Lang Policy DOI 10.1007/s10993-014-9337-8 BOOK REVIEW

Alexandra Jaffe, Jannis Androutsopoulos, Mark Sebba, Sally Johnson (eds.): Orthography as Social Action: Scripts, Spelling, Identity and Power (Language and Social Processes 3) De Gruyter Mouton, Berlin and New York, 2012, 396 pp, Hb €109.95, ISBN 9781614511366 Nils Langer Received: 28 July 2014 / Accepted: 29 July 2014 Ó Springer Science+Business Media Dordrecht 2014

It is often taught in first-year linguistics lectures that spelling is not part of linguistics proper as it is merely a representation of Language. And yet it is issues of spelling which are often first noted when people speak or complain about language variation and change. While spelling is frequently equated with orthography (literally ‘correct spelling’), variation in spelling is in fact common in everyday life, due either to imperfect use of the standard spelling or to a deliberately intended deviation. It is the latter case which is central to this book: the use of spelling to demonstrate social action. This volume contains 14 chapters discussing a wide range of issues about spelling in languages as diverse as Hindi, Pennsylvania German and Jamaican Creole. In the strong opening chapter, Sebba provides a comprehensive presentation of ways in which spelling and orthography (in the normative sense) can be used within the ‘zone of social meaning’, whereby writers deviate from established norms to create salience. He argues that whilst sub-conscious linguistic variation is central to the study of sociolinguistics generally, in the area of spelling variation, we are usually dealing with deliberate or conscious choices (p. 4). Thus the investigation of orthographic practices can illuminate the social value of particular linguistic usages and perceptions. Other chapters touch on similar topics, including the role of state authorities in deciding on and promoting spelling norms, the use of particular scripts to create or restore national identities, and the practices of spelling variation in computermediated communication. In such contexts, variation in spelling pertains to language policy, in that it is used above and beyond purely communicative needs. Spitzmu¨ller (chapter 11) explores the notion of graphic ideologies, referring to the N. Langer (&) University of Bristol, Bristol, UK e-mail: [email protected]

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use of particular fonts, scripts, or spellings to achieve marked effects. His data is drawn from the use of Blackletter type or umlauts in foreign branding (e.g. Ha¨agen Dasz) and popular culture (e.g. Moto¨rhead) to create a Germanising effect, often with Nazi or Nordic associations. This practice is also found in the heavy metal music scene, where the use of umlauts is ‘an icon of the metal scene itself’ (p. 271). As demonstrated by Spitzmu¨ller’s data from Wikipedia discussions, such orthographic practices have right-wing connotations for many. Similarly, the contributions by Bennett (chapter 3) and Wertheim (chapter 4) refer to the use of particular scripts, rather than actual spellings. Bennett discusses the particularly high cultural value of the Cyrillic alphabet in Russia, which originated as a missionary alphabet and is thus now strongly associated with the Christian Orthodox faith. After two periods of secularisation and spelling reforms, the established spelling of Russian was attacked by extremist nationalist groups after the fall of communism. Concerned with the perceived dilution of national values (e.g. by the use of Latin letters for the spelling of English loanwords), they argued for the restitution of graphemes abolished after 1917. Wertheim’s study of Tatarstan, an autonomous republic in the Russian federation, likewise demonstrates the strong link between writing systems and national identity. Tatar, a Turkic language, was written in the Arabic script until 1917, the Latin alphabet until 1938 and since then in Cyrillic. The post-Soviet period has experienced some reTatarisation of the public space, despite political pressures (e.g. the prohibition of non-Cyrillic scripts by the Moscow Duma) and practical problems (e.g. the issue of devising a Tatar font suitable for electronic media). Issues of language and identity from a historical perspective are investigated in a number of other chapters. Ahmad’s study (chapter 5) on the replacement of Urdu (‘Hindustani’) by Hindi as the language of officialdom in India during the British colonial rule in the second half of the nineteenth century is based on close analysis of two substantial memoranda to the British rulers, as well as historical data from local newspapers. Ahmad demonstrates the role of Hindi nationalists in delegitimising Urdu as a suitable language for court proceedings and the law due to its allegedly high level of foreign borrowings. Its lack of a strict phoneme-grapheme correspondence was also deemed to cause confusion and misunderstanding amongst readers. These ideological debates led to a re-organisation of the statuses of the two languages. Before the nineteenth century, Urdu was typically used by the educated and urban population, Hindi by the rural population; but during the nineteenth century, Urdu became increasingly indexical of Muslims, and Hindi of Hindus (p. 127). The contribution by Vosters et al. (chapter 6) presents evidence from nationalist debates in the Dutch-speaking areas of Belgium and the Netherlands to show how even insignificant differences in spelling can cause an ‘unbridgeable gap’ between communities of speakers. Their discussion of metalinguistic debates between integrationists (arguing that all Dutch varieties are from the same language) and particularists (focusing on the differences between Northern Dutch and Flemish to emphasise their distinctiveness since the early nineteenth century) shows that many popular debates on language are not about communication so much as the ideological associations of particular features. The same is witnessed in the case of

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the more recent spelling reform of Standard German (Johnson, chapter 2), which largely consisted of reducing punctuation rules and tidying up some of the most irregular spelling rules. And yet it caused a tremendous uproar in Germany, with many intellectuals, journalists and teachers proclaiming the end of German civilisation if it was implemented. Johnson focuses on the extreme end of this debate, which saw the German Supreme Court ruling that the state was within its rights to prescribe spelling rules for civil servants (which in Germany includes teachers). However, the important general point is how passionately people feel about spelling and orthography, which clearly involve far more than just the physical representation of vowels and consonants. This volume offers a rich variety of case studies demonstrating the various ways orthography is used by speakers and writers to position themselves socially. The wide mix of languages, historical influences and topics enhances the value of the book. Somewhat oddly, as many as four chapters have already been published elsewhere (Ahmad, Androutsopoulos, Jaffe, Sebba), and in some chapters the datasets are rather dated. This is not a problem for historical studies but it may affect the applicability of general conclusions when a paper uses data from 1997 to 2000 to talk about writing practices on the Internet (Androutsopoulos). Nevertheless, the book offers a valuable addition to our understanding of metalinguistic debates advanced by individuals, institutions, popular movements or states, and argues convincingly that orthography and spelling are used as social action throughout the world.

Nils Langer is Professor of Germanic Linguistics at the University of Bristol and works on language policy and language use with regard to the ‘invisible’ languages of Schleswig–Holstein: South Jutish, Low German, and Frisian.

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