We are very pleased to announce the publication of the book ''Language Variation, Change and Standardisation'', edited by Gintarė Judžentytė-Šinkūnienė, an Associate Professor of Semantics and Dialectology at the Faculty of Philology, Vilnius University. This publication from Cambridge Scholars Publishing present this book as a ''collection of interesting and relevant research papers on language variation, change, and standardisation in some Indo-European languages and beyond. Focusing on both theoretical and practical issues, it is unique in that it offers a rare combination of language variation, change, and standardisation, rethinking the relationship between language variation and standardisation. The book provides a new framework for the study of language standardisation that takes us beyond the still dominant normative monolingualism. Some research concludes that there is always a conceptually unbridgeable gap between the notion of language change and the notion of standardisation, and that some language varieties are the source of human power and an essential sign of identity for those who have them in their heritage. This book aims to continue the dialogue with scholars, stimulate interest in language, and foster discussion on current language issues between academics and the public.
Vilnius university / Ugnius Bagdonavičius photo
“Looking at the title of this book, I feel a personal connection to all three terms. I first started working on language change while writing my dissertation—in the second part, I explored how Latvian local adverbs formed and how their system evolved. Later on, I became interested in how spatial reference is created using deictic words in the Baltic languages. The word “variation” really showed itself in all its colors. I still smile when I remember a woman from the Skuodas district pointing to a museum and saying, “This here, that one there, and the one over there—that’s the museum. I’m sure there’s no other museum like it in all of Lithuania.”
My interest in standardisation came a bit later when I had the chance to visit the printing house of the Evangelical Lutheran weekly Svečias. I’m really grateful to all the authors of this book who worked together to successfully combine all three terms—language variation, change, and standardisation—into one cohesive volume," – noted Gintarė Judžentytė-Šinkūnienė.