Grammar wars
Subtitle: language as cultural battlefield in 17th and 18th century England
By: Linda C. Mitchell.
Publisher: Ashgate
Published: 2001
Place of publication: Aldershot, Hampshire; Burlington, VT
Language: eng
Number of pages: 218
Subjects: English language -- Study and teaching -- England -- History -- 17th century; English language -- Study and teaching -- England -- History -- 18th century; Grammar, Comparative and general -- Study and teaching -- England -- History; English language -- Grammar -- Study and teaching -- History; Language and culture -- England -- History -- 17th century; Language and culture -- England -- History -- 18th century; English language -- Early modern, 1500-1700 -- Grammar; English language -- 18th century -- Grammar
Description: "Although 17th- and 18-century English language theorists claimed to be correcting errors in grammar and preserving the language from corruption, this new study demonstrates how grammar served as an important cultural battlefield where social issues were contested. In Grammar Wars, author Linda C. Mitchell situates early modern linguistic discussions, long thought to be of little interest, in their larger cultural and social setting to show the startling degree to which grammar affected, and was affected by, such factors as class and gender."

"In her examination of the controversies that surrounded the teaching and study of grammar in this period, Mitchell looks especially at changing definitions and standardization of 'grammar', how and to whom it was taught, and how grammar marked the social position of marginal groups. Her comprehensive study of the contexts in which grammar was intended or thought to function is based on her analysis of the ancillary materials - prefaces, introductions, forewords, statements of intent, organization of materials, surrounding materials, and manifestos of pedagogy, philosophy, and social or political goals - of more than 300 grammar texts of the time. Grammar Wars is a landmark study of an important movement in the foundation of the modern world."--Jacket.
Notes: Includes bibliographical references (p. [168]-207) and index.
Table of contents: title: Machine generated contents note: Introduction; title: 1 Vernacular Claims Victory; title: English and Latin Modes; title: Inversion ofLinguistic uthority; title: 2 "Reformation of Schooles": Hartlib, Comenius, Milton; title: Architectural Metaphors; title: Comenir and Hartlib; title: Reception of Comenius' Ideas; title: Less Grammar, More Reading and Writing; title: 3 The Battle: Good Grammar or Good Writing; title: Putting Grammar to Work; title: Rhetoric Subsumes Grammar Grammar Texts as Rhetoric Handbooks; title: Grammar Texts and Composition in the Schoolroom; title: 4 Repairing Babel: Battles in Universal Language and; title: Universal Grammar; title: Language Acquiititow Descartes and Locke; title: Universal Schemes in Sevnteenth-Centry England; title: UniversalLanguage in Eighteenth-Century England; title: 5 Regulating Social Position; title: Grammarr ororeigners: A Moral and National dentity; title: Grammarfor the Weaker Sex How Much isMorallyAppopriate?; title: Self-Generated Identity The Middle Class and Birth of the; title: 'Language Police'; title: Afterword; title: Bibliography; title: Index.