The “wants” of women: Lexicography and pedagogy in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury dictionaries*
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Rebecca Shapiro
Abstract
Often early English dictionaries were pedagogical tools and introduced loan words to native speakers; language instruction was “grammar translation” for teaching Classical languages; indeed, English dictionaries often used Classical dictionaries as sources. Students of Classical languages translated texts from one language word-for-word into another to read or write literature or scripture, committing them to memory-but not to speak or otherwise use another language. Academics believed that the classroom was of a higher intellectual order than the marketplace or the home. Dictionaries, though, encouraged practical methods and assumed readers to be active, eager learners. Several considered women their primary audience: Cawdrey (1604), Dunton (1694), and Piozzi (1794) assert that not only were they writing for women, but the approach to the subtleties of English was what mothers would appreciate. Texts targeting women were important in early lexicography and were resources for connecting language acquisition and pedagogy. While many dictionaries focused on lexicography as a nationalist concern in the absence of an Academy, dictionaries for women empowered the home; the rise of the middle class enabled women to acquire greater literacy and therefore they were natural targets in the burgeoning field of linguistics and lexicography as readers and “users.”
Abstract
Often early English dictionaries were pedagogical tools and introduced loan words to native speakers; language instruction was “grammar translation” for teaching Classical languages; indeed, English dictionaries often used Classical dictionaries as sources. Students of Classical languages translated texts from one language word-for-word into another to read or write literature or scripture, committing them to memory-but not to speak or otherwise use another language. Academics believed that the classroom was of a higher intellectual order than the marketplace or the home. Dictionaries, though, encouraged practical methods and assumed readers to be active, eager learners. Several considered women their primary audience: Cawdrey (1604), Dunton (1694), and Piozzi (1794) assert that not only were they writing for women, but the approach to the subtleties of English was what mothers would appreciate. Texts targeting women were important in early lexicography and were resources for connecting language acquisition and pedagogy. While many dictionaries focused on lexicography as a nationalist concern in the absence of an Academy, dictionaries for women empowered the home; the rise of the middle class enabled women to acquire greater literacy and therefore they were natural targets in the burgeoning field of linguistics and lexicography as readers and “users.”
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction VII
- Reading Trench reading Richardson 1
- Did Anne Maxwell print John Wilkins’s An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language (1668)? 23
- “As well for the entertainment of the curious, as the information of the ignorant” 57
- Printed English dictionaries in the National Library of Russia to the mid-seventeenth century 95
- “A hundred visions and revisions”: Malone’s annotations to Johnson’s Dictionary 115
- The use of “mechanical reasoning”: John Quincy and his Lexicon physico-medicum (1719) 149
- Paratexts and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘content marketing’ in the nineteenth century? 165
- The “wants” of women: Lexicography and pedagogy in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury dictionaries* 187
- Claudius Hollyband: A lexicographer speaks his mind 211
- Subscribers and Patrons: Jacob Serenius and his Dictionarium Anglo-Svethico-Latinum 1734 237
- “Weak Shrube or Underwood”: The unlikely medical glossator John Woodall and his glossary 261
- A “florid” preface about “a language that is very short, concise and sententious” 285
- List of contributors 307
- Index 311
Chapters in this book
- Frontmatter I
- Contents V
- Introduction VII
- Reading Trench reading Richardson 1
- Did Anne Maxwell print John Wilkins’s An essay towards a real character and a philosophical language (1668)? 23
- “As well for the entertainment of the curious, as the information of the ignorant” 57
- Printed English dictionaries in the National Library of Russia to the mid-seventeenth century 95
- “A hundred visions and revisions”: Malone’s annotations to Johnson’s Dictionary 115
- The use of “mechanical reasoning”: John Quincy and his Lexicon physico-medicum (1719) 149
- Paratexts and the first edition of the Oxford English Dictionary: ‘content marketing’ in the nineteenth century? 165
- The “wants” of women: Lexicography and pedagogy in seventeenth- and eighteenthcentury dictionaries* 187
- Claudius Hollyband: A lexicographer speaks his mind 211
- Subscribers and Patrons: Jacob Serenius and his Dictionarium Anglo-Svethico-Latinum 1734 237
- “Weak Shrube or Underwood”: The unlikely medical glossator John Woodall and his glossary 261
- A “florid” preface about “a language that is very short, concise and sententious” 285
- List of contributors 307
- Index 311
