Establishment of the Written Standard.

Towards the end of Early NE, that is by the middle of the 17th c., one of the forms of the national literary language — its Written Standard — had probably been established. Its growth and recognition as the correct or “prestige” form of the language of writing had been brought about by the factors described above: the economic and political unification of the country, the progress of culture and education, the flourishing of literature.

The Written Standard can be traced to definite geographical and social sources.

As stated above the literary form of English used by Chaucer and his immediate successors arose from the dialect of 14th c. London, which was a mixed regional dialect combining Southern and East Midland types. In the 15th and 16th c. the speech of London became still more mixed owing to increased intermixture of the population: the capital attracted newcomers from different regions of the country. Elements of various provincial dialects were incorporated in the spoken and written forms of London speech.

The Written Standard of the early 17th c. was, however, far less stabilised and normalised than the literary standards of later ages. The writings of the Renaissance display a wide range of variation at all linguistic levels: in spelling, in the shape of grammatical forms and word-building devices, in syntactical patterns and in the choice and use of words. Variants are employed as equivalents or “near-equivalents” without any noticeable dialectal or stylistic connotations, although they may have originated from different localities, social groups or literary genres. This linguistic “freedom” is accounted for by the wide social and geographical foundations of the literary language, by the broad contacts of the literary language with folklore and oral speech, and by the increased amount of written matter produced: scientific and philosophical compositions, letters and diaries, poetry and literary prose, drama and official papers.

Normalising Tendencies. Grammars and Dictionaries in the Late 17th and 18th c.

The age of the literary Renaissance, which enriched the language in many ways and was marked by great linguistic freedom, was followed by the period of “normalisation” or period of “fixing the language”. This age set great store by correctness and simplicity of expression. The language of Shakespeare and his contemporaries struck the authors of the late 17th c. as rude and unpolished, though the neo-classicists (the term applied to the writers of this period) never reached the heights of the Renaissance writers. John Dryden (1631-1700), a versatile writer and competent stylist of the time, acknowledged “the wit of predecessors” but explicitly disapproved of their language, saying that "there was ever something ill-bred and clownish in it and which confessed the conversation of their authors" (ESSAYS ON THE DRAMATIC POETRY OF THE LAST AGE). The great poet John Milton (1608-1674) noted “the corrupt pronunciation of the lower classes”. Correct usage and protection of the language from corruption and change became the subject of great concern and numerous discussions. In 1664 the Royal Society appointed a special committee “for improving the English tongue”. The fixed structures of dead languages —Greek and Latin — loomed in the mind of the neo-classicists and made them regard all linguistic change as corruption that ought to be checked.

The 18th c. is remarkable for deliberate attempts to fix the language and interfere with its evolution. Among the exponents of this movement were the writer Jonathan Swift (1667—1745), the founders of the first English newspapers R. Steele and J. Addison, the authors of prescriptive English grammars and the great 18th c. lexicographers.

The role of English dictionaries in this period of normalisation was equally significant.

English lexicography made outstanding progress in the 18th c. Works concerned primarily with the explanation of “hard words” continued to be brought out in great numbers, e.g. DICTIONARY OF HARD WORDS by E. Coles in 1676. In 1730 Nathaniel Bailey compiled DICTIONARIUM BRITANNICUM, A MORE COMPLEAT UNIVERSAL ETYMOLOGICAL ENGLISH DICTIONARY THAN ANY EXTANT, which was a distinct improvement on its predecessors. Bailey’s dictionary contained about 48,000 items, which is more than Samuel Johnson included in his famous work. Through Johnson, who used Bailey's DICTIONARIUM as the basis of his own, N. Bailey influenced all subsequent lexicographical practice, but the greatest achievement of the 18th c. English lexicography is certainly connected with the name of Dr. Samuel Johnson.

Samuel Johnson was one of those 18th c. scholars who believed that the English language should be purified and corrected. With this object in view he undertook to compile a new dictionary based upon the usage of recognised authorities. In the two volumes of his DICTIONARY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE (1755) he included quotations from several hundred authors of the 17th and 18th c. The entries of his dictionary contain definitions of meaning, illustrations of usage, etymologies, and stylistic comments. He regulated current usage by giving precise definitions, which, as a rule, were noticeable improvements upon those given by his predecessors.

His DICTIONARY contained a special section devoted to grammar, which deals with orthography and accidence. He distinguished between two pronunciations of English words: “one cursory and colloquial, the other regular and solemn”.

The weight of Johnson's authority was so great that later writers did not dare to deviate from the spellings and meanings prescribed by the DICTIONARY; even today some authors blame him for fixing English spelling and thus making it conservative. The Dictionary passed through many editions and revisions and was drawn upon freely by numerous successors.

The grammars and dictionaries of the 18th c. succeeded in formulating the rules of usage, partly from observation but largely from the “doctrine of correctness”, and laid them down as norms to be taught as patterns of correct English. Codification of norms of usage by means of conscious effort on the part of man helped in standardising the language and in fixing its Written and Spoken Standards.