2017 Historical Sociolinguistics Publication

Vera Willems, 2017, ‘James Buchanan’s Use of Anne Fisher’s A New Grammar: Towards the Development of an English Grammar Teaching Method in Eighteenth-Century English Grammar Writing’, Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 30(2), 93-109

Link: https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1515/jhsl-2017-0004/html

In 2017, I published an article in the Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics. The article examines the question of how to make sense of the extent to which the eighteenth-century grammarian James Buchanan used a very popular grammar written by the eighteenth-century schoolmistress Anne Fisher in writing his own grammar of the English language.

While Buchanan extensively borrowed from Fisher’s work, he appeared to have been primarily concerned with developing a new pedagogy of teaching English grammar. Considering that the standardisation of English was an endeavour undertaken by middle class men and women and not by a government institution (unlike in France, for example, where the Académie française was founded in 1635), developing new pedagogies seemed just as much part of the grammar writing practice of eighteenth-century England as codifying the language did.

The field of historical sociolinguistics, and especially that of the standardisation of the English language, is really a niche in its own right — and a fascinating one at that. The fact that my article has been cited 5 times can be said to be truly remarkable and I am glad to have made a contribution with my findings. If you are interested in reading the article, you can access it via the link above!