James Buchanan’s use of Anne Fisher’s A new grammar: Towards the development of an English grammar teaching method in eighteenth-century English grammar writing
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Vera Willems
Abstract
In light of the question how the eighteenth-century English grammar writing tradition contributed to the development of Standard English, this article attempts to answer the question to what extent the grammarian James Buchanan made use of Anne Fisher’s grammar in writing his own. While Buchanan admitted that he consulted the works of other grammarians, he did not reveal which he used. It is argued that Buchanan drew on Fisher’s grammar for his focus on English concord, and for the inclusion of example sentences of false syntax and of exercises on bad English. However, the differences in layout and the subjects discussed in the example sentences and exercises are such that the similarities can be said to fall within the remit of acceptable eighteenth-century authorship and that they do not seem evidence of an attempt to plagiarise. On the contrary, Buchanan’s reliance on Fisher’s grammar can best be understood as a concern with the didactics of English grammar rather than with the actual language norms purported by Fisher – though some features seem inspired by her. As such, Buchanan’s use of Fisher’s grammar can be seen as an attempt to further the development of an English grammar teaching method within the discourse community of the eighteenth-century grammarians.
Acknowledgements
This article is based on a paper that I wrote for a course that I took for my MPhil degree in Linguistics at Leiden University, the Netherlands. I especially wish to thank Ingrid-Tieken Boon van Ostade for her helpful comments on earlier drafts of the article. In addition, I thank the anonymous referees for their useful remarks.
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Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- When natives became Africans: A historical sociolinguistic study of semantic change in colonial discourse
- Koine formation in context
- Historical sociolinguistics in colonial New Guinea: The Rhenish mission society in the Astrolabe Bay
- James Buchanan’s use of Anne Fisher’s A new grammar: Towards the development of an English grammar teaching method in eighteenth-century English grammar writing
- Book Reviews
- Nicola, McLelland: German through English Eyes. A History of Language Teaching and Learning in Britain 1500–2000
- Wilcken, Viola: Historische Umgangssprachen zwischen Sprachwirklichkeit und literarischer Gestaltung. Formen, Funktionen und Entwicklungslinien des ‚Missingsch
- Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion & André Lapierre: Linguistic variation: Confronting fact and theory
- Villa, Laura & Rik Vosters: The Historical sociolinguistics of spelling
Artikel in diesem Heft
- Frontmatter
- Research Articles
- When natives became Africans: A historical sociolinguistic study of semantic change in colonial discourse
- Koine formation in context
- Historical sociolinguistics in colonial New Guinea: The Rhenish mission society in the Astrolabe Bay
- James Buchanan’s use of Anne Fisher’s A new grammar: Towards the development of an English grammar teaching method in eighteenth-century English grammar writing
- Book Reviews
- Nicola, McLelland: German through English Eyes. A History of Language Teaching and Learning in Britain 1500–2000
- Wilcken, Viola: Historische Umgangssprachen zwischen Sprachwirklichkeit und literarischer Gestaltung. Formen, Funktionen und Entwicklungslinien des ‚Missingsch
- Rena Torres Cacoullos, Nathalie Dion & André Lapierre: Linguistic variation: Confronting fact and theory
- Villa, Laura & Rik Vosters: The Historical sociolinguistics of spelling
