Abstract
In 2005, Arnold Zwicky posited two misapprehensions about language: the Recency Illusion, or the false idea that certain language variation is new, and the Frequency Illusion, the erroneous belief that a particular word or phrase occurs often. Since their conception, these concepts have received widespread attention in popular scientific linguistics, but quantitative research investigating their application is scarce. The purpose of this paper is to provide an empirical investigation of Zwicky’s proposed illusions. It does so by collecting statements about recency (‘this word is new’) and frequency (‘this construction occurs often’) from a database of Dutch prescriptive publications (1900–2018). I assessed their accuracy by comparing them to linguistic sources, including dictionaries, and usage corpora and other data. Our research showed that recency statements were rare, but that frequency statements, especially using high frequency terms such as vaak (‘often’), were commonplace. Compared to usage, most prescriptive recency and frequency statements for both lexis and grammar indeed constituted Zwickian illusions. This seems partly due to genuine erroneous or unsupported beliefs by authors, but also partly to prescriptive genre conventions and rhetorical choices. Our explorative research highlights the complex usage–prescriptivism interface, and argues for more research into this aspect of language perceptions.
Highlights
In 2005, American linguist Arnold Zwicky published a post on the well-known blog
Frequency Illusion: Once you notice a phenomenon, you believe it happens a whole lot. (Zwicky 2005) These illusions manifest in metalinguistic statements of various sorts
The present paper addresses these two issues, by first mapping recency and frequency statements in Dutch prescriptive publications from 1900 onwards
Summary
In 2005, American linguist Arnold Zwicky published a post on the well-known blogLanguageLog entitled ‘Just Between Dr Language and I’ (Zwicky 2005). In what would later be called a “classic post” (Zimmer 2019), he wrote about a language column which claimed that the construction between you and I had only started to appear over the last few decades. Zwicky invalidated this claim by showing that its usage dated back at least 150 years, and possibly as much as 400 years. As for the Frequency Illusion, Zwicky reports in his original blog post how members of a certain research group expressed a belief about the common use of quotative all, which some even perceived to be used “all the time” (2005). Even a seemingly neutral description this word occurs can implicitly refer to frequency
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
