Book contents
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- 1 Attitudes and concerns in eighteenth-century English
- 2 Prescriptivism and the suppression of variation
- 3 Women's grammars
- 4 Eighteenth-century women and their norms of correctness
- 5 Lowth as an icon of prescriptivism
- 6 Queeney Thrale and the teaching of English grammar
- 7 Coalitions, networks, and discourse communities in Augustan England: The Spectator and the early eighteenth-century essay
- 8 Contextualising eighteenth-century politeness: social distinction and metaphorical levelling
- 9 Expressive speech acts and politeness in eighteenth-century English
- 10 Variation and change in eighteenth-century English
- 11 Variation in sentential complements in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English: a processing-based explanation
- 12 Nationality and standardisation in eighteenth-century Scotland
- 13 English in eighteenth-century Ireland
- 14 Changes and continuities in dialect grammar
- 15 ‘Be pleased to report expressly’: the development of a public style in Late Modern English business and official correspondence
- 16 Registering the language – dictionaries, diction and the art of elocution
- Timeline for the eighteenth century
- References
- Late modern English language studies
- Indexes
1 - Attitudes and concerns in eighteenth-century English
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 06 December 2010
- Frontmatter
- Contents
- List of figures
- List of maps
- List of tables
- Notes on contributors
- Preface
- 1 Attitudes and concerns in eighteenth-century English
- 2 Prescriptivism and the suppression of variation
- 3 Women's grammars
- 4 Eighteenth-century women and their norms of correctness
- 5 Lowth as an icon of prescriptivism
- 6 Queeney Thrale and the teaching of English grammar
- 7 Coalitions, networks, and discourse communities in Augustan England: The Spectator and the early eighteenth-century essay
- 8 Contextualising eighteenth-century politeness: social distinction and metaphorical levelling
- 9 Expressive speech acts and politeness in eighteenth-century English
- 10 Variation and change in eighteenth-century English
- 11 Variation in sentential complements in eighteenth- and nineteenth-century English: a processing-based explanation
- 12 Nationality and standardisation in eighteenth-century Scotland
- 13 English in eighteenth-century Ireland
- 14 Changes and continuities in dialect grammar
- 15 ‘Be pleased to report expressly’: the development of a public style in Late Modern English business and official correspondence
- 16 Registering the language – dictionaries, diction and the art of elocution
- Timeline for the eighteenth century
- References
- Late modern English language studies
- Indexes
Summary
Introduction
Like any period in the history of English there are certain recurrent themes to be found in the eighteenth century. Some of these have become standard wisdoms and are widespread among scholars and students alike. Other topics have not been in the forefront to the same extent but increasingly the focus of researchers has been directed towards them too. Among these matters can be counted the large body of grammars by female writers (Navest, Percy, Tieken-Boon van Ostade [1], this volume) and the role of discourse communities within eighteenth-century English society (Fitzmaurice, this volume).
The most prevalent standard wisdom about the eighteenth century is that it is the period in which prescriptivism in English established itself. Like all such wisdoms it is largely true but the details of both the nature of prescriptivism and the manner in which it arose have been shown not to correspond to the somewhat two-dimensional view which is often found, especially the view of the author who is seen as the arch-prescriptivist, Robert Lowth (Tieken-Boon van Ostade [2], this volume).
Another common view of the eighteenth century is that it is the period in which codes of politeness (Nevalainen and Tissari; Taavitsainen and Jucker, both this volume) became fixed and mandatory for the established classes in English society, and for those who aspired to belong to these. Again this is no doubt true and rules of etiquette were evidently rigid and compulsory.
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- Eighteenth-Century EnglishIdeology and Change, pp. 1 - 20Publisher: Cambridge University PressPrint publication year: 2010
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