1700s Language Change
- Created by: Charlotte Emily Turner
- Created on: 11-10-17 17:04
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- 1700s (Language Change)
- Negative feelings about the English language
- Stanhope: "our language is in a state of anarchy"
- Major social changes had been occurring since the 1600s (wanted to control something!)
- Political instability
- division of places/people: 'ghetto', 'suburban', 'East End'
- Continuation/ rise of snobbery against dialects
- Convergence & divergence
- 1750: 'etiquette' coined
- 'Guides' began to be published (rules)
- Crystal's 4 Language Mindsets
- 1. Alone, polite people do not speak/write correctly
- 2. Guides/ dictionaries/ manuals were required (instruct polite society)
- 3. No-one is exempt from making mistakes (even Shakespeare broke the 'rules'!)
- 4. If the likes of Shakespeare need guidance, then this proves that guidance is required for all!
- Swift (Prescriptivist)
- Satirist (possibly tongue & cheek?)
- 'Polite Conversation' (1738)
- 'How to Guide' of the 'elites'
- 'Polite society's' colloquialisms
- 'Choicest expressions'
- 'Proposal for Correcting...the English Tongue' (1712)
- Extremely prescriptivist!
- Proposed an 'Academy', like the French had! (Johnson rejected this)
- Wanted to stop lexical development
- Johnson (Prescriptivist)
- 'First' English Dictionary
- Only included words he deemed 'appropriate'
- Believed an 'Academy' would never work!
- The English are too 'flexible' with their language
- Can never fully stabilise a language
- Idea that English could be defined & fixed/preserved forever!
- Standardised: 1.Orthography (spelling) 2.Distribution of words around the country 3.Pronunciation 4.Syntax(word order) 5.Etymology (historical development of the word & its meaning)
- Johnson's Dictionary was 'standard', until the 1920s
- 'First' English Dictionary
- Negative feelings about the English language
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