Spisovnost a její zdroje

• Authors: Václav Cvrček

Title variants

EN

Literariness: the concept and its criteria

• Languages of publication: CS

Abstracts

EN

Although “literary language”, i.e. standard language or spisovná čestina, was the central notion of the Prague Linguistic Circle’s Theory of the Cultivation of Language, it has never been defined. This article deals with the problem of definition of “literariness”, a concept which forms the base for the codification criterion of “correspondence with the literary norm”. Several attempts to define it or to provide criteria for “literariness” were made, but, as I explain, none of them were successful in reproducing the codified set of language means. These attempts can be divided into two groups: nominalistic and realistic. The former suggests that literariness (i.e. being a part of literary/standard language) is “a mere label”, a characteristic that is acquired by being codified, the latter supposes that language means are standard or nonstandard (or something in between) depending on their usage. The nominalistic approach appears to be inadequate, as it provides no opportunity for language development. Realistic criteria, however, are either methodologically dubious or highly controversial among Czech linguists.

Keywords

CS

spisovnost; spisovný jazyk; kodifikace; preskriptivismus; jazykový standard; intervence

EN

literariness; literary language; codification; prescriptivism; language standard; intervention

Discipline

• PHILOLOGY_&_LINGUISTICS: PHILOLOGY & LINGUISTICS

• Publisher: Institute of the Czech Language, Czech Academy of Sciences
• Journal: Slovo a slovesnost: časopis pro otázky teorie a kultury jazyka (Slovo a slovesnost: A journal for the theory of language and language cultivation)
• Year: 2006
• Volume: 67
• Issue: 1
• Pages: 46-60
• Document type: ARTICLE

Contributors

author

Václav Cvrček

• Slovo a slovesnost, redakce, Ústav pro jazyk český AV ČR, v.v.i., Letenská 4, 118 51 Praha 1, Czech Republic