Orð og tunga - 01.06.2017, Page 163

Heimir van der Feest Viðarsson: Málnotkun sem mælikvarði 153
Lykilorð
málstöðlun, tilbrigði, félagsmálfræði, setningafræði
Keywords
standardisation, variation, sociolinguistics, syntax
Abstract
The Reykjavík Grammar School (1846–1904) has been widely regarded as a primary
force in the implementation of standard language norms in Iceland. The present arti-
cle att empts to test this hypothesis in a selection of 189 student essays from the gram-
mar school, including a survey of the teachers’ corrections. Three linguistic variables
were selected, both known from the prescriptivist tradition and corrected in the es-
says: 1) the generic pronoun maður, 2) the fi nite verb in third (V3) rather than second
position (V2), 3) the defi nite article sá vs. hinn.
Based on a series of statistical tools, a log-likelihood test for the generic pronoun,
generalised linear mixed-eff ects models and conditional random forests for verb
placement and the defi nite article, it is argued that the use of non-standard variants
correlates signifi cantly with progression of study (grades 1–3 vs. 4–6) and/or gradu-
ation score (low vs. high). The small corpus size prevented an analysis along the
lines of Hinrichs et al. (2015), who recommend testing whether the (non-)use of one
stigmatised ariant also correlates with the (non-)use of other stigmatised variants.
Here, the educative variables arguably fulfi l a similar function, independently from
observing frequency decrease over time. The results thus suggest that prescriptive
eff orts were, indeed, quite successful.
Heimir van der Feest Viðarsson
Háskóla Íslands / Utrecht University
Doktorsnemi í íslenskri málfræði við HÍ
hfv3@hi.is
tunga_19.indb 153 5.6.2017 20:27:58