Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1996087
Simon Coffey
ABSTRACT The Reform Movement has often been framed as a “[…] remarkable display of international and interdisciplinary co-operation […]” (Howatt 1984: 169), yet adoption of the Movement’s core principle that “[…] the spoken language should be emphasized […]” (Howatt and Smith 2002: ix) met with considerable opposition in the teaching of modern languages in English schools and universities. In this paper I consider how the aims of the Reform were circulated and debated in England through the newly established professional fora of conferences and journals and I examine these aims against the discursive and structural formations that inhibited the adoption of Reform methods. In particular, I focus on the cultural belief that ‘speaking’ foreign languages was ”[…] unmanly, even unpatriotic” (Bayley 1998: 56; Cohen 2003) and on the concomitant institutional bias against native-speakers (McLelland 2018) as the teaching profession anglicized at the end of the 19th century (Radford 1985), consciously seeking to match the prestige of the classics through emphasizing modern languages as a liberal rather than a utilitarian discipline.
{"title":"Patriotism and patriarchy as obstacles to the adoption of reform methods in the English school system","authors":"Simon Coffey","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1996087","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1996087","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The Reform Movement has often been framed as a “[…] remarkable display of international and interdisciplinary co-operation […]” (Howatt 1984: 169), yet adoption of the Movement’s core principle that “[…] the spoken language should be emphasized […]” (Howatt and Smith 2002: ix) met with considerable opposition in the teaching of modern languages in English schools and universities. In this paper I consider how the aims of the Reform were circulated and debated in England through the newly established professional fora of conferences and journals and I examine these aims against the discursive and structural formations that inhibited the adoption of Reform methods. In particular, I focus on the cultural belief that ‘speaking’ foreign languages was ”[…] unmanly, even unpatriotic” (Bayley 1998: 56; Cohen 2003) and on the concomitant institutional bias against native-speakers (McLelland 2018) as the teaching profession anglicized at the end of the 19th century (Radford 1985), consciously seeking to match the prestige of the classics through emphasizing modern languages as a liberal rather than a utilitarian discipline.","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48408621","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-09-02DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1996088
Tim Giesler
ABSTRACT The 19th century Reform Movement is often regarded as a ‘language teaching innovation’ or as a contribution to ‘a questioning and rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method’ (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 7). This view usually fails to explain why ‘direct’ methods focusing on functional aspects of language teaching had already been in use for centuries, while Grammar-Translation Methods are still widely popular. One explanation could be the distinction between the Reformers’ influence on the theoretical debate on the one hand and their impact on teaching practice on the other. In the late 1960s, Rülcker investigated the impact of Reform Methodology on French language teaching by analysing German school programmes (Schulprogramme). He stated that in spite of some traces of Reform Methods, French language teaching until the First World War was still mainly based on grammar and translation (Rülcker 1969: 35-37). In my paper, I take a similar view on English language education by looking at the Reform Movements’ impact on Realschule (middle school) curricula in northern Germany and focus on the question whether stronger traces of Reform Methodology can be found in this context. This seems plausible as learning English was generally underlined by more practical reasons than learning other languages, and Bremen schools in particular had been the first ones in the German context to introduce English as a first foreign language with a traditionally stronger functional focus (cf. Giesler 2018a). I focus my analysis on Bremen school programmes which – compared to modern curricula – not only show desired methodological designs, but can be understood as more closely documenting actual teaching practices, and I use these insights to question the originality of some of the Reformers’ ideas, the validity of some of their claims and, by extension, the strength of their impact on teaching practice.
{"title":"Start afresh or return? The impact of the Reform Movement on northern German English language teaching","authors":"Tim Giesler","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1996088","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1996088","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT The 19th century Reform Movement is often regarded as a ‘language teaching innovation’ or as a contribution to ‘a questioning and rejection of the Grammar-Translation Method’ (Richards and Rodgers 2001: 7). This view usually fails to explain why ‘direct’ methods focusing on functional aspects of language teaching had already been in use for centuries, while Grammar-Translation Methods are still widely popular. One explanation could be the distinction between the Reformers’ influence on the theoretical debate on the one hand and their impact on teaching practice on the other. In the late 1960s, Rülcker investigated the impact of Reform Methodology on French language teaching by analysing German school programmes (Schulprogramme). He stated that in spite of some traces of Reform Methods, French language teaching until the First World War was still mainly based on grammar and translation (Rülcker 1969: 35-37). In my paper, I take a similar view on English language education by looking at the Reform Movements’ impact on Realschule (middle school) curricula in northern Germany and focus on the question whether stronger traces of Reform Methodology can be found in this context. This seems plausible as learning English was generally underlined by more practical reasons than learning other languages, and Bremen schools in particular had been the first ones in the German context to introduce English as a first foreign language with a traditionally stronger functional focus (cf. Giesler 2018a). I focus my analysis on Bremen school programmes which – compared to modern curricula – not only show desired methodological designs, but can be understood as more closely documenting actual teaching practices, and I use these insights to question the originality of some of the Reformers’ ideas, the validity of some of their claims and, by extension, the strength of their impact on teaching practice.","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-09-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45748166","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-08DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1958278
Olivia Walsh
{"title":"Women in the history of linguistics","authors":"Olivia Walsh","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1958278","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1958278","url":null,"abstract":"","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-08-08","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"45669832","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-08-02DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1877072
Andrew Ji Ma
ABSTRACT Within the context of the mid-sixteenth-century movement of spelling standardisation in England, John Hart (c. 1501–1574) wrote three linguistic texts in English (rather than in Latin), on orthographic reform focused on phonetic principles: one letter only represents one sound, and vice versa. This paper aims to examine how Hart appealed to medical imagery in his discussion of English orthography. First, Tudor concepts of medicine (such as the theory of ‘elements’ and ‘humours’) were employed to frame his expounding of orthographic problems; second, the procedure of medical treatment was transferred to organise the structure of his argument, i.e. to set up the steps of orthographic reform and to treat specific orthographic problems. The former focuses on the content aspect of his argument while the latter on the structural aspect. Moreover, Hart was very much of his time in his fascination with appropriating political language. During the English Renaissance, medical metaphors were widely used in both political and religious texts, and they were borrowed by Hart and constituted a constant feature of his linguistic writings, published or unpublished. Drawing upon contemporary political tracts, I will demonstrate the religio-political nature of his medical metaphor and how his use of this type of metaphor facilitated communication on spelling reform.
{"title":"Medical metaphors, body politic and John Hart’s conceptualisation of orthographic reform","authors":"Andrew Ji Ma","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1877072","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1877072","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Within the context of the mid-sixteenth-century movement of spelling standardisation in England, John Hart (c. 1501–1574) wrote three linguistic texts in English (rather than in Latin), on orthographic reform focused on phonetic principles: one letter only represents one sound, and vice versa. This paper aims to examine how Hart appealed to medical imagery in his discussion of English orthography. First, Tudor concepts of medicine (such as the theory of ‘elements’ and ‘humours’) were employed to frame his expounding of orthographic problems; second, the procedure of medical treatment was transferred to organise the structure of his argument, i.e. to set up the steps of orthographic reform and to treat specific orthographic problems. The former focuses on the content aspect of his argument while the latter on the structural aspect. Moreover, Hart was very much of his time in his fascination with appropriating political language. During the English Renaissance, medical metaphors were widely used in both political and religious texts, and they were borrowed by Hart and constituted a constant feature of his linguistic writings, published or unpublished. Drawing upon contemporary political tracts, I will demonstrate the religio-political nature of his medical metaphor and how his use of this type of metaphor facilitated communication on spelling reform.","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-08-02","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44861540","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-07-01DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1925494
Julia Fernández Cuesta
ABSTRACT This article offers a critical assessment of the evolution of Roger Lass’s epistemology of linguistic change with particular reference to his two influential monographs on explanation: On Explaining Language Change and Historical Linguistics and Language Change. It analyses the most salient tenets espoused in each work and explains the major influences and the contexts in which they were written, as well as their reception by later language historians. It is thematically organised into the following sections: Introduction. Lass’s 1980 and 1997 monographs on language change Biographical sketch Against naturalness and markedness Against functionalism Against the agency of speakers in language change Against language contact From Popper to Dawkins: from a dualist to a monist stance Conclusions
{"title":"Der Geist, der stets verneint: Roger Lass’s epistemology of linguistic change","authors":"Julia Fernández Cuesta","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1925494","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1925494","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT This article offers a critical assessment of the evolution of Roger Lass’s epistemology of linguistic change with particular reference to his two influential monographs on explanation: On Explaining Language Change and Historical Linguistics and Language Change. It analyses the most salient tenets espoused in each work and explains the major influences and the contexts in which they were written, as well as their reception by later language historians. It is thematically organised into the following sections: Introduction. Lass’s 1980 and 1997 monographs on language change Biographical sketch Against naturalness and markedness Against functionalism Against the agency of speakers in language change Against language contact From Popper to Dawkins: from a dualist to a monist stance Conclusions","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-07-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17597536.2021.1925494","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44503956","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-29DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1923908
Bu-han Pan
History is encoded and passed on through written documents and personal recollections, relying heavily on the evidence of memory. In the context of reconstructing a nation’s history, collective nar...
{"title":"Language, memory and remembering: explorations in historical sociolinguistics","authors":"Bu-han Pan","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1923908","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1923908","url":null,"abstract":"History is encoded and passed on through written documents and personal recollections, relying heavily on the evidence of memory. In the context of reconstructing a nation’s history, collective nar...","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-29","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17597536.2021.1923908","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"47113940","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1933328
M. Byram
ABSTRACT Described as the magna carta of language teaching, the ‘Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister to enquire into the Position of Modern Languages in the Educational System of Great Britain (28 August 1916)’ is known as ‘the Leathes Report’ after the committee’s chairman, Stanley Leathes, the First Commissioner of the British civil service. Leathes was not just a civil servant but also an author on education matters, including language education. His views had appeared in several publications over the previous decade, and many of those views are echoed in the report. This article analyses Leathes’s texts and the parallels in the Leathes Report, especially his vision of ‘Modern Studies’, which linked the teaching of history and modern languages. In doing so, it reveals the origins and gives more detail of the meanings of some of the concepts in the Report. It has been argued that the Report is elitist. Leathes’s own education took place in elite institutions as did that of many other civil servants of the time, but this article shows that it is a misinterpretation to say this led to elitism in the Report when it has in fact a meritocratic view of education, also present in Leathes’s own writings.
{"title":"Stanley Leathes and his influence on ‘The Leathes Report’","authors":"M. Byram","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1933328","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1933328","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Described as the magna carta of language teaching, the ‘Report of the Committee appointed by the Prime Minister to enquire into the Position of Modern Languages in the Educational System of Great Britain (28 August 1916)’ is known as ‘the Leathes Report’ after the committee’s chairman, Stanley Leathes, the First Commissioner of the British civil service. Leathes was not just a civil servant but also an author on education matters, including language education. His views had appeared in several publications over the previous decade, and many of those views are echoed in the report. This article analyses Leathes’s texts and the parallels in the Leathes Report, especially his vision of ‘Modern Studies’, which linked the teaching of history and modern languages. In doing so, it reveals the origins and gives more detail of the meanings of some of the concepts in the Report. It has been argued that the Report is elitist. Leathes’s own education took place in elite institutions as did that of many other civil servants of the time, but this article shows that it is a misinterpretation to say this led to elitism in the Report when it has in fact a meritocratic view of education, also present in Leathes’s own writings.","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17597536.2021.1933328","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"44478298","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-05-04DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1904183
José Miguel Alcolado Carnicero
ABSTRACT English regained its position as the preferred base language of administrative record to the detriment of Latin and French in England at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. Henry V has been traditionally considered as one of the main sources of the shift to vernacular official writing in other official institutions of a diverse nature. Historical sociolinguistic network research has attempted to establish a direct connection between the king’s Signet Office and the Grocers’ and the Brewers’ London livery companies, as far as their respective use of English is concerned. The article evaluates the validity of this particular case study by focussing on the underexplored micro-level of ties and social networks between individuals potentially involved in the process of innovation and early adoption of English in the different types of records. The research outcome supports the hypothesis that Robert Chicheley was the loose-knit linguistic innovator and bridge responsible for introducing the use of English into the London Grocers’ and the London Brewers’ archives, a change which subsequently percolated through the tight-knit networks of grocer-wardens and brewer-administrators in charge of keeping their companies’ records during the Late Middle Ages.
{"title":"The diffusion of English in late medieval social networks: Henry V, Robert Chicheley, London Grocers, and London Brewers","authors":"José Miguel Alcolado Carnicero","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1904183","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1904183","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT English regained its position as the preferred base language of administrative record to the detriment of Latin and French in England at the end of the fourteenth and the beginning of the fifteenth century. Henry V has been traditionally considered as one of the main sources of the shift to vernacular official writing in other official institutions of a diverse nature. Historical sociolinguistic network research has attempted to establish a direct connection between the king’s Signet Office and the Grocers’ and the Brewers’ London livery companies, as far as their respective use of English is concerned. The article evaluates the validity of this particular case study by focussing on the underexplored micro-level of ties and social networks between individuals potentially involved in the process of innovation and early adoption of English in the different types of records. The research outcome supports the hypothesis that Robert Chicheley was the loose-knit linguistic innovator and bridge responsible for introducing the use of English into the London Grocers’ and the London Brewers’ archives, a change which subsequently percolated through the tight-knit networks of grocer-wardens and brewer-administrators in charge of keeping their companies’ records during the Late Middle Ages.","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-05-04","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17597536.2021.1904183","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"48534282","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
Pub Date : 2021-04-01DOI: 10.1080/17597536.2021.1898126
M. Nekula
ABSTRACT Language loyalty can be viewed from the perspective of both language stability and language shift. The paper focuses primarily on the latter as it shows how the Bohemian composer Friedrich Smetana (1824–1884) shifted from a predominate use of German to Czech in private and official correspondence and his diaries to become known as the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. This change serves as a model of the collective language and social shift in Bohemia in the long 19th century. The paper shows, however, that Smetana encountered difficulties in making the language shift from German to Czech due to the stability of his previous language loyalty to German, tracing both Smetana’s subsequent evaluation of the limited language shift’s success and his explanation of its failure. In this regard, the study also considers the narrative of a Germanisation Smetana invokes to explain his loyalty to the German language during his education and beyond due to the Germanisation of educational institutions. The paper thus shows how Smetana’s narrative of his own language biography is a model narrative for his generation as whole.
{"title":"Language loyalty and language shift in Bohemia in the long 19th century based on the language biography of Friedrich (Bedřich) Smetana","authors":"M. Nekula","doi":"10.1080/17597536.2021.1898126","DOIUrl":"https://doi.org/10.1080/17597536.2021.1898126","url":null,"abstract":"ABSTRACT Language loyalty can be viewed from the perspective of both language stability and language shift. The paper focuses primarily on the latter as it shows how the Bohemian composer Friedrich Smetana (1824–1884) shifted from a predominate use of German to Czech in private and official correspondence and his diaries to become known as the Czech composer Bedřich Smetana. This change serves as a model of the collective language and social shift in Bohemia in the long 19th century. The paper shows, however, that Smetana encountered difficulties in making the language shift from German to Czech due to the stability of his previous language loyalty to German, tracing both Smetana’s subsequent evaluation of the limited language shift’s success and his explanation of its failure. In this regard, the study also considers the narrative of a Germanisation Smetana invokes to explain his loyalty to the German language during his education and beyond due to the Germanisation of educational institutions. The paper thus shows how Smetana’s narrative of his own language biography is a model narrative for his generation as whole.","PeriodicalId":41504,"journal":{"name":"Language & History","volume":null,"pages":null},"PeriodicalIF":0.5,"publicationDate":"2021-04-01","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://sci-hub-pdf.com/10.1080/17597536.2021.1898126","citationCount":null,"resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":"43310966","PeriodicalName":null,"FirstCategoryId":null,"ListUrlMain":null,"RegionNum":3,"RegionCategory":"文学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":"","EPubDate":null,"PubModel":null,"JCR":null,"JCRName":null,"Score":null,"Total":0}
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