Unit 8.

Standardisation and
prescriptivism
OUTLINE

• Standardisation
o Requisites
o History of the English written standard
• Prescriptivism
o Aims
o Views on language change

Standardisation I
EModE is the period of the start of standardisation.

• A standard language is one that has minimal variation of form and maximal
variation of function.

Standardisation II: requisites

• The language has to be written, so as to establish models across time and
space. It must meet four criteria (can be simultaneous): selection,
codification, elaboration and acceptance:
o The chosen variety has to be codified (i.e. fixed) by some external
authority (grammars, dictionaries, etc.)
o The chosen variety has to be selected from amongst others
(commonly on the basis of prestige)
o The chosen variety has to be elaborated (i.e. extended to new areas)
and accepted as the norm (even by a small but influential group at
the beginning).

Standardisation III: History of the English Written Standard I:

Focused varieties I (Smith 1996)

• Late West Saxon variety of Old English

o It was a written variety

o It was selected and elaborated

 o It was not fixed (Wulfstan’s vocabulary did not conform to
Winchester’s norms)

Standardisation III: History of the English Written Standard I:

Focused varieties II
 Middle English: views on linguistic variation

o Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (c. 1385): Go, litel bok, go, litel
mym tragedye… / And for ther is so gret diversite / In Englissh and
in writyng of oure tonge, / So prey I God that non myswrite the, /Ne
the mysmetre for defaute of tonge.

o John de Trevisa (c. 1385): Al the longage of the Northumres and

speicialliche at York is so sharp slittynge and frontynge and
vnshape, that we southern men may that longage vnnethe [=
hardly] vnderstonde

o Lydgate (1430): Oure language is also so dyuerse in it selfe that

the commen maner of spekynge in Englysshe of some contre can
skante [= scarcely] be vnderstondid in som other contre of the same
lond

Standardisation III: History of the English Written Standard I:

Focused varieties III
 Middle English (Samuels 1963):

o Type I: from ca 1350 onwards; majority of manuscripts attributed to

Wycliffe and his followers (Central Midlands)

o Type II: nine manuscripts from ca 1350 from the Greater London
(political and economic centre) area (Norfolk and Suffolk features)

o Type III: texts copied in London from ca 1380 (variety of the best
Chaucerian manuscripts; some Central Midlands features)

o Type IV: government documents from 1430 onwards (a.k.a

Chancery English; some Central and North Midlands features)
Variation in the four types

Type II, III, IV are from London.

Hire is a native form. Yafe has a native pronunciation. Gaf has Scandinavian
pronunciation.

The type IV is the most similar to present English.

Standardisation III: History of the English Written Standard II: The

emergence of our current standard
• Processes:
o Printing press established in England in 1471 by William Caxton. The
problems with scribes are their use of their own dialects in the
documents. With the printing press the books now are cheaper
(manuscripts are very expensive at that time).
Caxton uses the London variety because he was in the middle and
people from the North and the South could understand him. Later
on, many people buy more books (massive contribution of
standardisation).
o Lawyers and legal clerks returned to their provincial origins after
having been trained in the Inns of Court and Inns of Chancery in
London. The Chancery in London: many people came to London to
learn how the Chancery works. That promotes and extends the
features of London. Every writer uses his local dialect buy by the
beginning of the 15th century, the southern varieties are considered
more prestigious. Then, the variety of London was the variety of
prestige.
• Perceptions:
o According to George Puttenham, the variety of those educated and
of high birth was “the usual speech of the Court, and that of London
 and the shires lying about London within lx. Miles, and not much
aboue” (Arte of English Poesie, 1589)
• Means:

To codify the varieties, they use dictionaries and grammars.

o Dictionaries: it is a tradition from Anglo-Saxon times. Before

dictionaries, there were glossaries. First books were de bilingual
dictionaries and then the monolingual dictionaries (during the
period of the inkhorn controversy, to push up English language).
o Grammars: the big grammar period was during 18th and 19th
centuries (during the Prescriptivism).

Standardisation III: History of the English Written Standard II:

Earliest English dictionaries & grammars
 Continuation of medieval tradition in Early Modern English with bilingual
or multilingual dictionaries (often aimed at travellers or businessmen)

o J. Palgrave’s Lesclarcissement de la langue francoyse (1530)

 Monolingual dictionaries dealing only with hard terms

o Robert Cawdrey The Table Alphabeticall of Hard Words (1604)

 Monolingual dictionaries dealing with the whole lexicon. Every polite word
is a word accepted to be in a dictionary.

 Grammars: gain momentum in the 18th century

Prescriptivism I: Aims I
18th-19th Centuries. How to talk correctly. Period of grammar, where we have
spelling and pronunciation guides.

Ascertainment

 “A settled rule; an established standard”.

1. To reduce the language to rule and set up a standard of correct usage.

2. To refine it – remove any supposed defects and impurities.

3. To fix it permanently in the desired form.

Prescriptivism I: Aims II
 Need to perfect the standard and fix correct uses in dictionaries, grammars
and spelling guides
 o Robert Lowth (1710-87): A Short Introduction to English Grammar
(1762). The most influential grammar of the period.

o Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language (1755). This

grammar introduces examples.

Development of the “canon”, who are the authors that have to help.

Prescriptivism II: Models II

 Latin models and logic:

These are a set of rules that are used today in English.

o Double negatives

o Split infinitives

o Preposition stranding

o It is I, between you and me

o Different from (NOT than or to)

o Future: shall with 1st person, will elsewhere

Prescriptivism II: vs descriptivism

Grammars nowadays tend to be descriptivist.

What is Standard English?

Prescriptivism III: Views on language change

People in the past could use words that now we considered different.

 Chaucer, Troilus and Criseyde (2.22-26)

Ye knowe ek that in forme of speche is chaunge

Withinne a thousand yeer, and wordes tho

That hadden pris, now wonder nyce and stranunge

Us thinketh them, and yet thei spake hem so,

And spedde as wel in love as men now do…

 Dr Johnson (Dictionary of the English Language): ‘Tongues, like

governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration’, but ‘with … justice
may the lexicographer be derided, who… shall imagine that his dictionary
can embalm the language…’

No only with dicitionaries and grammars you are going to fix the language.

 Solution?: Language Academies (e.g. Accademia della Crusca, 1582;

Académie Française, 1635; the Real Academia Española, 1713 )

Academies to rule the language. They have the power to control the
language but none of them could prevent language changes.

‘… they will observe many gross improprieties, which however authorised by

Practice, and grown familiar, ought to be discarded. They will find many words
that deserve to be utterly thrown out of our Language, many more to be
corrected…’ (Jonathan Swift, Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining
the English Tongue, 1712