Regulating Early Modern
English:
Pronunciation dictionaries
Sources
(“ “ and page numbers not supplied)
Beal,
Joan C. “Defining the standard of pronunciation: pronouncing dictionaries and
the rise of RP.” Chapter 7
of English in modern times 1700-1945. London:
Arnold, 2004.
[Beal,
Joan C. “John Walker: prescriptivist or
linguistic innovator? Insights into late modern English. Ed.
Marina Dossena & Charles Jones. Bern &c:
Peter Lang, 2003.]
Mugglestone,
Lynda. ‘Talking proper’: the rise of accent as social symbol. Oxford:
Clarendon Press, 1995.
Concept
of “standard” easier for anxious individuals to apply to their written language
§
writing
can be corrected or revised before it’s made public and judged!
Concept
of “standard pronunciation” evolved later than (e.g.) spelling or grammar
Certainly
it was felt that some speech was better than others
§
C16th-17th:
speech of London and universities
o sometimes vs. generally
“vulgar” or “barbarous”
§
era
concerned more with the status of English as a language
§
late
C17th-C18th: more emphasis on London’s “best speakers” (whoever they were)
o Sheridan 1761: “people of
education at the court”
o others: “men of letters of
the metropolis”, “elegance and taste of London”, &c.
§
era
concerned with status of individual speakers and with “codification” and
“rules”
·
grammar
on Thursday!
But
it wasn’t until the mid-18th century that it seemed possible to
describe or “fix” pronunciation
§
Johnson
(1755): “sounds are too volatile and subtile for legal restraints; to enchain syllables,
and lash the wind, are equally the undertakings of pride”
Key
‘fixers’ date from the late 1750s onwards included
§
Irish
actor Thomas Sheridan: gave lectures in late 1750s, 60s; published a dictionary
later
§
actor
John Walker 1791
§
Newcastle
activist Thomas Spence 1775
o to what extent is
codification done from the ‘margins’?
And
to what extent do these codifers respond to/incite social anxiety about
pronunciation?
§
special
prefaces for Irish/Scots, Cockney (“provincial”, “vulgar”) as well as for the Foreign
§
Sheridan
(Irish) lectured in Scotland – but also in Oxford
o TS really skilled at
promotion: newspaper ads
§
Walker
gave public lectures in Oxford and was asked by heads of houses to give special
tutorials at their college
o (despite the status of ‘Oxford’,
remember that education was a leveller: Johnson’s father was a provincial
bookseller and SJ couldn’t afford to continue at Oxford)
In
the 18th, a prestigious accent became a marketable commodity
§
science,
industrialization
o ever-rising middle classes
§
politics,
1707 union of Scotland and England
o ever-southward stream of
Scots
§
improved
transportation
o more people mixing, aware of
differences
Period
when words accent and class were both shifting in meaning
§
accent
‘stress on a syllable’ -> ‘pronunciation’
§
class ‘any sort of grouping’ -> ‘social place’ (but
different from rank,
not necessarily determined by birth)
o LM links with Raymond
Williams: “relevant semantic shifts in this context ‘belong essentially to the
period between 1770 and 1840, which is also the period of the Industrial
Revolution, and its decisive reorganization of society”
Required
ability to describe sounds
§
Sheridan
1761: “If a method of acquiring a just pronunciation by books, as well as
conversation, were established, its acquisition would not be circumscribed
within such narrow bounds, but would be open to all British subjects, wherever
born.”
o codifiers often from the
margins for the margins
o importance of word British
§
Sheridan:
pronunciation can now be reduced “to a certainty by fixed and visible marks;
the only way in which uniformity of sound could be propagated to any distance”
Developments
in transcription
o formerly just stress:
Bailey, Johnson
o 1757, James Buchanan
(Scottish) marked long and short vowels with macrons
o 1773: Kenrick (another Scot)
put numerals over letters
o but he’d got these from
Sheridan’s lectures
o 1780: Sheridan combined
these with a systematic respelling of the entry word
o other features
o pointy finger for
contentious words (e.g. “schedule” in Walker)
o section numbers for general
trends
Despite
his prescriptive agenda, Walker useful evidence for ongoing sound changes
o loss of [r], [l]
o lengthening of a in
words like BATH
o replacement of [h_] as a
result of spelling pronunciation/social anxiety
o words like humour and
humble without [h]
o words like singing, ringing
had [_n]: retained on grounds of euphony
Certainly
useful evidence for prescriptive attitudes
o tend to reduce issues to
binaries: h-dropping, g-dropping
o big source of anxiety: not
consistent!
§
i.e.
herb and humour [h_]-less
o and to attach non-linguistic
judgements to them
o social
§
g-dropping
“a source of embarrassment to speakers who desire to pronounce correctly”
o aesthetic
§
“a
coarseness and vulgarity of tone”
o moral
§
Walker:
h-dropping a “vice” of the Cockneys
Sheridan
the first to describe h-dropping in terms which reveal negative
attitudes
o “There is one defect which
more generally prevails in the counties than any other, and indeed is gaining
ground among the politer part of the world: I mean the omission of the aspirate
in many words by some, and in most by others”
o implies h-dropping is
polite, but wrong
o “The best method of curing
this will be to read over frequently all the words beginning with the letter H
and those beginning with WH in the dictionary, and push them out with the full
force of the breath, till an habit is obtained of aspirating strongly”
How
practical?
o large! more for reference
than for carrying around
o Walker cost over a pound
(when the average salary of a school usher was 4-8 shillings a week)
o in 1852, Walker 4s 6d
C19th:
cheap little handbooks with titles like
o Harry Hawkins’ H Book
o Poor Letter H: its use and
abuse
How
popular?
o very: Walker reprinted over
100 times up to 1904
o and the basis of many C19th
dictionaries
C19th:
standard accent less “London” than “educated”, one that doesn’t reveal a
speaker’s regional origins
o associated with public
schools: put a lot of boys together at a young age and
o peer pressure
o dialect mixing principles
§
will
level the accent!