The social construction of Standard (Spoken) English: Eighteenth-century orthoepists as a “discourse community"
Articolo
Data di Pubblicazione:
2014
Citazione:
The social construction of Standard (Spoken) English: Eighteenth-century orthoepists as a “discourse community" / M. Sturiale. - In: TOKEN. - ISSN 2299-5900. - 3:(2014), pp. 37-52.
Abstract:
In the pursuit of a standard form of spoken English, the second half of the eighteenth
century was characterised by a proliferation of pronouncing dictionaries and manuals and
– most importantly – by the publication of the ‘authoritative’ works by Thomas Sheridan
(1780) and John Walker (1791). Pronouncing dictionaries offer important evidence of
language change and of the fact that at this time provincial and vulgar pronunciations
started to be marginalized and stigmatized (beal 2004b and 2010).
by analysing the prefatory material of eighteenth-century pronouncing
dictionaries, I aim to demonstrate how lexicographers and orthoepists, as “a discourse
community” (Watts 1999), made an outstanding contribution to the social construction
of the Standard ideology and its further reinforcement. Furthermore, reviews and
advertisements of the aforementioned publications appeared in the daily press and
periodicals; these, together with other news articles, will also be analysed to shed further
light on the ‘debate’ which characterized the rise, in Mugglestone’s words (2003), of
“accent as social symbol”.
Tipologia IRIS:
01 - Articolo su periodico
Elenco autori:
M. Sturiale
Link alla scheda completa: