Robert Lowth's Grammar

http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126709.html


Compiled a grammar book for growing middle class for guidance on how to use 'polite' or 'correct' English
Re-issued around 45 times between 1762 and 1800
Most influential of all grammar books
It included a list of irregular verbs including forms of the past tense and past participle(no longer in use)
Break, brake, or broken, broken
Help, [helped] holpen
Get, gat, or got, gotten ('to get')

Standardisation of the English language

https://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/e-magazine/articles/14693






'Sir Thomas Elyot (1538) or Robert Cawdrey (1604) who sought to gather up the 'hard English wordes' :

•  'parentate: to celebrate one's parents' funeral'.
•  'magnitude: greatness'

'Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755) is often regarded as the first 'authoritative' treatment of the English lexicon'

 

• 'OATS. n.s. (a_en, Saxon) A grain, which in England is given to horses, but in Scotland supports the people. (Scottish people are poor)'
• imposed a lot of his personality into how he defined particular words
• took just over 8 years to complete
• List of over 40,000 words
• 6 helpers

'The story of the first Oxford English Dictionary'

• 'first suggested by the Philological Society in 1857 is a truly paradigmatic one. Five years into a proposed ten-year project the editors had reached 'ant' and the massive twelve-volume dictionary was not finally published until 1928. 'by 1933 another team were hard at work keeping the dictionary 'current'
• Existing dictionaries were incomplete and deficient
• called for a complete re- examination of the language from Anglo-Saxon times 
• 6400 pages including language from the Early Middle English period

 Hyper dictionary

• 'It is likely in our Internet generation you will have encountered many new initialisations and acronyms, such as LOL and LMAO but have you seen ROTFLMAOSTC (Rolling On The Floor Laughing My Ass Off Scaring The Cat)? AFAIK (As far as I know) this can happen A3 (Anywhere, anytime, anyplace) but probably not when PRW (parents are watching). There are several online dictionaries trying to keep pace with these changes, such as www.hyperdictionary.com.'

Summary

• Rise of prescriptive attitudes with the creation of dictionaries and grammar books (correct or incorrect)
• Allowed for standardisation
• Rise in the power of people who were prescriptive and had authority over language
• Increase of the need to use 'proper' English - seem more upper class
• Technology has a huge impact upon language e.g. Waterstones - cannot use an apostrophe in a URL

Amelia E-mail essay (in progress)

• How are meanings and representations made (in context)?
• How is Cambodia represented
• How does Amelia represent her state of mind?
• How does she convey her attitude?

Amelia constantly uses language to reassure the audiences that she is fine. On various occasions she will follow up a negative experience with positive one with the use of discourse markers such as 'but' and 'anyway'. For example, 'so we were literally nearly falling off the back of this truck...but because i'm a lady i got to sit at the front' and 'anyway now that we're here its amazing'. We could suggest that  these are used as the recipients, particularly her mum are likely to be worried about Amelia travelling to a foreign country. Amelia is likely to be aware of this so she aims to convince them that despite these negative representations of Cambodia, she is doing okay.