It is nice to read a linguistic research volume written in German on a topic of international interest; even more so, as Natalia Filatkina’s treatment is a book deeply rooted in philological traditions in the best sense of the word. Dealing with data from Old High German and Old Saxon to Early New High German, Historische Formelhafte Sprache is the author’s Habilitation that grew out of research conducted within the framework of a University of Trier Young Researchers’ Group (p. 6). The book’s clear structure and presentation, its application of current theoretical concepts to historical data, and its very ambitious goals make it an appealing read.

Filatkina sets out to aid the establishment of the study of formulaic language as a key, catalyst discipline within language study. As formulaic language—formelhafte Wendung ‘formulaic expression’ is her preferred term—Filatkina considers a wide range of linguistic items, such as proverbs (for example, Ende gut, alles gut ‘All’s well that ends well’), modal particles (for example, wahrhaft ‘truly’), pragmatic markers (for example, ich meine ‘I mean’), and idioms (for example, Perlen vor die Säue werfen lit. ‘to cast pearls before swine’), among others. The latter three expressions are discussed in detail from a diachronic perspective, which forms one of the most interesting parts of the book.

Chapter 1 highlights the role that formulaic language has played in a number of linguistic disciplines—including phraseology, interactional linguistics, text linguistics and discourse studies, construction grammar, and corpus linguistics—and addresses specific German-based frame-works such as Feilke Reference Feilke1994, Stein Reference Stein1995, Burger Reference Burger2015 and others. Frequent recourse is taken to the English-language research tradition, in chapter 1 and in various other parts of the book, including, above all, Langacker Reference Langacker1987, Goldberg Reference Goldberg2006, Bybee Reference Bybee2010, and Wray Reference Wray2002.

Chapter 2, where one would expect to find the theoretical groundwork, makes clear rather early that the monograph raises basic programmatic questions but does not take the crucial step toward developing a new theory of formulaic language as a pivotal discipline within language study. The chapter concludes with a call to study language in use rather than history as such (p. 95). This call for a “paradigm change,” however, seems to have been heeded for a while now, at least in most historical linguistic disciplines.

In light of the rather ambitious goal that underpins chapters 1 and 2—that is, the formation of a new, unified approach to formulaic language—the link between data and theory is at times tenuous. By contrast, the volume impresses with its qualitative angle. For instance, chapter 3 is convincing due to its skillful historical exploration of the use and functions of different types of formulaic language. The empirical sections that offer a corpus-based study of formulaic language begin in chapter 4 with the introduction of a database of some 30,000 formulaic expressions. The data are assumed to represent the language in its various stages. On a larger level, the book seems to argue against the use of computational methods. While the reasons brought forth against such methods are not convincing (pp. 147–153), a focus on the benefits and virtues of the philological method as such would have seemed more rewarding (for example, Dollinger 2016), especially as this perspective clearly underpins the present book. It is to be hoped that the historical database of quotations, which was constructed for this project and provided he data, will be made publicly accessible.

In chapter 5, the development of three types of formulae is illustrated conclusively with the backing of basic token and type counts from the database. This chapter includes newly arranged data, quite unique in their form and highly insightful, especially when contrasted and interlinked with research on historical English pragmatics (see, among others, Brinton Reference Brinton2008). Chapter 6 takes a wider perspective on formulae by applying text-linguistic and discourse analytical tools to explain the use and functions of formulae in a number of older text genres. Chapter 7 is a conclusion that is unfortunately so short that it cannot possibly bring together the various threads—that is, research traditions, historical data, historical pragmatics, and text linguistic perspectives—that were laid out. Nevertheless, the book offers much food for thought.

The basic rationale of the study is well supported. The kind of formulaic studies that Filatkina pursues is, for the English linguist, rooted in a Firthian corpus-linguistic tradition and employs a cotextual approach: “dass Wörter nicht isoliert voneinander ihre Bedeutungen entwickeln, sondern erst in Kombination mit anderen Wörtern” [that words do not develop their meanings in isolation from, but in combination with, one another] (p. 4).Footnote ¹ Formulaic language is assigned a “konstitutive Rolle” [constitutive role] in human communication, which, in obvious application of the uniformitarian hypothesis (for example, Labov Reference Labov1994:21), is extended to earlier stages of language development. Throughout the book, questions of the internal stability of expressions, or Festigkeit, in combination with attested variation, keep reoccurring. Resolving the paradox of both stability and variation in formulaic language items would require empirical hypothesis testing, which the book does not undertake. Instead, it identifies the basic problem: “Variation kann dabei paradoxerweise gleichzeitig ein Indikator der Festigkeit und ihre treibende Kraft, ihr Vehikel sein” [Variation (of formulaic expressions) can paradoxically simultaneously be an indicator of stability and its driving force] (p. 3).

As the book sets out to explore “was in den historischen Entwicklungsstufen einer Sprache als formelhaft gelten kann” [what may be considered formulaic language in the periods of historical develop-ment of a language] (p. 1), one would expect a sufficiently clear answer to this question, which, however, is not given. The lack of a unifying theory becomes apparent and awaits future exploration. Going forward, improvements in the data presentation would make it easier for the author to develop the new theory that she seems to aspire to in earlier chapters. For instance, chapter 4 on methodology could be made more relevant by providing key information on the way the data were collected. While one knows the number of examples of formulaic expressions extracted from each text—between a single token from Contra malum malannum to 1,720 tokens from Otfrid’s Evangelienbuch—no information is given on a relative importance of the distribution of formulaic expressions in these works. How central is formulaic language to each text and period? As the book is anchored in a vorläufige Definition ‘preliminary definition’ of formulaic expressions that rests on five general criteria (p. 164), the detailed explication of a number of examples of what does and what does not count as formulaic would be useful.

While the theoretical basis of the analysis would warrant another look, several strong points are presented. Chapter 3, for instance, explains the cultural history of formulaic language from Old High German to Adelung’s time. Filatkina shows that formulaic expressions were first attested in Old High German and that in the 15th–17th century, they became an important vehicle for the elaboration of German as a standard language, which allowed it to rival the more prestigious European vernaculars. As metacommentary about formulae at the time shows, formulaic expressions—for example, der Krug geht so lange zum Wasser, bis er bricht lit. ‘The jug goes to the well until it breaks’—were used as conversation topics among the young nobility “den Reichtum der deutschen Sprache zu beweisen und sie in eine Reihe mit dem Französischen, Italienischen und Spanischen zu stellen” [to prove the richness of the German language and to present its versatility on a par with French, Italian and German] (p. 114). In the 17th century, variation in these formulae was encouraged in an attempt to outshine the classical languages of learning: “Wo das Lateinische und Griechische über eine Form der Wendung verfügen, hat das Deutsche zahlreiche Möglich-keiten” [where Latin and Greek feature one form of expression, German has multiple options] (p. 115).

Adelung and his followers in the 18th century put an end to the appreciation of formulaic language. While Filatkina agrees with this statement, she attempts to identify those sections in the text in which Adelung did not expressly disapprove of formulae. For example, in 6 of 10 parts of Adelung’s influential text, Über den deutschen Styl (1785), formulae are not discussed. While interesting, I do not think that a lack of discussion in these parts of the book can compensate for Adelung’s condemnation of “unedlen Stil” [ignoble style], in which “unedle Sprichwörter” [inelegant proverbs]—such as wer eher kommt, malt eher ‘the early bird gets the worm’ (English equivalent), gleiche Brüder gleiche Kappen ‘birds of feather flock together’ or Ende gut, alles gut ‘all’s well that ends well’—play an important role (p. 122).

A question that seems to surface in various places but is not explicitly addressed is whether German should be seen as an Early Modern ideological construct. Filatkina points out the “[P]roblem der enormen Varianz der älteren Sprachstufen” [problem of enormous variation in the older language stages] (p. 153). In other words, what came to be considered as German used to—and continues to—vary greatly from region to region, a factor that might be worthy of further exploration. For instance, in future work it may be beneficial to distinguish between the major regional dialects as they emerged. Furthermore, as of the 16th century, two standard varieties should be distinguished, Gemeindeutsch and East Central German. The latter variety was promoted by Adelung to the detriment of the former (see, among others, Havinga Reference Havinga2018, Mattheier 2003).

Chapter 5 employs historical data to test a number of theoretical frameworks. Using the terms Festigkeitsgrad ‘degree of internal stability’ and Variationsgrad ‘degree of variation’, the author offers a qualitative assessment as to what degree various frameworks reflect the actual data. By studying pragmatic markers (that is, Routineformeln), collocations of composite predicates, and idioms, Filatkina arrives at the incisive conclusion:

This key result—that no single theory explains the wide range of formulaic language—shows that any successful framework must be sensitive to various types of formulaic phrases, as pragmatic markers (Routineformeln) and composite predicates (which Filatkina refers to as collocations in a wider context) appear to follow a more regular path toward internal coherence (Verfestigung) than idioms. This conclusion poses many questions, however, as the distinction between different types of formulaic phrases is anything but clear-cut. Yet what is shown convincingly in the examples is that pathways toward more stability—or pathways toward grammaticalization/lexicalization—are not linear.

Filatkina’s monograph is an enlightening read that works as a whole. While the short conclusion would stand out negatively in English, in German it is appropriate, given the long tradition of more philologically-positivist, exhaustive-enumerative writings. Filatkina’s book opens the field for a new, necessarily more interdisciplinary perspective, and it raises, in the tradition of many influential books, more questions than it can answer. On another level, the book may be viewed as a call for going beyond “English only” in academic inquiry, not only by studying non-English data, but also by embracing non-English traditions of writing and knowledge creation (see, among others, Wierzbicka Reference Wierzbicka2013). Overall, Filatkina’s book offers a refreshing perspective on a very old topic; a perspective that is one of the most comprehensive ones I have seen and that stands a chance of becoming a benchmark for future work on formulaic language.