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

Vera Willems

doi:10.1515/jhsl-2017-0004

Article

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

Vera Willems

Published/Copyright: March 31, 2017

Published by

Become an author with De Gruyter Brill

Submit Manuscript Author Information Explore this Subject

From the journal Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics Volume 3 Issue 1

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.

Keywords: eighteenth-century English grammar writing; discourse community; plagiarism; norm transmission; English grammar teaching method

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.

References

Primary sources

Blackstone, William. 1765–1769. Commentaries on the laws of England. Book the second. The rights of things. Oxford: Clarendon Press.10.1093/oseo/instance.00248899Search in Google Scholar

Buchanan, James. 1753. The complete English scholar. London: Printed for A. Millar.Search in Google Scholar

Buchanan, James. 1757. Linguæ Brittanicæ vera pronunciatio: Or, a new English dictionary. London: Printed for A. Millar.Search in Google Scholar

Buchanan, James. 1762. The British grammar. London: Printed for A. Millar.Search in Google Scholar

Buchanan, James. 1767. A regular English syntax. London: Printed for J. Wren.Search in Google Scholar

Buchanan, James. 1773. The first six books of Milton’s paradise lost rendered into grammatical construction. Edinburgh: Printed for A. Kincaid, W. Creech and J. Balfour.Search in Google Scholar

Buchanan, James. 1784 [1762]. The British grammar. Boston, MA: Printed by Nathanael Coverly, for John Norman.Search in Google Scholar

Fisher, Anne. 1753 [1745]. A new grammar, 3rd edn. London: Printed for the author.Search in Google Scholar

Harrison, Ralph. 1777. Institutes of English grammar. Manchester: Printed by Charles Wheeler.Search in Google Scholar

Lowth, Robert. 1762. A short introduction to English grammar: With critical notes. London: Printed by J. Hughs for A. Millar and R. and J. Dodsley.Search in Google Scholar

Secondary sources

Alston, Robin C. 1965. A bibliography of the English language from the invention of printing to the year 1800. Vol. 1. English grammars written in English. Leeds: E.J. Arnold & Son Limited.Search in Google Scholar

Auer, Anita. 2008. Eighteenth-century grammars and book catalogues. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (Topics in English Linguistics 59), 57–75. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199185.1.57Search in Google Scholar

Michael, Ian. 1970. English grammatical categories: And the tradition to 1800. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Search in Google Scholar

González-Díaz, Victorina. 2008. On normative grammarians and the double marking of degree. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (Topics in English Linguistics 59), 289–310. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199185.4.289Search in Google Scholar

Görlach, Manfred. 2003. A new text type: Exercises in bad English. In Frances Ausin & Christopher Stray (eds.), The teaching of English in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries: Essays for Ian Michael on his 88^th birthday. [Special issue]. Paradigm 2(7). 5–14. http://faculty.education.illinois.edu/westbury/paradigm/ (accessed 23 December 2016).Search in Google Scholar

Lave, Jean & Etienne Wenger. 1991. Situated learning: Legitimate peripheral participation. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511815355Search in Google Scholar

Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. 1985. Authority in language: Investigating language prescription and standardisation. London, Boston & Henley: Routledge & Kegan Paul.10.4324/9780203267424Search in Google Scholar

Rodríguez-Gil, María. 2002. Teaching English grammar in the eighteenth-century: Ann Fisher. Las Palmas: University of Last Palmas de Gran Canaria dissertation.Search in Google Scholar

Rodríguez-Gil, María. 2008. Ann Fisher’s A new grammar, or was it Daniel Fisher’s work?. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (Topics in English Linguistics 59), 149–176. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199185.3.149Search in Google Scholar

Smith, Robin D. 1996. Eighteenth-century linguistics and authorship: The cases of Dyche, Priestley, and Buchanan. In Jack Fisiak & Marcin Krygier (eds.), Advances in English historical linguistics (Trends in Linguistics 112), 435–441. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.Search in Google Scholar

Stern, Simon. 2009. Copyright, originality, and the public domain in eighteenth-century England. In Reginald McGinnis (ed.), Originality and intellectual property in the French and English enlightenment, 69–101. London & New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Sundby, Bertil, Anne Kari Bjørge & Kari E. Haugland. 1991. A dictionary of English normative grammar (1700–1800) (DENG). Amsterdam: John Benjamins Publishing Company.10.1075/sihols.63Search in Google Scholar

Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2008. The 1760s: Grammars, grammarians and the booksellers. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (Topics in English Linguistics 59), 101–124. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199185.2.101Search in Google Scholar

Watts, Richard J. 1999. The social construction of Standard English: Grammar writers as a ‘discourse community’. In Tony Bex & Richard J. Watts (eds.), Standard English: The widening debate, 40–66. London & New York: Routledge.Search in Google Scholar

Watts, Richard J. 2008. Grammar writers in eighteenth-century Britain: A community of practice or discourse community?. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (Topics in English Linguistics 59), 37–56. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199185.1.37Search in Google Scholar

Wenger, Etienne. 1999. Communities of practice: Learning, meaning and identity. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511803932Search in Google Scholar

Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria. 2008. Preposition in the eighteenth century: Something to talk about. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, grammarians and grammar-writing in eighteenth-century England (Topics in English Linguistics 59), 251–278. Berlin & New York: Mouton de Gruyter.10.1515/9783110199185.4.251Search in Google Scholar

Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria. 2014. Grammar, rhetoric and usage in English: Preposition placement 1500–1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.10.1017/CBO9780511732522Search in Google Scholar

Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria & María Rodríguez-Gil. 2010. The eighteenth-century English grammars database. Manchester: The University of Manchester.Search in Google Scholar

Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria & María Rodríguez-Gil. 2013. The ECEG Database. Transactions of the Philological Society 111(2). 143–164.10.1111/1467-968X.12003Search in Google Scholar

Online sources

Durie, Alastair J. & Stuart Handley. 2004. Home, Henry, Lord Kames (1696–782). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/13643?docPos=1 (accessed 23 December 2016).Search in Google Scholar

Fell-Smith, Charlotte. 2004. Robertson, James (1714–1795). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/23797?docPos=3 (accessed 23 December 2016).Search in Google Scholar

Hugh, Amory. 2004. Millar, Andrew (1705–1768). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/18714?docPos=1 (accessed 23 December 2016).10.1093/ref:odnb/18714Search in Google Scholar

Richards, Eric. 2004. Gower, Elizabeth Leveson-, duchess of Sutherland and suo jure countess of Sutherland (1765–1839). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/42000?docPos=1 (accessed 23 December 2016).Search in Google Scholar

Rogers, Pat. 2004. Johnson, Samuel (1709–1784). Oxford dictionary of national biography. Oxford University Press. http://www.oxforddnb.com/view/article/14918?docPos=4 (accessed 23 December 2016).Search in Google Scholar

Online databases

Eighteenth-Century Collections Online. Thomson Gale. http://www.gale.com/EighteenthCentury/Search in Google Scholar

Eighteenth-Century English Grammars Database. www.manchester.ac.uk/ecegSearch in Google Scholar

Oxford English Dictionary Online. Oxford University Press. www.oed.comSearch in Google Scholar

17^th and 18^th Century Burney Collection Newspapers. Gale Cengage Learning. http://gale.cengage.co.uk/product-highlights/history/17th–18th-century-burney-collection-newspapers-.aspxSearch in Google Scholar

Published Online: 2017-3-31

Published in Print: 2017-4-1

You are currently not able to access this content.

Articles in the same Issue

https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2017-0004

Keywords for this article

eighteenth-century English grammar writing; discourse community; plagiarism; norm transmission; English grammar teaching method