Zur Entwicklung der Auffassung von der Sprachnorm und der Kodifizierung in der sowjetischen und russischen Sprachwissenschaft

Abstract

This dissertation investigates the development of the concept of norm and its influence on linguistic codification practice in Russia since the October revolution. First of all, the notions of norm and codification as well as various types of norms are discussed, with a focus on the relation between the external norm as codified by linguists and the internal norm as reflected in actual usage. Secondly, changes in the concept of norm as represented in Russian linguistics since the 1920s are analysed. It was possible to work out, for each period of time, the prevailing normative criterion, the three most important criteria being the correspondence to the classical literature, to the language system and to actual usage, respectively. Finally, the thesis deals with the presentation of problematic cases in a number of normative dictionaries. The dictionary data are compared with actual usage data in order to assess the degree to which the dictionaries in question reflect current usage by educated speakers. The data on usage frequencies were taken from previous surveys. The general conclusions are as follows:* Russian linguists and compilers of dictionaries do not always distinguish between the external and the internal norm.* Neither linguistically motivated principles nor facts of current usage are taken into consideration to a sufficient extent by lexicographers.* The codification practice reflects only general tendencies of real usage. Different areas of linguistic variation are not treated on an equal footing and even within one specific area recognition and rejection of variants more often than not takes place not in a principled manner, but on a per-case basis.* The dictionaries investigated lack a uniform and accurately defined scale of normative/stylistic labels. A precise normative account of language phenomena is not possible without such a scale, however.* Contrary to what is often suggested, the reliability of a dictionary is not enhanced by codifying only the most frequently used variants, but by considering all common variants.* Large-scale surveys of current language usage are necessary for a realistic and objective codification practice.