EModE Notes_4

November 5, 2008

See questions for next time below.

Shakespeare Video – lots of familiar scenes and words to indicate just how much Shakespeare is in the language and then

John Barton and Sir Peter Hall, giants of Shakespeare performance industry in England, both scholars and directors, provide a little of the de profundus aspect of Shakespeare, the intellectual shock and awe if one perceives aright.

Questions for Chapter 11, homework.

Chapter 11 is about the origins of a standard pronunciation and the activity known as orthoepy – or correct speech.

Generally we spend more time on orthography but as we know orthography was in an relation with speech because English pronunciation had changed since or during the time that orthography was being set by Chancery and Caxton.

Therefore the orthoepists worked on something of a scientific approach to correct speech, wanting to create something like an IPA. In fact, you can look at this chapter as describing early attempts at creating the IPA.

1. What did Issac Newton attempt to explain regarding the nature of language?

p. 153: Newton was doubtless the most impressive intellectual of his day and his theory of gravity and force held sway until Einstein. So his descriptions should be interesting. He tried to explain the manner and place and means of articulation. My favorite is his descriptions of a velar fricative. See quote on page 153.

2. What is the difference between orthography and orthoepy?

p. 154: As above, but note how the two are going to always be interconnected? But until we all write IPA we are going to have the problem.

Look at Hart’s attempt on page 155.

3. How does John Hart connect dialect and social class?

p. 156: Hart connects proper speech with proper people in proper places. He is not out of the norm at all here. It seems very classist or chauvenist and it is, but not uncommon for the day at all.

4. What is Richard Mulcaster’s contribution to modern English?

p. 157-158: His Elementarie published in 1582 is said by some scholars to lay down the groundwork for modern English spelling.

He tries to use common sense, logic, and custom as his guides.

1) rid of superfluous letters (putt, grubb, ledd à put, grub, led)

2) final e to indicate vowel length (mad à made) and after words ending in sound of v or z (deceive, love, wise).

3) e after a lightly pronounced i: daie, maie) but when the i is pronounced “loud and sharp” it is spelling as y. (deny, cry, defy)

4) spelling analogously: hear should be spelled like near and fear.

5) introduces initial “h” where it has been lost

Some things didn’t fly:

1) advocates spelling hard “g” in words like guide without the “u.”

2) also introduced a diacritical mark to indicate vowell length

5. What is Mopsae pronunciation?

p. 160: Gil’s fancy term for a certain affected pronunciation in London, particularly by upper-class women, but some of their pronunciations actually anticipate developments in the GVS.

The whole thing may be made up.

6. What is the philosophy behind “Natural Character of the Letters”?

p. 164: The dominant philosophy behind the search for a “natural character” is based upon a kind of linguistic essentialism that seeks a natural expression or natural relation between a thing and the signfier.

7. What can we learn about pronunciation from the orthoepists?

p. 163: Fine detail of historical pronuncations. See arm/warm – rhymed in 17^th century and on the next page one, shoon, soon.

Questions for Next Time, chapter 12.

Chapter 12 on Samuel Johnson and The Dictionary

1. What three diseases might Samuel Johnson have had been tormented with?

2. What social or cultural position does SJ claim for lexicography or the lexicographer?

3. What were some of the achievements of SJ’s Dictionary?

4. What year was it first published?

5. In the dictionaries previous to Bailey’s (which was previous to SJ’s) what rule seemed to govern the selection of defintions? (The example concerns the world mother.)

6. What happened to SJ’s patronage from Lord Chesterfield?

7. What is the link between lexicography and colonialism?

8. What does it mean to “fix” the language and how did SJ change his position on this concept?

9. If you ardent or experiencing ardour in the first meaning, what are you?

10. Explain the unlining philosophy of British empiricism from Locke and Hume and how that informs the philsophies of language behind Robert Lowth, Joseph Priestly, and Samuel Johnson?

Brief Review: Dates: 1476 (Caxton), 1485 (Henry VII), 1534 (Act of Supremacy), 1549 (Book of Common Prayer), 1553 (Art of Rhetorique), 1582 (Mulcaster's Elementarie), 1611 (King James Bible), 1623 (First Folio of Shakespeare), 1755 Johnson’s Dictionary

New Worlds:

New Nation

New Vernacular

New Technology (Media)

New Science

New Religion

New Learning and new philosophy

New Literature

New North America

The general features of the Renaissance account in a general way for the abundant growth, ebullience, freedom, plasticity of the language.

A.C. Baugh lists five conditions that affect the development of the language:

1. Printing Press

2. Spread of education

3. Development of commerce

4. Growth of new, specialized knowledge -- science

5. Self-consciousness about language: 1, private; 2, public

More specifically, the main problem for English was establishing itself as a worthy vernacular, and in so doing it had to overcome three obstacles:

1) being recognized

2) establishing a uniform orthography

3) developing a rich enough vocabulary.

RECOGNITION

FACTORS AGAINST RECOGNITION:

1) Revival of learning led to love of classics over vernaculars.

2) Love of classics lead to comparison of L and Gk to English and therefore revealed its poverty.

3) The problems with orthography and vocabulary.

FACTORS LEADING TO RECOGNITION:

1) Precedent of vernaculars in Europe: Italy 12th c; Spain 13th c; France 14th c; ---; England 15th c; Germany 16th c.

2) English already in use in Parliament (Statute of Pleading 1362) and in Chancery (Henry V 1417) and in use in Religion (Wycliffe 1395 and in a variety of sermons and homilies by the mendicants and Lollards).

3) Rediscovery of the Classics revealed Medieval Latin to be an inferior or deteriorated version of Latin.

4) Cult of Cicero made the current Latin harder to use.

5) Imitation of the classics meant imitated their spirit: they wrote in their vernaculars. Why cant moderns do the same?

6) Rise of nation states decline of Church and Empire increased national pride and pride in national language.

7) Rise in Protestantism increased a hatred for Latin and love of translation -- vernacular as power.

8) Rise in the moneyed middle classes provided a market and economic market for translations in the vernacular.

9) Intellectual break with Rome and scholasticism increased the spirit of science and empiricism -- respect for the "real world" or facts as they are.

10) The spirit of discovery and the individual - opened whole new worlds and the shock of Copernicus revealed the responsibility of the new man to create in these new worlds - create from within.

11) The new technology - the printing press - made the vernacular spread at a more rapid rate than the classical languages.

ORTHOGRAPHY

Spelling has always been a problem for English, especially since the end of the Old English period. See Appendix B in Baugh.

1220 Ormulum, attempts to indicate sound quality by use of doubled consonants.

1550 Sir John Cheke in his Gospel of Matthew

1. Doubles long vowels: maad for made, etc

2. Discards final e's, giv for give

3. Uses i for y, mighti for mighty.

1558 ABC -- final e to indicate vowel length

1568 Sir Thomas Smith -- Dialogue Concerning the Correct and Emended Writing of the English Language. Increased alphabet to 34 letters.

1570 John Hart - developed special characters for ch, sh, th and several other odd devices.

1580 William Bullokar-- invents some new characters and makes great use of diacritical marks.

1582 Richard Stanyhurst The First Foure Bookes of Virgil His Aeneis -- doubles letters for long vowels

1582 Richard Mulcaster Elementarie -- "most extensive and most important treatise on English spelling in the sixteenth century.” He knew to compromise between the practical and the ideal.

1) rid of superfluous letters (putt, grubb, ledd à put, grub, led)

2) final e to indicate vowel length (mad à made) and after words ending in sound of v or z (deceive, love, wise).

3) e after a lightly pronounced i: daie, maie) but when the i is pronounced “loud and sharp” it is spelling as y. (deny, cry, defy)

4) spelling analogously: hear should be spelled like near and fear.

1658 Edward Phillips The New World of English Words 1658 -- Recognizably modern in most of its spelling.

1755 Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary – sets the gold standard.

VOCABULARY – ENRICHMENT OR AUGMENTATION

What is it?

The importation of new words to make English as capable as the learned languages.

How far did it go?

To the point that there was a reaction against it -- a reaction we might call anti-inkhornism.

Thomas Hoby's trans of Castiglione 1561

Thomas Chaloner's trans of Praise of Folly 1549

Thomas Wilson 1553 The Arte of Rhetorique

But finally the method became accepted and a compromise position was the norm.

How was the Language enriched?

1. Direct importation from other languages, particularly Latin and Greek, but also from other European languages.

2. Adapting of the words from the other languages.

3. Many words were rejected.

4. But many were reinforced by older borrowings and from French.

5. The enrichment was primarily a written, even bookish phenomenon.

6. The language was also enriched from native sources: the Purists and the new Chaucerians.

What was the result?

Over 10,000 new words in the English language.

Paper questions?

Class Project: Several options

1. A standard research paper (8-10 pages long, 8 to 10 references) on a topic related to the history of the language (e.g. teaching dialects of English, theories of the Great Vowel Shift, dialectal variations in Chaucer, word creation in Shakespeare, new world Englishes, English as official language debate).

2. A curriculum/course pack for teaching a segment on the history of English for a high school class. This should include day-by-day curriculum as well as visual and audio aids and class projects

3. A computer "edition" of an old text of English literature or a text of any period that would seem worthy of an edition.

4. A history of a passage in Modern English. For this the student traces the history of each word and anything else relevant to an understanding of the history of English.

Henry VIII 's Act of Supremacy (1534) - original text

Albeit the king's Majesty justly and rightfully is and ought to be the supreme head of the Church of England, and so is recognized by the clergy of this realm in their convocations, yet nevertheless, for corroboration and confirmation thereof, and for increase of virtue in Christ's religion within this realm of England, and to repress and extirpate all errors, heresies, and other enormities and abuses heretofore used in the same, be it enacted, by authority of this present Parliament, that the king, our sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall be taken, accepted, and reputed the only supreme head in earth of the Church of England, called Anglicans Ecclesia; and shall have and enjoy, annexed and united to the imperial crown of this realm, as well the title and style thereof, as all honors, dignities, preeminences, jurisdictions, privileges, authorities, immunities, profits, and commodities to the said dignity of the supreme head of the same Church belonging and appertaining; and that our said sovereign lord, his heirs and successors, kings of this realm, shall have full power and authority from time to time to visit, repress, redress, record, order, correct, restrain, and amend all such errors, heresies, abuses, offenses, contempts and enormities, whatsoever they be, which by any manner of spiritual authority or jurisdiction ought or may lawfully be reformed, repressed, ordered, redressed, corrected, restrained, or amended, most to the pleasure of Almighty God, the increase of virtue in Christ's religion, and for the conservation of the peace, unity, and tranquility of this realm; any usage, foreign land, foreign authority, prescription, or any other thing or things to the contrary hereof notwithstanding.