‘Doing expertise’: linguistic standardization in early modern Romance expert cultures

Abstract

For more than thirty years, there has been an increasing interest in “alternative language histories” (Elspaß 2021: 94). Rather than concentrating on literary norms or the norms of higher social classes, scholars have tried to conceive language history from a new perspective and have shifted their interest to varieties hitherto seldom taken into consideration: the language of ‘ordinary people’, not of privileged classes, and the language of informal use – that is, private letters, account books and trial proceedings instead of literary poetry and prose, sacred texts and courtly conversation (cf. Elspaß 2021: 99– 102; cf. also Oesterreicher 1997). This shift to a language history from below (Elspaß 2005) is meant not only to highlight domains which until now have been eclipsed by traditional narratives; the classic models of standardization, heavily influenced by concepts of national identity and hegemonial, homogeneous national languages, are also at stake. The aim of these new approaches, then, is to show how historical instances of standardization processes have been influenced by dynamics located ‘below’ the social classes and/or communicative genres believed to be the driving forces behind the selection, elaboration, codification and implementation of standard varieties. The title of this volume signals our desire to continue this line of thinking. The expert cultures and literate practices rooted in these circles are not the domains that standardization theories presume to be decisive for establishing supra-regional and codified varieties. But, as we will show in section 1.2, the communicative practices of these experts are not ‘below’ the literary circles, courtly entourages or princely academies that histories of standardization seem to favor. We deliberately avoid any social or cultural hierarchizations, but think rather of ‘parallel’ or ‘different’ communicative dynamics, each of which contributes in a specific way to standardizing processes. Or, in the words of Lorenzo Tomasin: we do not conceive expert cultures as an “anecdotal appendix, or at most occasional participant in the [standard’s] path