Grammar wars : language as cultural battlefield in 17th and 18th century England
"Although 17th- and 18-century English language theorists claimed to be correcting errors in grammar and preserving the language from corruption, this new study demonstrates how grammar served as an important cultural battlefield where social issues were contested. In Grammar Wars, author Linda C. Mitchell situates early modern linguistic discussions, long thought to be of little interest, in their larger cultural and social setting to show the startling degree to which grammar affected, and was affected by, such factors as class and gender."
History
viii, 218 pages : illustrations ; 23 cm
9780754602729, 0754602729
47756187
Vernacular claims victory: English and Latin models; inversion of linguistic authority. "Reformation of Schooles" - Hartlib, Comenius, Milton: architectural methaphor; Comenius and Hartlib: reception of Comenius's ideas; less grammar, more reading and writing. The battle - good grammar or good writing: putting grammar to work; rhetoric subsumes grammar - grammar texts as rhetoric handbooks; grammar texts and composition in the schoolroom. Repairing Babel - battles in universal language and universal grammar: language acquisition - Descartes and Locke; universal schemes in 17th-century England; universal language in 18th century England. Regulating social position: grammar for foreigners - a moral and national identity; grammar for the "weaker sex" - how much is morally appropriate?; self-generated identity - the middle class and the birth of the "language police".