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In:Norms and Usage in Language History, 1600–1900: A sociolinguistic and comparative perspective
Edited by Gijsbert Rutten, Rik Vosters and Wim Vandenbussche
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 3] 2014
► pp. 151–170

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Nineteenth-century English

Norms and usage

Published online: 19 December 2014
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.3.07aue
This paper focuses on language variation and change in nineteenth-century England. The first part of the paper is concerned with grammar writing and the influence that grammatical norms may have had on the English language. The second part of the paper takes a closer look at actual language usage. Throughout the paper particular attention is paid to language history ‘from below’, i.e. the linguistic situation of the lower social orders. For instance, the paper confirms, based on empirical data, that you was, a stigmatised feature in prescriptive grammars, was the dominant form in lower-class language usage. All in all, the paper also tries to show that nineteenth-century English still deserves a lot more scholarly attention.
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