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 had been 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!