There are many questions yet to be answered
about how Standard English came into existence. The claim that it
developed from a Central Midlands dialect propagated by clerks in the
Chancery, the medieval writing office of the king, is one explanation
that has dominated textbooks to date.
This book reopens the debate about the origins
of Standard English, challenging earlier accounts and revealing a far
more complex and intriguing history. An international team of fourteen
specialists offer a wide-ranging analysis, from theorietical discussions
of the origin of dialects, to detailed descriptions of the history of
individual Standard English features. The volume ranges from Middle
English to the present day, and looks at a variety of text types. It
concludes that Standard English had no one single ancestor dialect, but
is the cumulative result of generations of authoritative writing from
many text types.
Introduction: Laura Wright
Historical description and the ideology of the
standard Language: Jim Milroy
Mythical strands in the ideology of
prescriptivism: Richard J. watts
Rats, bats, sparrows and dogs: biology,
linguistics and the nature of Standard English: Jonathan Hope
Salience, stigma and standard: Raymond Hickey
The idology of the standard and the development
of Extraterritorial Englishes: Gabriella Mazzon
Metropolitan values: migration, mobility and
cultural norms, London 1100-1700: Derek Keene
Standadisation and the language of early
statutes: Matti Rissanen
Scientific language and spelling standardisation
1375-1550: Irma Taavitsainen
Change from above or below? Mapping the loci of
linguistic change in the history of Scottish Englsh: Anneli
Meurman-Solin
Adjective comparison and standardisation
processes in American and British Englsih from 1620 to the present:
Merja Kytö and Suzanne Romaine
The Spectator, the politics of social networks,
and language standardisation in eighteenth-century England: Susan
Fitzmaurice
A branching path: low vowel lengthening and its
friends in the emerging standard: Roger Lass