LINGUIST List 22.3594
Thu Sep 15 2011
Diss: Historical Linguistics/English: Navest: 'John Ash and the ...'
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1. Karlijn Navest ,
John Ash and the Rise of the Children's Grammar
Message 1: John Ash and the Rise of the Children's Grammar
Date: 01-Sep-2011
From: Karlijn Navest <karlijnnavesthotmail.com>
Subject: John Ash and the Rise of the Children's Grammar
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Institution: Universiteit Leiden
Program: Leiden Centre for Linguistics
Dissertation Status: Completed
Degree Date: 2011
Author: Karlijn Navest
Dissertation Title: John Ash and the Rise of the Children's Grammar
Dissertation URL: http://www.lotpublications.nl/index3.html
Linguistic Field(s):
Historical Linguistics
History of Linguistics
Subject Language(s): English (eng)
Dissertation Director:
Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade
Dissertation Abstract:
From the second half of the eighteenth century onwards a knowledgeof grammar served as an important marker of class in England. In order toenable their children to rise in society, middle-class parents expectedtheir sons and daughters to learn English grammar. Since England did nothave an Academy which would produce an authoritative grammar, manyindividuals took it upon themselves to compose grammars, and the Baptistminister John Ash (1724?-1779) was one of them.
Ash's Grammatical Institutes (1760) was originally written for the author'sfive-year-old daughter and was printed for the use of his schoolmasterfriends. The grammar became available to a wide public in 1766 when it waspublished in London, as The Easiest Introduction to Dr. Lowth's EnglishGrammar. Unlike Robert Lowth, whose grammar was regarded as being toodifficult for beginners, Ash fared much better in producing an elementarymanual, and it consequently played an important role in the rise of thechildren's grammar.
Making extensive use of primary source materials such as grammars, letters,reviews and newspaper advertisements, this study contributes to existingscholarship in the field of eighteenth-century grammars and grammarians. Itprovides an in-depth study of Ash's Grammatical Institutes and itsinfluence on other popular grammars for children, such as those written byLady Ellenor Fenn and the nineteenth-century female grammarians.
This book is of interest to sociohistorical linguists working in the fieldof eighteenth- and nineteenth-century grammar-writing, as well as to bookhistorians and historians of education and children's literature.
Page Updated: 15-Sep-2011
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