ABSTRACT
The bipolar dimension of corpus planning that is discussed in this chapter is not unrelated to the one we have just examined. Indeed, some might see it as an intensification of its predecessor, “purism/ vernacularity”, but it really functions differently enough to be treated in its own right. Superficially, purism and uniqueness may seem to be pretty much the same thing, but the pursuit of uniqueness is a much harder “row to hoe”. Purism is frequently particularly opposed to a given source of borrowings, for example, English borrowings into French, Russian borrowings into Polish, or Japanese borrowings into Korean. Uniqueness, on the other hand lacks any such specific “point of avoidance” orientation. Uniqueness opposes any and all borrowings, no matter from where they may come. Supporters of uniqueness would be as much opposed to Greenlandisms as to Americanisms in searching for or evaluating a neologism for “CD Rom” or for “chocolate latte” In either case, the uniqueness of the particular beloved language would be compromised, leading, inevitably, to a similar perception of the danger of pollution for the uniqueness of the speech community itself.
