Reviews for The Genesis of a Saga Narrative (Oxford English Monographs Series): Verse and Prose in Kormaks Saga

The average rating for The Genesis of a Saga Narrative (Oxford English Monographs Series): Verse and Prose in Kormaks Saga based on 2 reviews is 4 stars.

Review # 1 was written on 2014-06-17 00:00:00 William Chou Standard English and the Politics of Language is a difficult book, a rather inaccessible book, and a book which requires a lot of attention to really get anything out of. That aside, it's exceptionally researched, if not always clear in premise. It's a standard in sociolinguistics and, reading it, it's easy to see why. At the same time, this is a polemic, an attack on prescriptive language, and an attack on the idea that standardization is somehow better or morally correct. Crowley occasionally attempts to maintain academic neutrality, but this is largely a front over an argument for a more ethical approach to the treatment of language and the people who speak it. What is this book? An examination of the literature and policy surrounding "standardized" English from early to modern times. Crowley primarily takes arguments from the period or author, examines them, and asks questions, not necessarily answering those questions. In so doing, Croweley attempts to trace the origins of modern ideas of "good" English, including the idea that people who speak standard English are somehow smarter, better, more morally correct, etc. He critiques commonly held ideas of standardization, including the very meaning of the term itself, while questioning the motives, arguments, and bias of the people who wrote foundational texts supporting SE. Crowley leans heavily on Foucault, but also delivers compelling original research, interesting questions, and asks you to think instead of handing you all the answers. Writing Style: There are several points in which Crowley completely explains an item of text, sometimes quoting it, and then pastes the entire quote in. It feels a bit repetitive. Second Edition: The addition of a new chapter at the end of the original book feels like a poorly tacked on addendum to modernise the work with as little additional effort as possible. I like the new chapter, but it's not much. Accessibility: This is likely not accessible to anyone not familiar with reading academic standard English, which a) is a bit besides the point of the book, but b) I can see as being necessary to be taken seriously by the academia at which it was aimed. However, it's very well written and Crowley is clearly a master of the language in its written form. Overall, I love this book. But then, it's difficult not to love something that simply agrees with your opinions and gives you new material with which to back them up.

Review # 2 was written on 2011-12-08 00:00:00 Travis Wilson Looking at (socio)linguistic questions thru a more cultural studies lens. Hard to get into. Influenced by Foucault and Bakhtin but they don't pop up a lot in the text. Update: finished reading/skimming. An interesting historical look at evolving concepts of 'standard English' from the 18th century to the late 20th in Great Britain. I don't know if I missed something, but it looks like early on, linguists and philologists were OK with saying "it's just what educated people use" which somehow became reified by the 20th century, where 'regular people' were content to see it as an objective reality. I could be misreading it though. Linguists still see it as a problematic concept but it has great currency in popular political and media discourse.