Article published in:
The Evolution of Englishes: The Dynamic Model and beyondEdited by Sarah Buschfeld, Thomas Hoffmann, Magnus Huber and Alexander Kautzsch
[Varieties of English Around the World G49] 2014
► pp. 282–300
The evolution of English(es)
Notes on the history of an idea
Many of the central tenets of modern linguistics – and thus also of the study of World Englishes – have a history which goes back to the nineteenth century. This article focuses on the idea of the evolution of language(s). I will employ a discourse-historical approach to show that evolution was generally taken to imply not only progress but also hierarchization, and that English and its standard variety – as well as their speakers – were inevitably seen as the most progressive and placed at the top of any linguistic hierarchy. Of course, crude nationalist and racist thinking are no longer current in academic linguistics today; nevertheless, this article will claim that in order to fully comprehend contemporary ideologies of language, we need to understand the historical origins of the assumptions and beliefs upon which they rest.
Published online: 12 September 2014
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g49.16hac
https://doi.org/10.1075/veaw.g49.16hac
References
Aarsleff, H
Bailey, R.W
Blommaert, J
Bolton, W.F. & Crystal, D.
Bowring, J
Crowley, T
Darwin, C
De Quincey, T
Donovan, J
Garner, R.L
Hackert, S
Hall, F
Harris, R.
Harris, R. & Talbot J.T
von Humboldt, W
Jespersen, O
Johnston, C
Labov, W
Marenbon, J
Marsh, G.P
1859 Address. In Inaugural Addresses of Theodore W. Dwight, Professor of Law, and of George P. Marsh, Professor of English Literature, in Columbia College, New York. New York NY: By Authority of the Trustees. <http://name.umdl.umich.edu/age3247> (15 December 2005).
McCawley, J.D
1993 Introduction. In O. Jespersen (ed.), IX–XVIII.
Meyer, A
2007 Das missverstandene Buch. InDie Zeit 2007-07-19. <http://www.zeit.de/2007/30/N-Evolutionsirrtuemer> (19 April 2009).
Milroy, J
2006 Race, racialism, and the study of language in America. In LAVIS III – Language Variety in the South: Historical and Contemporary Perspectives, M. Picone & K. Davis (eds). Tuscaloosa AL: University of Alabama Press. <http://mufwene.uchicago.edu/publications/RACE_RACIALISM_LANGUAGE_EVOLUTION.pdf> (27 November 2013).
Müller, M
Nicol, H
Paul, H
Schleicher, A
Schneider, E.W
Singh, J
Strettell, A
Whitman, W