WAR OF WORDS (Crowley)
What does "elocution" mean? What are elocution
lessons? Do they exist in Spanish?
"Elocution" is the ability
to speak clearly, correctly and without a strong accent. Elocution lessons are
lessons in which they teach you how to speak properly.
I think they exist in Spanish. At least, politics should have them.
What do "polyglossia" and
"monoglossia" mean?
"Polyglossia" is the
coexsistence of multiple languages in the same are. "Monoglossia" is
the supremacy of one language in an area.
What kind of English does Puttenham recommend?
The usual speech of the court in
London.
What does "copious" mean?
In large amounts.
What does "trope" mean?
Any literary or rethorical device,
that consists in the use of words in other than their literal sense.
Why does Crowley call the standarization process a war?
Because the linkage of language and
war was a very common trope in the 18th. century.
What does "encomium" mean?
A formal expression of high
praise.
Who wrote the "Proposal for Correcting, Improving
and Ascertaining the English Tongue?
Swift.
Do Johnson and Swift agree that the English language has
degenerated?
Yes, because both of them use the
trope of the linkage of language and politics.
Swift proposed an academy. Who else?
Dryden, Addison, Defoe and
Wilson.
Why were the Whigs against an academy?
Because the academy was identified,
to Whig eyes at least, with France, and thus with the Stuart claimants to the
monarchy; and second, it had been instituted
by Cardenal Richilieu, an aristocratic Catholic.
What does Sheridan mean by "the genious of our
people"?
The metaphysical spirit of the
English people.
What reason does Swift give for the "decay of
Latin"?
Totalitarism.
What does "suffer" in the line 2 of page 66
mean?
Who was the first person, involved in German cultural
nationalism, to make the link between language and nation?
Herder.
What was Sheridan's solution to the problem of divergence
in pronunciation?
The clergy should be tought
pronunciation in order that they could act as the medium by which it could be
propagated.
How did several authors describe other European languages?
Do you agree with this kind of classification?
In which novel did Daniel Defoe capture the
"colonial fantasy"?
Robinson Crusoe.
Locke though that learning Latin was not necessary for
which group of people?
For tradesmen.
How did learning to speak English using standard English
empower people?
It procured them respect and was
highly conductive to their advancement in life.
What kind of English is deemed to be "proper"
English?
The English spoken in London, at
universities and in the court.
How was the inculcation of linguistic patterns carried
out with middle-class children?
By discipline, punishment and
education.
What was the purpose of training women linguistically in
the 18th century according to Crowley?
The purpose of training women
linguistically was to raise children and to act as a companion to the male in
the public sphere.
Why did Locke warn against children talking to servants?
Because they could pick up bad
habits.
What was the difference between the mistakes made by the
working classes and those made by the gentry according to Sheridan?
Working classes had a provincial or
vicious pronunciation and gentry had only occasional mistakes.
Academic
year 2008/2009
© Daniela Curadelli
dacu@alumni.uv.es
Universitat de València Press