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The Bishop's Grammar
Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism
Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
358 pages
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Figures
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234x156mm
978-0-19-957927-3
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Hardback
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25 November 2010
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This item is printed to order. Items which are printed to order are normally despatched and charged within 5-10 days.
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- Definitevely dispels the myth of Lowth as the icon of prescriptivism
- An in-depth account of the author of the most important eighteenth-century English grammar
- Gives the publication history of Lowth's grammar and shows how it was plagiarized by later grammarians
- The primary basis of the book is an unpublished collection of Lowth's correspondence
- 2010 is the three hundredth anniversary of the birth of Robert Lowth
- Lowth was Professor of Poetry at the University of Oxford 1741-51 and Bishop of Oxford 1766-77 and London 1777-87
- Lowth's doctoral dissertation, De Sacra Poesie Hebraeorum Praelectiones, was published in 1753 by the Clarendon Press
This spirited account of the life and times of one of the seminal figures in history of English
grammar dispels the myth of Lowth as the icon of prescriptivism, and establishes him as the most important figure in eighteenth-century English grammar.
Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade reexamines the life and work of Robert Lowth (1710-1787), founder of the grammatical prescriptivism so deprecated by modern linguists and educational theorists. She considers Lowth and his grammar in the context of his times and from the perspective of his aims and readership. She shows
that, once the grammar had been accepted for publication, it developed into a publishers' project similar to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language to which it was intended as a complement. Professor Tieken draws on contemporary sources, including Lowth's extensive correspondence and unpublished memoir, to explore the social networks, aspirations, beliefs, and reading habits that informed and shaped his grammar and ideas on language. (She notes that Lowth's own language often falls short of the norms and strictures advanced in his book.) By comparing the grammar - in particular the problems of usage dealt with in its sections on syntax - with guides from the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, she redefines Lowth's seminal position in the history of handbooks for correct
usage, as well as his role in the establishment of the canon of prescriptivism.
This book will appeal to all those interested in the history of English, the role of language in the Enlightenment, and the long-running debate on linguistic correctness and the merits or otherwise of prescriptive rules in the teaching and use of English.
Readership: Given the widespread current prejudices about Lowth and his grammar this book is likely to arouse passionate arguments for and against his ideas. Professor Geoffrey Pullum (Edinburgh) and John Humphries would be pro and Professor David Crystal and Melvin Bragg likely to be anti. The book will appeal to scholars and students of the history
of English and linguistic historiography and to all those interested in questions of linguistic correctness.
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Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade, English Department, University of Leiden
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"Tieken's great virtue is paying attention to what Lowth actually wrote, both for publication and for private circulation. rather than depending on the caricatures. She has discovered a writer on language who was uncommonly sensitive to different degrees of formality ... The Bishop's Grammar is not the last word on Lowth but, if we're lucky, it will reduce the amount of foolishness attributed to "the eighteenth-century grammarians" by those who haven't bothered to read them." - Jack Lynch, Times Literary Supplement "This is a key book for any scholar working on grammatical norms of the English language, and/or the codification and standardisation of English. Tieken-Boon van Ostade provides an alternative account to the standard
depiction of Robert Lowth as an initiator of prespective grammar... it would be of great interest to a range of scholars, from those working on the nuances of eighteenth century grammar, to those looking at modern usage, and more broadly at the codification and standardisation of languages. Tieken-Boon van Ostade presents her argument well throughout the text, and it is clear that she is a stalwart defender of Lowth's name." - Laura Paterson The Linguist
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1: Prejudice and Misconceptions
2: Life and Career
3: The Grammar: Origin and Publication History
4: The Grammar: Contents and Approach
5: Reconstructing Lowth's Social Network
6: Communicative Competence and the Language of the Letters
7: Lowth's Own Usage and the Grammar's Norm of Correctness
8: The Grammar and the Rise of prescriptivism
9: Conclusion
References
Index
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The specification in this catalogue, including without limitation price, format, extent, number of illustrations, and month of publication, was as accurate as possible at the time the catalogue was compiled. Occasionally, due to the nature of some contractual restrictions, we are unable to ship a specific product to a particular territory. Jacket images are provisional and liable to change before publication.
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