HEL(L) II - WEEK 2

Explain the nature and historical circumstances of each of the stages in the 7-item standardisation scenario.

1) Selection (of a variety) ● The selection of English over French and Latin may seem obvious in hindsight, as Latin has never really been a native tongue in Britain and the number of native speakers of French has never been great. Their prestige, however, was huge. ○ the French was being abandoned by its native speakers - the aristocracy - from the times King John lost Normandy (1204) and through the Hundred Year's War (1337-1453), when French was stigmatized as the language of the enemy ○ a symbolic indication of the abandonment of French by the English: Henry V (1413-1422) wrote letters home from his French campaign that were written in English ○ significant pragmatic aspects: recognizing the importance of the English-speaking middle classes (financing the campaigns) ○ it was at the stage when the country started transferring from French to English that the most considerable influx of French words into English took place: death of French in England ● the selection of the Chancery variety for a future standard was less obvious, but ○ the East Midland dialect was connected with all the domains of a "high" language: administration, education, learning, church and the business ○ the Chancery variety even enjoyed full institutional support ○ specific reasons for the selection of the East Midland „variety": ○ East Midland dialect was spoken by the largest number of people ○ East Midland area was probably the agriculturally richest area in the country ○ there was the seat of government in the area ○ the two universities of Oxford and Cambridge resided there ○ a number of good ports connected the area to main naval trade routes ○ the chief archiepiscopal seat in Canterbury was not far away ○ the dialect was easy to understand by both the northerners and the southerners ● the Chancery variety had an intentional institutional support that the other influential varieties lacked, such as ○ the Wycliffite Central Midlands dialect(s) ○ language of courtiers and their poets (Chaucer, John Gower...) ○ Greater London variety (guilds) ● the selection concerns mainly the written standard (the specific way the Chancery converted the spoken form into the written form) ● the standardization of the spoken language came much later (later 18th century) ● a supralocation process in sociolinguistic terms - certain features of a certain dialect start to be used out of its original dialectal area, as a supraregional dialect ○ promoted by various aspects of political, social and economic mobility ○ (cf. the position of West Saxon in late Anglo-Saxon England) 2) Acceptance o the Chancery ▪ located at the Exchequer in Westminster (next to London on the Thames) ▪ after 1430, established in Chancery Lane in London o continued the practice of Henry V's Signet Office and in that sense just accepted an already current practice o it was an ideal environment for a uniform spelling to start developing - the Chancery has been described as a compact, disciplined, hierarchical body of civil servants o there are numerous aspects of PDE that were introduced by the Chancery clerks: ▪ in spelling: <gh> in words like knight or light, <ig> in the words like reign, regular <-d> rather than <-t> in the past tense of weak verbs, etc. ▪ in morphology: selection of -ly rather than -liche as a preferred adverbial suffix, ending the reflexive in -self/selves, dropping of final -n in plural verbs or the y- prefix, etc. ▪ choosing from a sizable pool of variants: ● for example, the Chancery usage prefers the forms not, but, gaf, and such(e) to "Chaucer's" equivalents nat, bot, yaf, and swich(e) 3) Diffusion o the Chancery, as the only official body aiming for the standard, set an example: ▪ there were more places for apprentices than for clerks in the Chancery ▪ the apprentices were returning home, taking their training with them ▪ their work then carried a "stamp" of correctness in the eyes of the local authorities ▪ this strengthened the effect of the circulating texts written by the Chancery itself o support for, and interaction with, the class of professional scribes and early printers 4) Maintenance o the person chiefly responsible for the maintenance and upholding of the already selected standard was William Caxton (c. 1421 - c. 1491) ▪ spent 30 years in Flanders, where he had learnt about movable type (= using individually cast pieces of type) ▪ this greatly speeded up the production of books (having superseded the printing of pages from wooden blocks) ▪ made a shrewd decision - moved from the lucrative trade with luxury (manuscript) books to printing texts in English o in his selection of English and its particular variety as his medium, we can see other motives beside the linguistic ones - especially the economic motivation ▪ nearly all contemporary English printers who chose to print in Latin failed, the book trade with Latin books was already too well established ▪ Caxton started his business at Westminster (near the Parliament), aiming from the start for the higher (i.e. literate) section of the society o Wynkyn de Worde (d. 1534): of German stock; printed e.g. The Canterbury Tales, Mandeville´s Travels, John Skelton, romances 5) Elaboration of function o English as one of the late medieval vernaculars is faced with the following aims: ▪ recognition in the fields where Latin had for centuries been supreme: to put "Englishe Matter in the Englishe Tongue" ▪ enrichment of vocabulary: language of both learning and rustic plainness o first a largely unconscious process ▪ a large number of translations was created to be printed and many new terms were needed to accommodate them ▪ for example, a half the words in Caxton's vocabulary occur only once through his texts and many are direct transpositions from French or Latin ▪ a large number of Romance words lent greater prestige to texts, stressing their learned character o later a fully conscious process affecting also spelling (establishment of a more uniform orthography) and style o in terms of vocabulary, three "movements" can be distinguished: ▪ the Neologisers ● introduced a huge number of loanwords from Latin and Greek ● their excessive borrowing was often ridiculed and their loans were called "ynkhorne termes" - words that "smelled of ink" ● the "successful" examples are education, frugality or persist ● the less successful ones would be adjuvate ("to assist"), compendious (in the sense of "profitable") or obtestate ("to beseech") ▪ the Purists ● tried to use the native resources for creating new words, like biwordes ("parables"), wasching ("baptism") or moond ("lunatic") ▪ the Archaisers ● tried to revive the archaic words like algate ("always"), sicker ("certainly") or yode ("went") o it is evident from the examples that the two latter movements were largely unsuccessful, but they functioned also as a check against the first one o Elaboration of spelling ▪ the conscious efforts in elaborating the spelling and pronunciation can be illustrated by the speech of Shakespeare's pedantic character of Holofernes from Love's Labour's Lost: I abhor such phanaticall phantasims, such insociable and poynt deuise companions, such rackers of ortagriphie, as to speake dout fine, when he should say doubt; det, when he shold pronounce debt; d e b t, not det: he clepeth a Calf, Caufe: halfe, haufe: neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abreuiated ne: this is abhominable, which he would call abbominable... (First Folio, Act V, Scene I) (glossary: poynt deuise = fussy; rackers - twisters, torturers, wreckers; clepeth = calls, vocatur = is called) ▪ in a conscious effort to ridicule pretentious speakers and perhaps reformers such as Mulcaster, Shakespeare reveals a controversy connected to several stages of the English standardization process ▪ an example: the <b> in debt and doubt is an etymological respelling on the basis of Latin debitum and dubitare rather than on the etymologically correct French dette and doute (similarly: salmon / salmo (Latin) / saumon (French); victuals / victualia / vitaille: an early spelling vittel) ▪ the large influx of Latin words strengthened the direct links between English and Latin vocabulary even to the extent of linking non-Latin loans with Latin etymons ▪ etymologically connecting English with the high prestige language - Latin - and by doing so, lending English part of its prestige o the stabilization of English spelling was largely achieved by the 17th century printers and was more or less completed by the early 18th century in printed documents ▪ X private correspondence remained largely unaffected o Latin was also largely the model on the level of style ▪ attempts to suit the Latin-based style to English resulted in sentences of as many as three hundred words, which was considered an achievement of literary elaboration o but, at the same time, specific registers have started to develop o a great pressure of the native easy-to-understand prose style was even prescribed by institutions like the Royal Society (Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge; founded in 1660, has acted as the UK´s Academy of Sciences) ▪ Thomas Sprat wrote in his History of the Royal Society (1667): "They have therefore been most rigorous in putting in execution the only Remedy, that can be found for this extravagance: and that has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness; bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars. 6) Codification o various deeply rooted linguistic myths, usually "the heritage" of the previous ages, were widely spread among the learned circles of the early 18th century; the most prominent ones were (following Watts 2000: 35): ▪ myth of the perfect language: the idea that language can reach (or has already reached) a state of perfection ▪ golden age myth: if the language had already reached perfection, there must have been a 'golden age' which writers and speakers should aspire to recreate ▪ myth of the undesirability of change: the idea that the perfect language should not experience any change, for it would inevitably degrade it o the language was believed to be in an inadequate and corrupt state o some thinkers (e.g. Defoe, Swift, Addison) felt and expressed a strong urge for establishing an institution, the Academy, that would improve it or at least fix it and thus rescue it from further deterioration o despite the success of similar projects elsewhere in Europe (Italy, France and, later, Germany or Spain), the English Academy was never established o that gives English standardization its specific nature - it has always been reached through general consent rather than by a decree o the main instruments of codification were the dictionaries (for spelling and pronunciation) as well as grammars (for morphology and syntax) o Samuel Johnson expressed the prevalent opinion: "...the decrees of the Academy every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud, to disobey..." (Swift: Johnson's Lives of the Poets, 1890) o the myths, nevertheless, survived and proved influential in the subsequent development of the standardization process: the stage of prescription o Latin was usually the model of an ideal language that English should be brought closer to o model role of Latin was strengthened by the fact that the early dictionaries and grammars were mostly bilingual and their purpose was to help students learn Latin, not prescribe, or even describe English usage ▪ in this respect it might be easier to understand why English, when it was described, was described in terms of Latin grammar ▪ as it was mainly morphology that was to be taught to English students of Latin, it is also clear why English seemed in a rather impoverished state ▪ it was only later that the position of English seemed to improve - it is symptomatic that, by that time, syntax started to be included to a much larger extent in the grammars ● c. 10 pages in the grammars of the beginning of the 18th century, but c. 60 pages in Robert Lowth's highly influential Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) ▪ the stage of the process largely achieved in the course of the 19th century, thanks to the lasting influence of works such as A History of the English Language by Dr Samuel Johnson (1755) or Robert Lowth´s A Short Introduction to English Grammar (1762) 7) Prescription o the era saw another wave of the rise of the middle classes (the bourgeoisie): these people felt to be socially mobile and therefore were attempting to climb the social ladder and to reach the desired status of the upper classes (the gentry and the court) and the learned o they tried to mimic the lifestyle of their social betters as suggested by the concept of politeness ▪ the meaning differs considerably from the modern one: in the 18th century, it stood for the gentle manners, fashion and, most importantly, language of the upper classes o the sovereignty of English as the language of prescription was no longer in question: Latin and French had lost their prestige as English replaced them in all the fields, even in science and literature o the politeness was being regarded as something that could (and should) be acquired by learning and that could serve as a ticket to high society => a rise in demand for textbooks and manuals of polite manners and polite language o the grammars were in fact prescriptive textbooks whose success on the market principally depended on how well they established the boundary between the polite and the impolite variants of language o the grammarians were successful in instilling the notion into the speakers that there is a correct and an incorrect usage and that the correct one is better and should be sought under any circumstances o it is important to realize that the prescriptive nature of the grammars was largely due to their purpose (which was very similar to the modern foreign language textbooks) - to teach their readers how to speak and write o as a result, the polite variant as described by grammarians became synonymous with the standard modern English; however, it was not any more the idiom of the nobility or the court, but the uniform, codified, prescribed language of the insecure middle classes o by the end of the 18th century first grammars directed at foreign learners appeared - still in the prescriptive tradition o from our current perspective - when we compare contemporary usage books that correspond to a large degree to the prescriptive grammars - it seems that the prescriptive grammarians were not very successful, because, even after the 200 years of concentrated effort, some of the "rules" are still promoted: ▪ e.g. the undesirability of the use of double negative or ending sentence with a preposition o Examples of the rules: ▪ Double negative rule "Two Negatives in English destroy one another, or are equivalent to an Affirmative (i) as, 'Nor did they not perceive the evil plight In which they were, or the fierce pains not feel.' Milton, P. L. i.335" (Lowth 1794: 132) ▪ Preposition stranding "The Preposition is often separated from the Relative which it governs, and joined to the verb at the end of the Sentence [...]. as, 'Horace is an author, whom I am much delighted with' [...] This is an Idiom which our language is strongly inclined to; it prevails in common conversation, and suits very well with the familiar style of writing; but the placing of the Preposition before the Relative is more graceful, as well as more perspicuous /= easily understood"/; and agrees much better with the solemn and elevated style." (Lowth 1794: 136-137)

Explain the role of early printers in the process.

In the diffusion, there was support for, and interaction with, the class of professional scribes and early printers, because their work then carried a "stamp" of correctness in the eyes of the local authorities, which strengthened the effect of the circulating texts written by the Chancery itself. After that William Caxton - printing press.

Explain the principal parameters of the standardisation process in the history of (Southern) British English.

Process of standardisation ● the framework: ○ the vernacular expands in the late medieval times to many functions that had earlier been occupied by French and/or Latin ○ standardization is a sociolinguistic process that expands the range of functions/uses of the language, but restricts its internal formal variability ○ standardization is "the suppression of optional variability in language ... as the consequence of a need for uniformity that is felt by influential portions of society at a given time" (Milroy & Milroy 1999) ○ in this process and period, the London-based language spreads outwards until relative homogeneity is achieved ○ several stages can be identified in the process of standardization ○ the order is by no means strictly chronological ○ some of the stages overlap and can stay in effect for a longer time 1. selection 2. acceptance 3. diffusion 4. maintenance 5. elaboration of function 6. codification 7. prescription

Explain the role of the Chancery.

The Chancery, as the only official body aiming for the standard, set an example and their work then carried a "stamp" of correctness in the eyes of the local authorities. This strengthened the effect of the circulating texts written by the Chancery itself The Chancery was located at the Exchequer in Westminster (next to London on the Thames), after 1430, established in Chancery Lane in London. It continued the practice of Henry V's Signet Office and in that sense just accepted an already current practice. It was an ideal environment for a uniform spelling to start developing - the Chancery has been described as a compact, disciplined, hierarchical body of civil servants. There are numerous aspects of PDE that were introduced by the Chancery clerks: ● in spelling: <gh> in words like knight or light, <ig> in the words like reign, regular <-d> rather than <-t> in the past tense of weak verbs, etc. ● in morphology: selection of -ly rather than -liche as a preferred adverbial suffix, ending the reflexive in -self/selves, dropping of final -n in plural verbs or the y- prefix, etc. ● choosing from a sizable pool of variants: for example, the Chancery usage prefers the forms not, but, gaf, and such(e) to "Chaucer's" equivalents nat, bot, yaf, and swich(e)

Explain how the standardisation process contributed to the evolution of English spelling and style.

o Elaboration of spelling ● the conscious efforts in elaborating the spelling and pronunciation can be illustrated by the speech of Shakespeare's pedantic character of Holofernes from Love's Labour's Lost: I abhor such phanaticall phantasims, such insociable and poynt deuise companions, such rackers of ortagriphie, as to speake dout fine , when he should say doubt; det, when he shold pronounce debt; d e b t, not det: he clepeth a Calf, Caufe: halfe, haufe: neighbour vocatur nebour; neigh abreuiated ne: this is abhominable, which he would call abbominable... (First Folio, Act V, Scene I) (glossary: poynt deuise = fussy; rackers - twisters, torturers, wreckers; clepeth = calls, vocatur = is called) ● in a conscious effort to ridicule pretentious speakers and perhaps reformers such as Mulcaster, Shakespeare reveals a controversy connected to several stages of the English standardization process ● an example: the <b> in debt and doubt is an etymological respelling on the basis of Latin debitum and dubitare rather than on the etymologically correct French dette and doute (similarly: salmon / salmo (Latin) / saumon (French); victuals / victualia / vitaille: an early spelling vittel) ● the large influx of Latin words strengthened the direct links between English and Latin vocabulary even to the extent of linking non-Latin loans with Latin etymons ● etymologically connecting English with the high prestige language - Latin - and by doing so, lending English part of its prestige o the stabilization of English spelling was largely achieved by the 17th century printers and was more or less completed by the early 18th century in printed documents ● X private correspondence remained largely unaffected o Latin was also largely the model on the level of style ● attempts to suit the Latin-based style to English resulted in sentences of as many as three hundred words, which was considered an achievement of literary elaboration ● but, at the same time, specific registers have started to develop ● a great pressure of the native easy-to-understand prose style was even prescribed by institutions like the Royal Society (Royal Society of London for the Improvement of Natural Knowledge; founded in 1660, has acted as the UK´s Academy of Sciences) Thomas Sprat wrote in his History of the Royal Society (1667): "They have therefore been most rigorous in putting in execution the only Remedy, that can be found for this extravagance: and that has been, a constant Resolution, to reject all the amplifications, digressions, and swellings of style: to return back to the primitive purity, and shortness, when men deliver'd so many things, almost in an equal number of words. They have exacted from all their members, a close, naked, natural way of speaking; positive expressions; clear senses; a native easiness; bringing all things as near the Mathematical plainness, as they can: and preferring the language of Artizans, Countrymen, and Merchants, before that, of Wits, or Scholars

Characterize some of the myths and ideas that fuelled the processes of codification and prescription.

• Myths o various deeply rooted linguistic myths, usually "the heritage" of the previous ages, were widely spread among the learned circles of the early 18th century; the most prominent ones were (following Watts 2000: 35): ▪ myth of the perfect language : the idea that language can reach (or has already reached) a state of perfection ▪ golden age myth : if the language had already reached perfection, there must have been a 'golden age' which writers and speakers should aspire to recreate ▪ myth of the undesirability of change : the idea that the perfect language should not experience any change, for it would inevitably degrade it o the language was believed to be in an inadequate and corrupt state o some thinkers (e.g. Defoe, Swift, Addison) felt and expressed a strong urge for establishing an institution, the Academy, that would improve it or at least fix it and thus rescue it from further deterioration o despite the success of similar projects elsewhere in Europe (Italy, France and, later, Germany or Spain), the English Academy was never established o that gives English standardization its specific nature - it has always been reached through general consent rather than by a decree o the main instruments of codification were the dictionaries (for spelling and pronunciation) as well as grammars (for morphology and syntax) o Samuel Johnson expressed the prevalent opinion: "...the decrees of the Academy every man would have been willing, and many would have been proud, to disobey..." (Swift: Johnson's Lives of the Poets, 1890) o the myths, nevertheless, survived and proved influential in the subsequent development of the standardization process: the stage of prescription o Latin was usually the model of an ideal language that English should be brought closer to o model role of Latin was strengthened by the fact that the early dictionaries and grammars were mostly bilingual and their purpose was to help students learn Latin, not prescribe, or even describe English usage ▪ in this respect it might be easier to understand why English , when it was described, was described in terms of Latin grammar ▪ as it was mainly morphology that was to be taught to English students of Latin, it is also clear why English seemed in a rather impoverished state ▪ it was only later that the position of English seemed to improve - it is symptomatic that, by that time, syntax started to be included to a much larger extent in the grammars • Ideas behind the ideal usage o purely subjective : Swift disliked monosyllabism or verbal contractions; o logical: as in "double negation results in positive"-this has been introduced by lawyers and the government who needed precise language; o ideal grammar conceived as the divine grammar before the corruption following the Tower of Babel - Latin was seen as nearest to such a divine grammar (therefore a rich morphology like that of irregular verbs was advocated); o symmetry, regularity and order (therefore a simplified and regular morphology was advocated like that of regular verbs); o one function - one form , or the number of distinctions in the real world ideally represented by the same number of distinctions in the language (regular, but rich morphology -e.g. adverbs and adjectives should be derived differently); o etymology - words that don't correspond to their etymological meaning or spelling should be discarded or corrected (often moreover based on a wrong etymology -cf. Holofernes' abhominable as if from L. ab+homo , while in fact from ab+omen ).

Briefly, characterize the three attitudes to the expansion of lexis in Early Modern English.

● in terms of vocabulary, three "movements" can be distinguished: o the Neologisers ▪ introduced a huge number of loanwords from Latin and Greek ▪ their excessive borrowing was often ridiculed and their loans were called "ynkhorne termes" - words that "smelled of ink" ▪ the "successful" examples are education, frugality or persist ▪ the less successful ones would be adjuvate ("to assist"), compendious (in the sense of "profitable") or obtestate ("to beseech") o the Purists ▪ tried to use the native resources for creating new words, like biwordes ("parables"), wasching ("baptism") or moond ("lunatic") o the Archaisers ▪ tried to revive the archaic words like algate ("always"), sicker ("certainly") or yode ("went")