18th Century Language
Age of Reason - Search for stability (a sense of order and the value of regulation)
Latin is prestigious due to it having rules, whereas English was classed as distasteful (daily corrupted)
Ascertainment in 18th C - English attempts to make clear and definite rules, 'fix it'
Important linguists
Jonathan Swift - believed we needed a standard form. Thought there were too many rules in the EL. He objected to monosyllables, abbreviations, ellisions, combination of constonant sounds, colloquialism
1755 - Samuel Johnson invents first dictionary. Subjective, ommited words, questionable definitions
John Locke - believed standardisation would end disputes in law, education and science
The Royal Society believed language should follow rigid rules and be simplified
The printing press was no longer licensed, this emant it was easier to print - newspapers became more common because of this
Robert Lowth wanted to acheive set grammar rules that could be distributed (wrote a grammar book)
Middle Classes thought 'proper' English was a way of gaining power and social status
Women were reading and writing more as it was seen as more acceptable
Technology, science and the Industrial Revolution influence language. Social classes also had reputations (e.g. working class had a bad one - 'uncouth', 'vulgar', 'corrupted'
Features to look out for...
Archaic and Latinate Lexis, may have French lexis if involved in fashion or food field
Passive voice became popular
Adverbials and relative clauses
Traditional letter - e.g. long s
Capitalisation
John Dryden - prescriptive comments - strict rules, hated prepostions at the end, follow Latin
Prescriptivist - rules set and the need to preserve language
Descriptivist - open to change and break rules. The idea that language will be constantly changing due to use, social attitudes, inventions, borrowings and coinage
Jean Aitcheson - disagress with prescriptivist - 1) crumbling castle - once a fine language, now decayed 2) damp spoon - bad language sticks to people who are lazy 3) infectious disease - bad english spread
Harvey and Shalon - descriptivist - language changes and open to taboo lexis
Crystal - language influenced by technology
Labov - study of pronounciation (affected by age, gender, social class) - nothing wrong with this
Caxton- didn't like dialects, wanted to standard form
Premodified noun phrases
Modal Auxiliary Verbs - some declined overtime 'mot; (must), 'shall' rare, 'do' sometimes played role of MAV, now just auxiliary
Negation - double and triple negatives used
Changes in word order, synthetic inversion, syntax
Some pronouns have disappeared and others have emerged e.g. thine, thou, thee
Decay of inflections e.g. th