THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL LITERARY ENGLISH LANGUAGE

The literary language is that elaborated form (variety) of the national language which obeys definite morphological, phonetic, syntactical, lexical, phraseological and stylistic norms² recognized as standard and therefore acceptable in all kinds and types of discourse. It allows modifications but within the frame work of the system of established norms. It casts out some of the forms of language which are considered to be beyond the established norm. The norm of usage is established by the language community at every given period in the development of the language. It is ever changing and therefore not infrequently evasive. At every period the norm is in a state of fluctuation and it requires a very sensitive and efficient eye and ear to detect and specify these fluctuations.

The formation of the national literary English language covers the Early NE period (c. 1475—1660).

There were at least two major external factors which favoured the rise of the national language and the literary standards: the unification of the country and the progress of culture.

The term «national» language embraces allthe varieties ofthe language used by thenation including dialects; the »national literary language»applies only to recognized standard forms of the language, both written and spoken.

The end of the Middle English period and the beginning of New English is marked by the following events in the life of the English people:

1). The War of the Roses (1455-—1485) was the most important event of the 15^th century which marked the decay of feudalism and the birth of a new social order. It signified the rise of an absolute monarchy in England and a political centralisation, and consequently a linguistic centralisation leading to a predominance of the national language over local dialects.

2). The introduction of printing — 1477 by William Caxton (1422— 1490).The first English printing office was founded in 1476 by William Caxton. The appearance of a considerable number of printed books contributed to the normalisation of spelling and grammar forms fostering the choice of a single variant over others. Caxton, a native of Kent, acquired the London dialect and made a conscious choice from among competing variants.

Since that time — the end of the 15^th century the English language began its development as the language of the English nation, a notable feature of the Middle English period is the dialectical variety that finds expression in the written documents. It was only late in the 14^th century that the London dialect, itself a mixture of the southern and south-eastern dialects, began to emerge as the dominant type.

Thus, the English national language was formed on the basis of the London dialect which was uppermost among Middle English dialects due to the political, geographical, economic and «linguistic» position of London which became the capital of England already in the 11^th century — before the Norman conquest and which was in the 15^th century a thriving economic centre and port of England due to its geographical position near the estuary of the largest river in England. The geographical position of London as a large port and city in the centre of the country where people of the North mingled with people of the South, on the one hand, enabled the Londoners to acquire features of both southern and northern dialects, and on the other hand, the people coming to London helped to spread the London dialect all over the country.

The importance of the London dialect as the foundation of the English national language grew also because of the fact that many of the best writers of the 14^th —15^th centuries, and Geoffrey Chaucer among them, were Londoners or used the London dialect in their writings. But the literary norm of the language was established later, in Early New English, many English authors of the forthcoming centuries contributing to it, among them such as Edmund Spenser, Christopher Marlowe, Ben Johnson and, finally, William Shakespeare.

In New English there emerged one nation and one national language. But the English literary norm was formed only at the end of the 17^th century, when there appeared the first scientific English dictionaries and the first scientific English grammar. In the 17^th and 18^th centuries there appeared a great number of grammar books whose authors tried to stabilise the use of the language.

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.

Date: 2015-12-24; view: 5178