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SUMMARY:Communicative competence and eighteenth-century English norms of c
 orrectness - Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade\, University of Leiden and Clar
 e Hall\, Cambridge
DTSTART:20110307T170000Z
DTEND:20110307T183000Z
UID:TALK29892@talks.cam.ac.uk
CONTACT:David Willis
DESCRIPTION:Lowth’s _Short Introduction to English Grammar_ (1762) is of
 ten regarded as having enforced a set of prescriptive rules on the English
  language. This is a view I have aimed to correct in my recently published
  book _The Bishop’s Grammar. Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism
 _ (OUP\, 2011). In this paper I will focus on the approach I took in tryin
 g to do so. Having collected ca. 300 letters as part of Lowth’s private 
 correspondence\, I focussed on his communicative competence. Like any spea
 ker and writer of English he was found to vary in his usage − spelling a
 nd grammar − depending on such variables as the nature of his relationsh
 ip with the addressee of his letters\, and in doing so he frequently offen
 ded (in eighteenth-century terms) against the rules in his own grammar. In
  reducing linguistic variation − not in fact as optional as sociolinguis
 ts tend to view it − Lowth’s grammar\, and the increasingly prescripti
 ve grammars coming after him\, is simply part of the standardisation proce
 ss the English language was undergoing at the time. \n
LOCATION:GR-04\, English Faculty Building\, West Road
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