれ，社会による意図的で意識的な関与が含まれる．標準語の出来方はすぐれて社会的な問題であり，常に人工的，政治的な匂いがまとわりついている．「社会による意図的な介入」の結果としての標準語という見解については，上の引用に先立つ部分に，次のように述べられている (Hudson 32) ．
Whereas one thinks of normal language development as taking place in a rather haphazard way, largely below the threshold of consciousness of the speakers, standard languages are the result of a direct and deliberate intervention by society. This intervention, called 'standardisation', produces a standard language where before there were just 'dialects' . . . .
関連して，「#1522. autonomy と heteronomy」 ([2013-06-27-1]) を参照．
・ Haugen, Einar. "Dialect, Language, Nation." American Anthropologist. 68 (1966): 922--35.
・ Hudson, R. A. Sociolinguistics. 2nd ed. Cambridge: CUP, 1996.
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