English in Modern Times

Joan C Beal

• Publisher: Routledge
• Year: 2014
• ISBN:
  9781134664092
• Edition: 1
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

English in Modern Times describes the development of the English language from 1700 until 1945, and argues that it is in the course of this later modern English period that the characteristics of 'modern' English evolved. This is the first undergraduate text to cover the whole of this important period, which has been called the 'Cinderella' of English historical linguistics because of its lack of representation in scholarly literature.This book is sociohistorical in orientation, arguing that social changes in the Anglophone world need to be taken into account if we are to understand the linguistic changes that occurred during this period. Further chapters deal with changes in vocabulary, syntax and morphology and phonology and with the attempts of lexicographers, grammarians and elocutionists to arrest and control these changes by codifying the language. Unlike many earlier histories of English, 'English in Modern Times' does not define 'English' as confined to Standard (English) English, but also considers the development of extraterritorial Englishes and non-standard varieties of British English in the Later Modern period.

1
Modern English and modern times

1.1 Introduction: Defining ‘modern times’

‘Modern times’ in this book are defined as the years from the beginning of the eighteenth century through to the end of World War II. This more or less coincides with the period generally referred to in more recent histories of English (e.g. Blake, 1996) as ‘Later Modern English’. Dates are always contentious in histories of English, and the boundaries of ‘Modern’ and ‘Later Modern’ English have long been, and are still, a matter of debate. In this chapter, I intend to demonstrate that the period covered is one in which the characteristics of both ‘Modern’ English and the modern world evolve.

The term ‘Modern English’ with reference to a historical period seems to have been coined by Sweet in a lecture delivered to the Philological Society in 1873 and published in the society’s Transactions for 1873–4: ‘I propose … to start with the three main divisions of Old, Middle and Modern, based mainly on the inflectional characteristics of each stage’ (1873–4: 620). Since Sweet defined ‘Modern English’ as the period of lost inflections, there would be no need in his view for any further subdivision of this period, since the only inflection lost after the seventeenth century is the second-person singular -st. Writing at the beginning of the twentieth century, Wyld proposes a modification of Sweet’s threefold division, with Early Modern English ‘from 1400 or so to the middle of the sixteenth century’ and ‘Present-day English’ from the beginning of the eighteenth century to the time of writing (1920). Wyld is fairly typical of writers from the first half of the twentieth century in viewing the period from 1700 to what for them was ‘the present’ as coherent. Poutsma is perhaps the first to use the designation ‘Late Modern English’ in his title, but it is clear that he intends this work to be an account of the synchronic grammar of his own day: ‘a methodical description of the English Language as it presents itself in the printed documents of the last few generations’ (1914: viii). Even today, many would agree with McArthur (1992: xx) who, in his entry for ‘Modern English’, defines ‘Late/Later Modern English’ as stretching from 1700 to the present day.

Of course, it would be foolish to suggest that any such period could be homogeneous or that the boundaries would not be fuzzy. The starting-point of 1700 is particularly arbitrary, especially since, as Schlauch (1959: 122–5), Blake (1996: 4–5) and Bailey (2003: 22) suggest, the obvious political turning-point which might mark the Early/Late Modern English boundary is the restoration of the monarchy in 1660. This coincides with the view of historians that the ‘long’ eighteenth century extends roughly from the restoration of the English monarchy (1660) to the fall of Napoleon (1815). On the other hand, the ‘long’ nineteenth-century in European history is generally acknowledged as beginning with what Schlauch calls ‘the great bourgeois French Revolution’ of 1789 (1959: 122) and concluding with the end of World War I in 1918 (see, for instance, Blackbourne, 1998). So the period covered by this volume would be recognized by historians as coinciding with the ‘long’ eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The questions to be addressed in this chapter are: what are the social, political and intellectual ‘movements’ which define the ‘later modern’ period in British history, and how do these affect the development of ‘Later Modern English’?

1.2 Politics

We have already noted that the beginning of our period is marked by the Restoration (1660). The word ‘restoration’ is something of a misnomer here because, whilst the accession of Charles II marked the return of the monarchy after Cromwell’s Commonwealth, the monarch was never again to enjoy the power or autonomy wielded by his predecessors. Charles II had been invited to return by parliament, and the so-called ‘Glorious Revolution’ of 1688 was to usher in the system of constitutional monarchy that still exists in Britain today. The Bill of Rights (1689) removed the right of the monarch to raise taxes or suspend laws without the consent of parliament: the days of divine right were over and, as Porter (2000) acknowledges, England gained the reputation of being a ‘free nation’. We might characterize the later modern period in England, and later Britain, as an age of increasing democratization, starting with the ‘Glorious Revolution’, continuing with the Reform Acts of 1832, 1867 and 1884, and culminating in the granting of universal male and female suffrage in 1918 and 1928, respectively. Whilst Britain remains a constitutional monarchy, in the year of writing, that of Queen Elizabeth II’s golden jubilee, republicanism is a growing force in several Commonwealth countries (most notably Australia) and even in Britain.

1.3 Science

As well as marking the date of the Restoration, 1660 also saw the foundation of the Royal Society, promoting scientific and rational discourse. The publication of Newton’s Principia in 1687 is seen by many (e.g. Porter, 2000; Lass, 1996) as marking the dawn of the Enlightenment in England. This period was one in which faith was no longer solely placed in an omnipotent God, but in humanity’s capacity for rational thinking. This did not mean that religion was abandoned, but, just as belief in divine right had been replaced by the constitutional monarchy, so belief in God was tempered by faith in science and reason. Newton’s role in this was acknowledged by his contemporaries: his Opticks (1704) explained the principles of light itself. Alexander Pope equates this great scientist symbolically with the Enlightenment and with the Creator himself: ‘Nature, and Nature’s Laws, lay hid in Night: God said, Let Newton be! And All was Light’ (1720, in Butt, 1965: 808). Porter points out that ‘the affinities between the Newtonian cosmos and the post-1688 polity were played up’. He notes that J. T. Desaguliers, in The Newtonian System of the World: The Best Model of Government, an allegorical Poem, describes God as ‘a kind of constitutional monarch’: ‘His Pow’r, coerc’d by Laws, still leaves them free / Directs, but not Destroys their Liberty’(1728, quoted in Porter, 2000: 137). Newton’s Opticks and other scientific treatises by the Royal Society’s members paved the way for the technological innovations of the Industrial Revolution in the later eighteenth century. Wedgewood installed the first steam engine in his factory in 1782 and the power loom followed in 1785, heralding a mechanization of labour which would transform the lives of working men and women and make the fortunes of the new plutocracy. In the nineteenth century, the advance of science was so rapid that this period was termed ‘the wonderful century’ by Wallace in his eponymous work of 1898. As we shall see in Chapter 2, new words were coined at a rate not seen since the sixteenth century, largely to provide names for the discoveries being made every day in a wide range of scientific fields. Victorian Britons saw their time as ‘wonderful’, because many of these discoveries and innovations brought genuine improvements to their quality of life. In the medical field, the introduction of vaccination (1776), the stethoscope (1816) and anaesthesia in surgery (1842) vastly improved chances of survival, whilst other inventions such as gas (1792), and, later, electric (1879) lighting, improved the quality of that life. Of course scientific progress in all these fields continued, indeed accelerated, in the twentieth century, but towards the end of our period, doubts are expressed about the value of ‘progress’. Even at the end of the nineteenth century, these misgivings are expressed by Wells in works such as A Story of the Days to Come (1897) and When the Sleeper Wakes (1899). In the early twentieth century, the ‘progress’ celebrated in Haldane’s Daedalus (1924) is questioned by Russell’s Icarus, or The Future of Science (1924), and in dystopian literature such as Huxley’s Brave New World (1932) and Orwell’s 1984 (1949). The ultimate proof that progress is a two-edged sword was, of course, provided on 6 August 1945, when the first atomic bomb wiped out the city of Hiroshima. The nuclear age, and the Cold War which followed World War II, brought fears that the ingenuity of human beings might cause their destruction. Although scientific progress continues unabated throughout the second half of the twentieth century and into the twenty-first, the value of this ‘progress’ is questioned by many. The anti-nuclear movement began with the Campaign for Nuclear Disarmament’s first march in 1956, and, whilst the collapse of the Soviet empire has diminished the perceived threat of nuclear war, distrust of science continues to be expressed. At the time of writing, the advances made by Pasteur are being spurned by parents throughout the developed world, who treat vaccination with fear and the medical profession with suspicion. In this post-scientific age, educated and affluent people turn to alternative practitioners, some of whom combine modern technology, such as websites, with the pre-Enlightenment physiology of humours. An example of this can be found in the Observer Magazine, 14 April 2002. In response to a reader who fears that her forgetfulness might be a symptom of Alzheimer’s disease, the ‘Barefoot Doctor’ writes:

At the deepest of levels, there seems to be a confusion between the elements of fire and water and earth. This relates to your heart, kidney and spleen, and does not indicate a possibility of Alzheimer’s, the very thought/fear of which is indicative of this imbalance.

So, with regard to science and popular views of science, the period covered by this book begins with the optimism of the Enlightenment, when the medieval world-view was discarded, continues with the Victorian age of ‘progress’ and ends with the scepticism of the post-war era.

1.4 Society

Just as the later modern period exchanges divine right for constitutional monarchy and faith in God for faith in human reason, so power in British society shifts from those who held it by privilege of birth to those who had gained influence through wealth. The Industrial Revolution brought prosperity for self-taught, self-made men, some of whom actually rose to the peerage. Examples of such men are the engineer William (later Lord) Armstrong in Newcastle, and Lever (later Viscount Leverhulme), the soap manufacturer from Bolton, Lancashire, who founded the model village of Port Sunlight on the Wirral.

Whilst eighteenth-century novels are full of expressions of disdain towards those ‘in trade’, by the end of the nineteenth century, the aristocracy of Britain had become a plutocracy. Even so, ‘new money’ was no guarantee of class, but money could buy access to the public schools which were the breeding ground for Received Pronunciation (RP), that peculiarly English sociolect which reached the zenith of its importance in the early twentieth century.

Moving down the social scale, to the upper middle class, the nineteenth century saw the rise of new professions, such as engineering. The new professional class was educated in new universities established to teach a more scientific curriculum. The first of these was Durham, established in 1832, followed by London (1836), Manchester (1851), Birmingham (1874) and Liverpool (1881). It was no coincidence that most of these new ‘red-brick’ universities were in the same provincial cities that had been the engine-rooms of the Industrial Revolution.

These provincial towns and cities had a tradition of practical education reaching back to the eighteenth century, when the dissenting academies in medium-sized towns such as Warrington, Gloucester, Northampton and Hinckley provided a more scientific curriculum for the sons of tradesmen and artisans. The emphasis here was on reading and writing in English rather than Latin, together with arithmetic, geography and science. Teachers at these academies included men like Joseph Priestley, who, as well as conducting the scientific experiments for which he is best known, produced his Rudiments of English Grammar (1761) whilst teaching at the Warrington Academy. The lower middle class was to expand in the nineteenth century, when the increase in trade and commerce created clerical and service jobs for both men and women. The introduction of universal elementary education in 1870 meant that these people had the required skills in writing and arithmetic. As well as being moderately educated, members of this class were required to be ‘respectable’ in dress, manners and speech. They created a demand for ‘penny manuals’ which distilled the proscriptions of eighteenth-century grammarians and elocutionists into brief lists of ‘dos and don’ts’. (See Mugglestone, 1995 for a full discussion of these manuals.)

The lower classes were increasingly engaged in industrial rather than agricultural labour. The later nineteenth century saw the emergence of an urban working class which was politicized through organized labour movements, such as the Trades Union Congress, formed in 1868, and the Labour Party, formed in 1900. This working-class consciousness also led to an appreciation of the newly emerging urban dialects, whose ‘covert prestige’ acted as a counterbalance to the influence of RP. In music halls and mechanics’ institutes, entertainers such as George ‘Geordie’ Ridley and Tommy Armstrong sang songs written in dialect, some of which were to become anthems of local and class identity. An example of this is Ridley’s The Blaydon Races, which was sung by soldiers from the north-east of England in the trenches of World War I, and is still heard today from fans of Newcastle United Football Club (see Beal, 2000 for further discussion of this).

1.5 Urbanization

We have already noted that the scientific advances of the eighteenth century had profound effects on the lives of both working people and the plutocrats who became their employers. Britain from the mid-eighteenth century was the first country to embark upon the Industrial Revolution and it continued to benefit from this head start. By the middle of the nineteenth century Britain had become the first country in which the urban population outnumbered the rural population.

Before 1750 only London had a sizeable population: other urban centres were mere market towns, the largest of which was Norwich. By 1801, there were seven cities in Britain with a population of more than 50,000: London (1.1m), Edinburgh, Glasgow, Birmingham, Manchester, Liverpool and Bristol. By 1851 there were other sizeable towns clustered around the cities, especially in Lancashire and Yorkshire where towns such as Burnley, Huddersfield and Halifax and cities such as Bradford grew up to serve the textile industries. Other twenty-first-century cities such as Sheffield, Newcastle, Sunderland and the major towns and cities of South Wales grew in the later nineteenth century to service the steel, coal and shipbuilding industries. This process of urbanization was complete by the early twentieth century: by 1911, 80 per cent of the population of Britain lived in towns. After 1945 this movement from rural to urban areas levelled off, with subsequent movement between urban areas, from ‘inner city’ to suburb or ‘new town’. More recently, the trend is for more affluent citizens to seek a better lifestyle in small villages, but rather than repopulating the countryside this has only led to more out-migration from working-class ‘natives’ forced out by rising house prices and lack of employment in ‘desirable’ areas.

1.6 Transport and communications

Of course workers could move from rural areas to the newly emerging towns of the Industrial Revolution because of the dramatic improvements that had taken place in both the means of transport and the routes by which they could travel. Between the 1730s and the 1780s, the Turnpike Trusts would provide more and better roads, cutting journey times dramatically. For instance, the journey from York to London was reduced from three days to one. This meant that travel could become a leisure pursuit, at least for the moderately wealthy. Eighteenth- and nineteenth-century literature contains many accounts of such journeys, such as Elizabeth Bennett’s trip to Derbyshire in Pride and Prejudice. The travelogue is an important literary genre of this period, examples being Celia Fiennes’ accounts of her travels through England and Scotland in the 1690s, Defoe’s A Tour Thro’ the Whole Island of Great Britain (1724–7), Johnson’s Journey to the Western Isles of Scotland (1755) and Cobbett’s Rural Rides (1830). These journeys were made by carriage, but later inventions were to improve the means of transport, particularly in and between urban centres. Trams, first used in 1881, improved access between cities and the suburbs which housed the middle classes. The automobile was invented in 1885, and patented in 1886, but was not generally available until 1908, when the Model T Ford was designed for mass ownership. Production in Britain lagged behind that in the USA and France, but after World War I cars became more affordable, although it was not until the last quarter of the twentieth century that car ownership in Britain became viewed as a necessity. Automotive transport did become the norm, though, with lorries and buses used for cargo and passengers respectively. In Britain, expansion and improvement of the road system continued with trunk roads (‘A’ roads) built from the 1930s, to be superseded by motorways from 1959. As was the case with scientific advances, the later twentieth century, at least in Britain, saw people questioning the value of this expansion. Concerns about pollution and the destruction of wildlife habitats led to the protests of the 1990s, and, at the time of writ...

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half Title
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of Figures
• Preface
• Acknowledgements
• 1 Modern English and modern times
• 2 The vocabulary of Later Modern English
• 3 Recording and regulating the lexicon: dictionaries from Dr Johnson to the Oxford English Dictionary
• 4 Syntactic change in Later Modern English
• 5 Grammars and grammarians
• 6 Phonological change in Later Modern English
• 7 Defining the standard of pronunciation: pronouncing dictionaries and the rise of RP
• 8 Beyond standard English: varieties of English in the later modern period
• References
• Index