LANGUAGE IN MISTERY
1. What does elocution mean?
The art of public speaking in which gesture
vocal production and delivery are emphasized. Elocution texts attacked
each other viciously on grounds which ranged from a tendency to undermine the
political unity of the kingdom, to deliberate attemps to corrupt the morality
of women.
According to the OED, elocution means oratorical or literary
expression of thought; literary ‘style’ as distinguished from ‘matter’; the
power or art of appropriate and effective expression
2. What do polyglossia and monoglossia mean?
According to the OED, polyglossia means the coexistence of two
or more languages, or distinct varieties of the same language, within a speech
community.Monoglossia means one language predominates in the area. In Bakhtin’s
terms a situation of polyglossia, in which Latin was the dominating language,
had been replaced by one of monoglossia, in which the English language held
sway.
3. What kind of English does Puttenham recommend?
The natural, pure and most usual of a country-
the language of the courts.
4. What does copious mean?
Copious mean great in number or quantity. Lexicographer
Johnson admit that when he undertook his task he found
English speech ‘copious without order, and energetic without rules: wherever I
turned my view there was perplexity to be disentangled, and confusion to be
regulated’.
5. What does trope mean?
According to the OED, trope means a figure of speech which
consists in the use of a word or phrase in a sense other than that which is
proper to it; also, in casual use, a figure of speech; figurative language.
6. Why does
The linkage of language and war was very common trope
in the 18th C.
7. What does encomium mean?
According to the OED, encomium means a formal or high-flown
expression of praise; a eulogy, panegyric.
8. Who wrote the proposal for correcting, improving and
ascertaining the emglish tongue?
Johnathan Swift.
9. Do Johnson and Swift agree that the English language
has degenerated?
Yes. Johnson said that “tongues, like governments,
have a natural tendency to degeneration”, and Swift defends the need of an
10. Swift proposes an academy. Who else?
The idea of an academy was not an
usual one in the eighteenth century: it was proposed by Dryden, Defoe, Addison
and Wilson.
11. Why were the whigs against an
academy?
The Whigs were alienated by Swifts’ essay for two
reasons. First, the academy was identified, to Whig eyes at least, with
12. What does
The metaphysical constitution and spirit of the
British people.
13. What reason does Swift give for the decay of Latin?
Swift establishes the fact that linguistic history can
only be explained by refrence to political history. And he does this in order
to be able to draw lessons from both fields of historical knowdlege.
14. What does“suffer” mean?
It was a problem which beset all writing and
therefore, importantly, called into question the very writing of history
itself. Language changes and writers did not know if in a future people would
be able to read their texts.
15. Who was the first person to make the link between
language and nation?
Herder.
16. What was Sheridan´s solution to the problem of
divergence in pronunciantion?
He proposed that the clergy should be taught
pronunciation in order that they could then act as the medium by which it could
be propagated. They would be particularly effective.
17. How did several authors describe other European
languages?
Peyton praised English “Compared to French, Spanish,
Italian, Saxon, High Dutch and the Teutonic tongues, English was the language
which would unite the nation and serve its interests and Lemon spoke about
French being flimsy, Italian being neat and Spanish being grave, for example.
18. In which novel did Defoe capture colonial fantasy?
In Robinson Crusoe.
19. Locke thought that learning Latin was not necessary
for which group of people?
Tradesmen.
20. How did learning standard English help to empower
people?
The importance of a correct Mode of Expression in
Bussines is sufficiently obvious. All who are engaged in the Trnsactions of
commercial life, may be assured that the acquisition will procure them Respect,
and be highly conducive to their Advancement. The growth and the development of
the bourgeois public sphere then simulates the new
interest in the vernacular as the vehicle of social and political life.
21. What kind of English is proper?
The language properly so called is found in the upper
and middle ranks, over the whole
22. How was the inculcation of linguistic patterns carried
out with middle-class children?
By rewarding and punishing good or bad use of
orthographic and semantic skills.
23. What was the purpose of training women linguistically
in the 18th C. according to
Women were to be linguistically educated then for two
purposes: to fulfill the role of the mother, passing on pure language to the
child and to act as companion to the male in the public sphere.
24. Why did Locke warn against children talking to
servants?
He said that they would pick up bad speaking habits
from them.
25. What was the difference between the mistakes made by
the working classes and those made by the Gentry according to
The working classes make structural mistakes, whereas
the Gentry generally make occasional mistakes. Unlike workin-class speech, the
gentry’s mistakes are not structural.