CL ASS R E A DING 1 0

VARIETIES
OF EARLY
MODERN
ENGLISH
Christina Karavida
1563201700069
Middle English Period EARLY MODERN ENGLISH PERIOD

limited use of English in written English viewed as versatile and multi-

contexts fuctional language
vs
extensive use of Latin and Anglo generalized use in an array of written and
Norman spoken contexts
across social classes
 AS A RESULT
an increase in the number of varieties

Tourism Marketing Class 2020

WHAT IS A “a form of the language associated
VARIETY? with a particular function, social or
geographical context, or medium”
Early Modern English Varieties

THREE CATEGORIES Criteria

1. functional 1. function
2. geographic 2. geography
3. discourse / rhetorical 3. social class
4. medium
 A. Functional Varieties

English used in conjunction with other languages in:

- business records
- legal texts

Characteristics
alternation between Latin questions and framing material, and English
reports of witness statements
mixing of words and morphemes from English, Latin, and Anglo-Norman
formulaic in structure
little temporal & geographical variation
 A. Geographical Varieties
Sources
- letters
- diaries < belonging to different social classes

What do they show?

representations of Scottish, Irish, and Welsh Εnglish across social classes
and registers
no single written standard
limited representations of regional varieties < the latter had not yet been
'stigmatized '
 C. Discourse Varieties

Textual instances of Discourse Varieties show that:

regional varieties as well as social dialects or working-class English

were not stigmatized during the Early Middle English Period

the use of elaborate discourse features was perceived as an

indicator of high social and educational status
 STANDARDIZATION
By 1600 CE. :
some major morpho-syntactic changes were completed
Examples :
- ‘thou’
- 3rd person singular ‘–th’ confined to formulaic, archaic
- unregulated use of auxiliary ‘do’ and poetic contexts

low degree of orthographic variation

variations outside the printing house

high degree of register variation within and between the

idiolects

emergence of the ideology of standardization

 RESOURCES
Numerous printed materials give us
an insight into the written and to a
further extent spoken varieties of the
Early English period. These are:

- court records
- informal letters 1. function
- plays 2. geography
- jest books 3. social class
4. medium
Other resources
The Manual to the Helsinki Corpus and the Corpora of Letters and
Scottish English also include some instances of regional material while
Cusack's transcriptions of court records, letters, diaries, accounts, and
presentments are viewed as a valuable source of information with regard
to the characteristics of the different manuscripts of the period.
EXAMPLES OF EARLY
MODERN ENGLISH TEXTS

A manuscript of A Table King James Bible, 1611

Shakespeare’s handwriting Alphabeticall,
the first English
Dictionary, 1604
 References
Hope, J. (2008). In H. Momma & M. Matto (Eds.), A companion to the
history of the English language (pp. 216–223). essay, Wiley-Blackwell