Outline of Chapter 3: Wars of words, the roles of language in eighteenth-century Britain. (Language in History: Theory and Texts by Tony Crowley, ed Routledge page 54-98)
Verbal violence:
M. M. Bakhtin (1895-1975):
Polyglossia: Latin dominant language. End up creating an heteroglossia of multiple vernacular languages.
Monoglossia: English dominant language, is a vernacular language.
Reading language, reading literature, reading history:
Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue (1712); Jonathan Swift (1667-1745) :
Political implications:
Search for a standardization by eliminating the jargon and dialects. Remembering Latin which, as it wasn't made standard, the empire ended with the emergence of all the vernacular languages. There's fear that the same could occur with the British empire.
Academy to teach English grammar. However, it wasn't considerer seriously due to the French influence, seeing the academy as another dictatorial idea.
Historical preservation:
If the language changes continuously, the people of the future will be unable to read what happened in the past. Therefore, one should put an effort in standardization to prevent these diachronic changes.
Superior language superior nation:
External situation of Great Britain: Polyglossia (Scottish, Welsh and Irish)
Internal situation of Great Britain: Heteroglossia dialects/varieties of English.
Latin vs. English:
Latin grammar is taught while English grammar isn't.
English importance to unify the British empire, especially regarding the colonies (national superiority).
The bourgeois linguistic sphere:
With literary criticism the bourgeoisie tried to find out their identity as a new social class.
J. Locke (1632-1704) general opinion about Latin vs. English:
Latin is just seen as a cultural addition to one's education. It's isn't useful for business (trade and commerce) like English is. Therefore because of these useful economic opportunities that English brings to the people, there are more and more claims for English grammar schools.
Which version of English was better to teach as the standard for the grammar?
Locke claimed that people are learning by intuition mimicking other people's dialects. Hence in order for all to speak the same dialect, the best one should be of London, especially used by the Court and the universities.
Well fashioned: Patrolling the boundaries of language and the body:
S. Johnson (1709-1784), Plan of an English Dictionary (1747):
S. Johnson worried of the continuous contamination of the ideal standard English by foreign groups introduced especially by the bourgeois class. Therefore, the aim of the Dictionary is to purify the language from such variations.
P. Bourdieu (1930-2002):
Practical standardization of English:
1. Inculcation of linguistic habitus:
Stereotype habits or traditions of a certain social class way of communication. These are learnt through education provided by the same social class to their children.
2. Bodily hexis:
How the social class maintains its way of communication. While in the first case is just centered on the language, in this second case it goes further to the words, tones, accents and gestures that characterized the social class.
Swallowing the master's tongue:
Role of the women in the process of Standardization:
The children will learn from their mothers. Hence those women should imitate not only the English spoken by the men of London but also learn the English grammar based on that standard. It is known that most of the first dictionaries were addressed to women and foreigners.
Avoid heteroglossia by the influence of servants:
Prejudices and jokes were made towards the dialects (cockney) or their peculiar pronunciation due to not having English as a mother tongue (Irish, Scottish and Welsh) spoken by the servants. The purpose was to make the children to feel repulsive towards these varieties and focus on the English Standard.
Academic year 2008/2009
© a.r.e.a./Dr.Vicente Forés López
Barry Pennock Speck
© Carolina Cody Aldaz
cacodyal@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de Valčncia Press