The politics of American English, 1776-1850

Book

The politics of American English, 1776-1850 / David Simpson.

Simpson, David, 1951- (Author).

Summary:

Overview: Language, its nature, and its uses have always been controversial topics. This engaging study brings into focus those highly charged years in America Between 1776 and 1850 when questions of language mirrored the social and political arguments of the time and generated even more arguments on both sides of the Atlantic over what American English was, what it might become, and what it ought to be. With a strong narrative line, The Politics of American English shows that by the middle of the 19th century, America had a version of English recognizably its own. To explain how this happened and why, Simpson alternates between theoretical questions of language and the way these questions make themselves felt in literature. His premise, that language is an important organizing principle in the life of human beings, one that is experienced individually as well a collectively, is brilliantly set forth.

Record details

ISBN: 0195037243
ISBN: 9780195037241
ISBN: 0195056434
ISBN: 9780195056433
Physical Description: x, 301 pages ; 22 cm
Publisher: New York : Oxford University Press, 1986.

Content descriptions

Bibliography, etc. Note:: Includes bibliographical references (pages 273-294) and index.
Formatted Contents Note:: Abbreviations -- Introduction: Language still becoming -- Prologue: 1776 -- Founding Fathers And The Legacies Of Language: -- British inheritance -- Debate in America -- Noah Webster: -- Spoken and the written -- Federalism and the common man -- Horne Tooke and the Saxon Yoke -- Liberties Of Literature, 1776-1810: -- Poetry and patriotism -- Prose fiction and the dialect tradition -- Exposition of Lewis and Clark -- 1812 Overtures And Jacksonian Operas: -- Patriotic irony: James Kirke Paulding -- Democracy and eloquence -- Versions of the "common" language -- Languages Of Cooper's Novels: -- Cooper on the state of the language -- Language of the leatherstocking -- Cooper's other languages -- Silence And Poetry: The Language Of The Native American -- Soul Of Language: The Transcendentalist Alternative -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index.