1
The Doctrine of Correctness How
usage determined the standard

• Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
• HS Standardization of the English Language
• Anglistisches Institut Prof. Dr. Busse
• WS 2005/06 - 3.2.2006
• Referent Daniel Brinckmann

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• Without understanding the grammar of your own
  language, you can never hope to become fit for
  anything beyond mere trade or agriculture.
• taken from Advice to Young Man and
  (incidentally) to Young Women (1830)
• - by William Cobbett
• Ploughman and gardener, soldier,
• farmer, self-taught tutor, clerk and journalist,
  
• newspaper-proprietor and MP

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18th Century England

• Industrialization ? rural change, sustained
  migration
• Birth hour of large-scale industry and
  mass-production
• Urbanization,, establishment of
  product-consumer-relations and markets?
  inspired by Adam Smith,
  fueled by trade with products
  from the colonies
• towns grow to dense centres of economy
• - growing demand for literacy, establishment of
  new professions
• - centres of education, culture and
  information
• e.g. London, Birmingham, Oxford
• laws forced parents to send children to schools
• Rising middle class
• Introduction of the press (news media)

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The distribution of newspapers

• 1701 first local newspaper, the weekly Norwich
  Post
• by 1760 130(!) papers inaugurated
• Copies were read aloud in public (e.g.
  ale-houses) ? illiterates

5
Literacy among adult males ()
Approx. 1 school / 750 pupils
According to Corfield (1982), the figures are
based on marriage-register signatures
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How literacy changed a nation

• The PROPER USE of language is still an indication
  for a distinctive social class, BUT general
  LITERACY is no longer a privilege of the wealthy
  (cp. sunday schools)
• language prevents you from being the willing
  slave of the rich (William Cobbett in Advice
  to a Youth)
• Lingustic skillfulness now offers the ascent on
  the social ladder (cp. William Cobbett)
• ? abilities can determine position in society
• Over the decades, speaking and writing (standard)
  English becomes an essential
  qualification

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The social effects of growing literacy

• Proper use of language is a weapon of
  empowerment gives you a real and
  practical superiority over the far greater part
  of men
• William Cobbett (1830)
• ? Growing awareness of social injustice and
  government corruption in public
• ? self-determination by literacy and language
  came to be cornerstones of a new matured society
• Tyranny has no enemy so formidable as the pen
• Thomas Spence (1823)

8
George Campbell
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Language is determined by its use (descriptive
linguistics, as presented by Campbell)

• Language is the only vehicle to produce a
  certain effect upon the minds of others
• Language and its use is revealed as being a
  species of fashion (forever-changing)
• Grammar a collection of general observations
  digested ...,
• comprising all the modes previously and
  independently established, by which the
  significations, derivations, and combination
  words ... are ascertained.
• Exceptions from the rules stand on the same
  basis as the rules
• Grammar originates in the use that prevailed over
  the time.

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Dimensions of language use
according to Campbell (1776)

• Reputable use is the way, the great and rich
  speak, as they are wiser and more knowing (they
  are not forced to spend their whole lives
  working)
• National use is choice on top, as opposed by
  provincial and foreign use ? distribution is
  another criteria for evaluation of a standard
• Present use should be the standard of the
  present language
• 
  
  Introduction of discourse theory (detecting
  individual world fields)
• ? Matters of science, history, romance,
  travels, moral essays, familiar letters, whose
  terms from the nature of things ... are not
  within the reach of the ordinary reader.
• ? less currency (worth) than the language
  understood by anyone

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Emergence of a language standard according to
Campbell (1776)

• present, reputable, national use
• is superior to
• provincial, vulgar or scientific use
• Nevertheless, what passes his test is what
  suits his own taste...
• The use of language made in newspapers,
  magazines, trade, schools universities
  contributed to a fixed standard
• Effort to unite the British nation and the Empire
  under the banner of a uniform standard

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Universal grammar for anyone

• The Doctrine of Correctness was devised by and
  for the rising middle-classes (Leonard 1929)
• ? Campbells The Philosophy of Rhetoric
  (1776) tells of barbarisms still associated with
  the vulgar
• Thomas Spence and William Cobbett, as they were
  autodidacts themselves, wrote their grammars for
  the laborious part of the people

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The Doctrine of Correctness
Result of the long-time-quarrel between
prescriptive grammars and descriptive
linguistics e.g., why judgment is correct
while judgement is wrong?

• prescription
• there must be only one right form, one right
  answer and one right usage...
• Anything else leads to further degradation and
  contamination with the language of the vulgar

• description
• Favours D.o.Appropriateness,
• more than just one solution
• Better or worse usage determines itself by
  individual choice with regard to the context
• Different forms have different functions

? links correct grammar to propriety and
? serves diversity in language paved morality,
mere descriptive rules would permit a
the way for modern linguistics

standard and even result in a chaotic language
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Bibliography

• Leonard, Sterling A. The Doctrine of
  Correctness in English Usage, 1700-1800,
  Madison, 1929
• A Brief History of English Usage in Websters
  Dictionary of English Usage, Merriam-Webster
  Inc. Publishers, 1989
• Cobbett, William Advice to Young Men (and
  incidentally) to young Women, Oxford
  University Press, 1980. Originally published in
  book form in 1830.
• Sambrook, James William Cobbett, Routhledge
  Megan Paul, 1973
• Duff, Gerald Letters of William Cobett,
  Institut f. Englische Sprache und Literatur,
  Universität Salzburg, 1974
• Douglas, David C. English Historical Documents
  XI - 1783-1832, Eyre
  Spottiswoode, 1971
• Corfield, Penelope J. The Impact of English
  Towns 1700-1800,
  Oxford University Press, 1982
• Campbell, George The Philosophy of Rhetoric,
  Harper Brothers, 1873
• www.bartleby.com/68/20/1520.html
• www.bedfordstmartins.com/bb/comp8.html