Standardising English

Leading researchers shed new light on the history of the standardisation of English.

With a particular focus on the Early Modern English period, this book explores the standardisation of English spelling.

Professor Devitt offers a new view of the linguistic process of standardization, the movement of specific language features towards uniformity. Drawing on theoretical arguments and empirical data, she examines the way in which linguistic conformity develops out of variation, and the textual and social factors that influence this process. After defining and clarifying the general theoretical issues involved, the author takes as a specific case study the standardization of written English in Scotland in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries, and shows that standardization is a gradual process, that it occurs at significantly different rates and times in different genres, that it encompasses periods of great variation, and that it occurs concurrently with sociopolitical shifts. The interrelationship of linguistic features, genres, and social pressures shape the nature and direction of standardization.

The history and development of English, from the earliest known writings to its status today as a dominant world language, is a subject of major importance to linguists and historians. In this book, a team of international experts cover the entire recorded history of the English language, outlining its development over fifteen centuries. With an emphasis on more recent periods, every key stage in the history of the language is covered, with full accounts of standardisation, names, the distribution of English in Britain and North America, and its global spread. New historical surveys of the crucial aspects of the language are presented, and historical changes that have affected English are treated as a continuing process, helping to explain the shape of the language today. This complete and up-to-date history of English will be indispensable to all advanced students, scholars and teachers in this prominent field.

This volume describes the development of Standard English from Middle English onwards.

Aimed at those who teach English to speakers of other languages, this volume considers English as an increasingly global language that rules both business and cyberspace. It considers as well the causes for concern as English is turned into a commercial product--its role in the death of other languages and in the political project of creating an integrated global economy. The authors (who are associated with the U. of Melbourne and U. Sains Malaysia) write that their goal is to call for "paradigmatic innovations in English language teaching, new frames of reference for reinventing the project of globalizing English that situate it within a perspective of risk analysis and make use of "multivocal Englishes" to help sustain the biolinguistic diversity of humanity." Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR

Language scholars have traditionally agreed that the development of the English language was largely unplanned. John H. Fisher challenges this view, demonstrating that the standardization of writing and pronunciation was, and still is, made under the control of political and intellectual forces. In these essays Fisher chronicles his gradual realization that Standard English was not a popular evolution at all but was the direct result of political decisions made by the Lancastrian administrations of Henry IV and Henry V. To achieve standardization and acceptance of the vernacular, these kings turned to their Chancery scribes, who were responsible for writing and copying legal and royal documents. Chaucer, a relative of the king, began to be labeled by the government as a master of the language, and it was Henry V who inspired the fifteenth-century tradition of citing Chaucer as the "maker" of English. An even more important link between language development and government practice is the fact that Chaucer himself composed in the English of the Chancery scribes. Fisher discusses the development of Chancery practices, royal involvement in promoting use of the vernacular, Chaucer's use of English, Caxton's use of Chancery Standard, and the nineteenth-century phenomenon of a standard, or "received," pronunciation of English. This engaging and clearly written work will change the way scholars understand the development of English and think about the intentional shaping of our language.