'An age of rules, grammar, dictionaries and definitions'
1755 Publishing of Samuel Johnson's
dictionary
First 'modern' dictionary
1762 Robert Lowth's Intro to English
Grammar
First Prescriptivist commentator
1806 Noah Websters American English
Dictionary
1776 American Declaration of Independence
1760- 1800 Industrial Revolution
New words and lanaguage to accomodate new ideas
Inventions and Contraptions
Science and Technology
Expansion of cities and factories
British Empire under Queen Victoria
Borrowings and loan words
Inkhorn controversy
India, Singapore, Canada, South Africa, New Guinea, etc
Increase in word
stock
Jane Austen 1775-1817
Prescriptivism
vs
Descriptivism
Prescriptivism: An approach to the
study of language that favours the
use of a strict set of rules that must
be obeyed in speech and writing
identifying incorrect and correct
useage
Grammar books
Descriptivism: An approach to the
study of language describes
language but does not judge if
language is incorrect or correct and
says that variation should be
described rather than corrected
Charles Dickens 1812- 1870
LATE MODERN ENGLISH
1900- Present day
Developing and emerging technologies
World Wide Web (Web 2.0 in 2004)
Net speak
Text talk
English as a global language
Global English
Mass global communication
American English
Americanisms
American orthography: 'color' 'meter'
Range of speakers and
varieties of World
English, e.g. 'Black
English'
Oxford English Dictionary
Political
correctness
Great Vowel
Shift
1350-1700
Serves to explain some of
the differences in
pronunciation and spelling
of some words, especially
as standardisation was
happening at the same
time,