Introduction

The subject of the ten articles in this special issue of Language Sciences is thenature and variety of the English language in the eighteenth century. Thecontributors deploy di�erent approaches and methodologies in addressing thetopic, and draw upon a wide variety of texts and genres in order to explore thediversity of the object instead of paying attention solely to literary textsestablished in the eighteenth-century canon. Women's writing, both ®ctional andepistolary, personal memoir and book reviews as well as poetry, grammars, andphilosophical and rhetorical writing ®nd their way into consideration in theseessays. In order to grasp contemporary views of language as well as to seek toexplain particular patterns of language use and change, the contributors trawlcontemporary texts and draw upon modern critical and cultural theory. AlthoughDictionary maker Samuel Johnson, philosopher Hume, Romantic poet andliterary critic Samuel Taylor Coleridge, and poet and wit Lady Mary WortleyMontagu appear, so do lesser-known writers such as novelist Sarah Fielding,James Harris, author of Hermes, and Olaudah Equiano (aka Gustavus Vassa),one of the earliest black writers in eighteenth-century England, as well as theanonymous authors of book reviews.

The work for this collection began at a meeting in September 1995, at StCatharine's College, Cambridge, of a group of scholars interested in the study oflanguage in eighteenth-century England. In universities and in the profession,practitioners and specialists in literature, rhetoric and linguistics do not ordinarilycross disciplinary boundaries but remain intellectually separate and, consequently,unexposed to the ideas and methods of one another, no matter how related orcommon their subject matter, even if they share a department. Thus one of theprincipal purposes of the meeting was to provide an opportunity for historicallinguists and sociolinguists specialising in the study of eighteenth-century Englishvariation and change to exchange ideas with literary critics and historians, andrhetoricians studying the period. It was clear that the linguists had much to gainfrom the historically and culturally grounded perspectives o�ered by literaryhistorians, from the theoretical wealth of literary critical approaches, and from therich descriptive tradition of rhetoric. By the same token, the linguists introducedto their nonlinguist colleagues new technical, analytical tools and a sense oflanguage as a paradoxically malleable yet obstinate system. The conversationbegun at that meeting is re¯ected in the articles in this special issue of LanguageSciences: a sample of the research currently being conducted in eighteenth-century

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English studies by linguists, scholars of rhetoric and cultural studies, and byliterary historians.

Let us survey the historical backdrop to these studies. In the period followingthe so-called Glorious Revolution in 1688, London established itself as the centreof trade and the ®nancial hub for new provincially-based industries. The EnglishNational Debt (1693) and the Bank of England (1694) initiated a credit revolutionand a joint-stock boom. The London Stock Exchange emerged early in thisperiod, generating a new breed of stockjobbers and licensed brokers (Holmes,1993, p. 273). The revolution in public and private ®nance paved the way for thefounding of a lottery and government-sponsored investment schemes. Merchantsand shopkeepers who dealt with goods imported from the Far East and theAmericas were increasingly well-to-do, and socially ambitious with their newwealth. The new professions of journalism, accountancy and stockbrokingencouraged the liberalisation of the education system, providing a home for whatDaniel Defoe called the middling sort. In this social melting pot, diplomats andarmy o�cers rubbed shoulders with architects and playwrights, petty aristocratswith self-made men, churchmen with journalists. London was the centre ofBritain's cultural, intellectual and political life; the city grew dramatically in thecourse of the century, its population rising from 575,000 in 1700 to 900,000 in1801 (Garside, 1990, p. 476). By the end of the century, aristocratic values in citygovernment had been replaced by a bourgeois and plutocratic ethos (Garside, p.481), as London's mercantile and ®nancial bourgeoisie began to dominate anincreasingly open and socially ambiguous polite society. Thus the social andpolitical fabric of London changed dramatically in the course of the century.While London ¯ourished, England's outposts fared less well. England's Unionwith Scotland (1707) left that country with little more than provincial status,despite the fostering of a myth of `Britishness' in which Scotland played asigni®cant role in the new polity (Holmes and Szechi, 1993, p. 215).

Social change was accompanied by change in the ways in which Englishspeakers considered their language. From at least 1755 onward, after thepublication of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary, grammarians, school teachers andrhetoricians became increasingly interested in ®xing and disseminating a model ofwritten English that would be a standard and standard-bearer of the ``best''English language. This interest manifested itself in the proliferation of grammars,spelling books, rhetorics and letter-writing manuals which together constituted anarsenal of teach-yourself materials for the socially, economically and politicallyambitious. The activity suggested by this production never resulted in theestablishment of a formal academy for overseeing the progress of the Englishlanguage although there had been periodic calls for one ever since Daniel Defoesuggested the rehabilitative nature of the linguistic work that an English academyor society might carry out in An Essay upon Projects (1697). Crowley (1996, p.56�) discusses the celebration of English and the academy issue in the context ofideas of the nation's political uncertainty in the eighteenth century. Despite thelack of any formally or o�cially sanctioned body to ensure, according to Johnsonin his Plan of the Dictionary (1747, p. 32), the preservation of the purity of the

Introduction / Language Sciences 22 (2000) 223±229224

English language, there was a fairly explicit set of language-oriented practices andresources which teachers used in the English education of schoolboys belonging toor aspiring to the middling ranks, whether they were destined for trades or for thenew professions (Earle, 1989). Crowley (1996, p. 84) argues that language teachingin the eighteenth century was crucial in terms of `the demarcation of bourgeoissocial space and the linguistic habitus required to in-habit it' and implies that thissocial space is a uni®ed, undi�erentiated thing. In fact, in social historical (ratherthan Bakhtinian theoretical terms) `bourgeois social space' was by no means asuni®ed an entity as the ideology of the inculcation of the `habitus' suggests. Quiteapart from the fact that London's middle state splintered into ranks di�erentiatedin terms of sources of income and type of occupation, the social and politicalrewards that mastery of the habitus brought varied. The social model ofbehaviour was based on a particularly late eighteenth century notion of the`polite' and the `well-bred', and its aim was to secure everyone in his or her place.Politeness, one component of this bourgeois ideology that was signposted byclearly identi®able markers like correct language, was a means to divide furtherthe middle states, to separate out the less from the more genteel merchant andtrading classes. James Raven (1992, p. 140) points out that by contrast with theearly part of the century, `what was so di�erent in the late eighteenth century wasthe fresh de®nition of social awkwardness and the particular consciousness ofinferiority that went with it.' He also notes the `escalation of London-based pleasfor standardized grammar and pronunciation' to meet the demand for educationin politeness and taste, two entirely social concepts (1992, p. 141). In modernsociolinguistic terms, politeness becomes an attribute or feature which the lowermiddle class must acquire if they are to join the group that they yearn to belongto Ð the solid middle middle class. Given a clearly-de®ned set of criteria (via do-it-yourself aids like handbooks of letter writing, manuals of etiquette andpronunciation guides), politeness Ð as embodied in a notion of correctness Ðwas a commodity that could be bought. And one of its most transparent markers,language, was a product that could be marketed.

The proliferation of prescriptive grammars in the second half of the century isone indicator of the ways in which language, speci®cally proper English, wasmarketed. Prescriptive grammars ful®lled the practical task of providing someconcrete means of replacing a classical, liberal education with what John Ash(1760, Preface) calls an English education suited to the needs of a modern, mightytrading nation. In addition, the commercial and undoubted social value of theskills considered essential in this English education, such as penmanship,accounting and geography (Edwards, 1765) made the production of prescriptivegrammars a pro®table and competitive business for members of a professionwhich was not particularly well-paid (Earle, 1989, p. 68; Holmes, 1982, p. 57).There were some highly respectable writers among the most successful producersof grammars, but many were very often `little more than hack compilers or writer-booksellers with a quick appreciation of market potential' (Raven, 1992, p. 153).Many grammars were practical digests of more authoritatively argued andphilosophically based rhetorical and grammatical works, and were carefully

Introduction / Language Sciences 22 (2000) 223±229 225

targeted at a distinct market. Many of their writers were schoolteachers whodesigned their works for their own schools and academies, supplementing thebasic grammars with readers: anthologies of moral writing for the generaleducation and edi®cation of their charges.1 These kinds of texts seemed topromise social advancement, whether they were supposed to help improve theprospects of a socially advantageous marriage for a woman of undistinguishedfamily, or whether they were to help secure a permanent position for a beginningclerk. They also o�ered lower middle class readers a way of distancing themselvesfrom those they considered their immediate social inferiors, by giving them themeans of ascertaining the level of gentility attained. This discrimination wasparticularly salient where the `price of admission to polite society' was economicsuccess (Langford, 1989, p. 121). This brief background makes it clear thatpolitical, economic and social change is intimately connected with and evenre¯ected in the languages and discourses of the diverse groups that make upEnglish-speaking society and of the transmission and publication of thosediscourses in writing, both in the private media of letters and the more publicmarket of print. Against this background, the articles in this volume exploredi�erent aspects of the ways in which language and attitudes to language werere¯ected in rhetorical, literary and linguistic practices in English speaking societiesin the period. They pick up, in di�erent ways, issues of gender, class and ethnicityin the construction and representation of the English language and its speakers.

Although the topic of the volume is language, readers of Language Sciences will®nd here much that is di�erent in approach from the domain of theoreticallinguistics and data that contrast from linguistic empirical study. The work isimportantly multidisciplinary, so that readers will ®nd linguistic pragmatics pairedwith literary history, sociohistorical linguistics paired with literary criticism,rhetoric paired with the history of linguistic thought. At the same time, readerswill discover connections and interactions between what appear super®cially to bedisparate interests and perspectives. The ®rst three articles situate the languageand language attitudes of the period in their historical rhetorical context. CareyMcIntosh examines the classical rhetorical underpinnings of eighteenth-centurylanguage attitudes and usage, illustrating some of the ways in which classicaltenets like decorum, ornament and simplicity of style are treated in the languageof the period, from Dryden and Addison to Samuel Johnson. He also discussesthe ways in which classical rhetoric was reinterpreted by ®gures like Hugh Blairand George Campbell in the so-called `New Rhetoric', and suggests that thesereinterpretations may have contributed to the change in prose style that

1 H. Ward, Schoolmaster at Whitehaven, produced two practical texts for `the use of schools, and for

those gentlemen and ladies who may want the assistance of a master': A short, but clear system of Eng-

lish grammar, with exercises of bad English (1777) and The academic reader (1789). The anthology

advertised itself as `containing miscellanies in prose and verse, selected from the most elegant writers in

the English language. Intended to assist in acquiring the happy talent of graceful reading'. The gram-

mar guarantees elegant speech and correct writing, while the reader ensures the semblance of good

taste.

Introduction / Language Sciences 22 (2000) 223±229226

accompanies the change of attitudes toward language over the period. BryanShort pays close attention to the ®gurative language treated as central in the workof the Scottish rhetoricians and philosophers in the second half of the eighteenthcentury. He argues that they adopt particular ®gures as master tropes; at the sametime as the New Rhetoric attempts to ground tropes in cognition as linguistic, ittreats them as ornamental, as stylistic. Thus `perspicuity' is prescribed as a virtueboth as a way of thinking and as a style of writing. Susan Manning examines thepractices of the Scottish rhetoricians in a di�erent, political, light. She explores theideological and practical in¯uences on the American colonists of the provincial,anxious, normative linguistic practices of the Scottish rhetoricians. She argues thatlike the provincial Scots, early colonial American writers were constrained to learnEnglish and the conventions of English style more rigorously than anyEnglishman, making them on the way, master parodists of the language of thecentre.

The next two articles shift their focus to the ®gure of Samuel Johnson and theconstruction of English as a national language. They explore, in very di�erentways, the relation of Samuel Johnson to the English language and his attitudestowards its diverse speakers. Adam Potkay examines the roots of SamuelJohnson's observation that the language of Scottish philosopher David Hume wasmore French than English. Joseph Priestley's Rudiments of English Grammar,o�ers contemporary evidence and support for this remark about Hume's writingstyle at the same time as acknowledging a debt to Johnson's work. Potkay thenexplores the ways in which Hume's writing is marked by `encroaching gallicisms'in the form of grammatical constructions including his use of relative particles,prepositions and articles. The irony is that despite Johnson's attempts to dam the¯ow of French lexical in¯uence on polite language in the period, his writing di�ersfrom Hume's only in the degree to which his sentences are in¯uenced by Frenchstructure. Despite his reputation as a champion of English as a national language,he is equally subject to continental linguistic in¯uence as his contemporaries. JanetSorensen's essay on Johnson focuses on his attitudes towards and pronouncementson English as an oral language. She examines the ways in which Johnson singlesout Scots and women as alien speakers of the national language. She discussesboth Johnson's criticisms of these speakers and their responses to his linguisticprejudices in terms of the body, and more speci®cally the mouth; she ®gures orallanguage and dialect as oral consumption and expulsion.

The next three articles examine womens' relation to writing, both public andprivate. Carol Percy's essay takes up the stereotypical characterisation ofparticular kinds of talk and writing as feminine in her critical study of the sexingof literary language in the literary reviews of two mid-century periodicals, theMonthly and the Critical Review. She examines the basis for the terms `modest',`easy' and `sprightly' which label styles that suggest identity with women'sconversation and physical presence as she interrogates the cultural anxietiesunderpinning the increasingly clear presence of women in the public market ofprint. Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade approaches the relation between womenand writing in the period from a di�erent, more explicitly linguistic perspective.

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Tieken investigates the roles of politeness and intimacy in the language in theepistolary conduct of two relationships Ð novelist Sarah Fielding'scorrespondence with scholar and friend, James Harris, and her friendship with thenoted so-called blue-stocking, Elizabeth Montagu. She ®nds that Sarah Fieldinguses the male code of `high friendship' marked by courtly-genteel language in herqueries and discussions of learned topics in correspondence with Harris. Bycontrast, she uses terms of a�ection and intimate friendship as well as courtly-genteel language in letters to Elizabeth Montagu. My article also focusses onepistolary writing, also from a linguistic perspective. In my article on thecourtship correspondence of Mary Mary Pierrepont, later Lady Mary WortleyMontagu, and Edward Wortley Montagu, I examine the pragmatic nature ofletters as exchange or correspondence. Using Grice's theory of conversationalmaxims and implicature to inform my analysis, I argue that the correspondenceo�ers a picture of a complicated relationship, whose terms and conditions arerepresented and constructed from two contrasting subjective perspectives.

The last two articles examine the impact of biography on language and identity.Vin Carretta's article on Olaudah Equiano, the ®rst former slave to recount hisexperiences, examines his rhetorical ethos. He explores Equiano's/Vassa'sproduction of a complex textual and pictorial identity in the form of anautobiography which he himself published, advertised and sold. Carrettademonstrates how this identity is based on a double claim Ð Equiano's claim ofAfrican heritage and Vassa's claim to the status of English gentleman Ð anddiscusses the contemporary reception both of the autobiography and of theauthor's entrepreurial practices in making it a bestseller in terms of these claims.The ®nal article in the volume examines writers' lives and relationships in order toinvestigate the impact of social networks on their language. Lynda Pratt andDavid Denison study the social circle of Robert Southey and his fellow Romanticpoets as a possible conduit for the emergence in public discourse of the passiveprogressive construction (`was being shaved'). Pratt focuses on the nature of thefriendships which characterise this social circle and the texts in which they arere¯ected, and Denison traces the linguistic development of the construction.

While each article stands on its own as a signal contribution to theunderstanding of the language of the time, each will usefully be read inconjunction with certain of the other articles. All the essays share the concern tocharacterise contemporary attitudes towards linguistic variety and uniformity inwriting and speech in the period, and to cast critical and historical light on theseattitudes. In an important sense, these articles contribute to our understanding ofthe social history of ideas and more narrowly, linguistic thought.

References

Ash, J., 1760. Grammatical Institutes; or Grammar, Adapted to the Genius of the English Tongue.

Worcester.

Crowley, T., 1996. Language in History: Theories and Texts. Routledge, London.

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Defoe, D., 1697 [1969]. An Essay upon Projects. Scolar Press, Menston.

Earle, P., 1989. The Making of the English Middle Class: Business, Society and Family Life in London,

1660±1730. University of California Press, Berkeley.

Edwards, S., 1765. An Abstract of English Grammar, Including Rhetoric and Pronunciation. Dublin.

Garside, P.L., 1990. London and the Home Counties. In: Thompson, F.M.L. (Ed.), The Cambridge

Social History of Britain 1750±1950. Vol. 1: Regions and Communities. Cambridge University

Press, Cambridge.

Holmes, G., 1982. Augustan England: Professions, State and Society 1680±1730. Allen & Unwin,

London.

Holmes, G., 1993. The Making of a Great Power: Late Stuart and early Georgian Britain 1660±1722.

Longman, London.

Holmes, G., Szechi, D., 1993. The Age of Oligarchy: Pre-industrial Britain 1722±1783. Longman,

London.

Johnson, S., 1747. The Plan of a Dictionary of the English Language. London. (Reprinted 1974.

English Linguistics 1500±1800, No. 223, Scolar Press. Menston).

Langford, P., 1989. A Polite and Commercial People: England 1727±1783. Clarendon Press, Oxford.

Raven, J., 1992. Judging New Wealth: Popular Publishing and Responses to Commerce in England,

1750±1800. Oxford University Press, Oxford.

Susan FitzmauriceEnglish Department, Box 6032,Northern Arizona University,

Flagsta�, AZ 86011-6032, USA

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