Cover not available

In:Processes of Change: Studies in Late Modern and Present-Day English
Edited by Sandra Jansen and Lucia Siebers
[Studies in Language Variation 21] 2019
► pp. 7–24

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
authorization required

Chapter 2
Enregisterment and historical sociolinguistics

Published online: 13 August 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.21.02bea
This chapter introduces the concepts of indexicality and enregisterment and examines how they can be applied to the study of historical sociolinguistics, as part of a recent turn towards “third wave” (Eckert 2012) sociolinguistic approaches in this discipline. The chapter explores the potential usefulness of indexicality and enregisterment as tools for historical sociolinguistics, drawing on historical evidence of metalinguistic commentary. It also discusses the role of normative texts, dialect literature and popular culture in establishing what Agha terms “a linguistic repertoire differentiable within a language as a socially recognised register” indexing “speaker status linked to a specific scheme of cultural values” (Agha 2003: 231).
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Indexicality and enregisterment
  • 3.Historical discourse about language
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Note
  • References
References (54)
References
Agha, Asif. 2003. The social life of a cultural value. Language and Communication 23. 231–273. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2007. Language and social relations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Barber, Charles, Joan C. Beal & Philip A. Shaw. 2010. The English language. A historical introduction. 2nd edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 1999. English pronunciation in the eighteenth century: Thomas Spence’s ‘Grand repository of the English language’ (1775). Oxford: Clarendon Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. Marks of disgrace: Attitudes to non-standard pronunciation in 18th-century pronouncing dictionaries.” In Marina Dossena & Roger Lass (eds.), Methods and data in English historical dialectology, 329–350. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2009. Enregisterment, commodification and historical context: 'Geordie' versus 'Sheffieldish'. American Speech 84 (2). 138–156. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beal, Joan C. 2017. Northern English and enregisterment. In Sylvie Hancil & Joan C. Beal (eds.), Perspectives on Northern Englishes, 17–39. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergs, Alexander. 2005. Social networks and historical sociolinguistics. Studies in morphosyntacic variation in the Paston letters (1421–1503). Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Caxton, William. (trans.) 1480. The description of Britayne & also Irlonde taken oute of polichronicon. Westminster: W. Caxton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Conde-Silvestre, J. Camilo. 2016. A ‘third-wave’ historical sociolinguistic approach to Late Middle English correspondence: Evidence from the Stonor Letters. In Cinzia Russi (ed.), Current Trends in Historical Sociolinguistics, 46–66. Berlin: de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooper, Paul. 2013. Enregisterment in historical contexts: A framework. PhD thesis: University of Sheffield.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dobson, Eric J. 1957. English pronunciation 1500–1700. London: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eckert, Penelope 2012. Three waves of variation study: The emergence of meaning in the study of variation. Annual Review of Anthropology 41. 87–100. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fennell, Barbara A. 2001. A history of English. A sociolinguistic approach. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fitzmaurice, Susan. 2010. Coalitions, networks and discourse communities in Augustan England: the spectator and the early eighteenth-century essay. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Eighteenth-century English: Ideology and change, 106–132. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Görlach, Manfred. 1991. Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1999. Regional and social variation. In Roger Lass (ed.), The Cambridge history of English, Volume III, 1476–1776, 459–538. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
H., Hon Henry. 1866. Poor letter H, its use and abuse. London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Haugen, Einar. 1966. Dialect, language, nation. American Anthropologist 68. 922–935. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hernández-Campoy, Juan Manuel & J. Camilo Conde-Silvestre (eds.). 2012. The handbook of historical sociolinguistics. Oxford/Malden: Wiley-Blackwell. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hickey, Raymond 2010. Attitudes and concerns in eighteenth-century English. In Raymond Hickey (ed.), Eighteenth-century English: Ideology and change, 1–20. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara. 2009. Pittsburghese shirts: Commodification and the enregisterment of an urban dialect. American Speech 84 (2). 157–175. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2016. Enregisterment: How linguistic items become linked with ways of speaking. Language and Linguistics Compass 10. 632–643. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnstone, Barbara, Jennifer Andrus & Andrew E. Danielson. 2006. Mobility, indexicality, and the enregisterment of ‘Pittsburghese’. Journal of English Linguistics 34 (2). 77–104. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, Charles. 1989. A history of English phonology. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kopaczyk, Joanna & Andreas Jucker (eds). 2013. Communities of practice in the history of English. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Labov, William. 1972. Sociolinguistic patterns. Oxford: Blackwell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Leith, Dick. 1997. A social history of English. 2nd edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Le Prieult, Henri. 2016. Early challengers of norms in the English grammatical tradition. Language and History 5 (1). 4–13. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McCool, Sam. 1982. Sam McCool's new Pittsburghese: How to speak like a Pittsburgher. Pittsburgh, PA: Hayford Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Millar, Robert McColl. 2012. English historical sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Milroy, James & Lesley Milroy. 1999. Authority in language: Investigating language prescriptivism and standardisation. 3rd edition. London: Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Montgomery, Chris. 2012. Perceptions of dialects: Changing attitudes and ideologies. In Terttu Nevalainen & Elizabeth Closs Traugott (eds.), The Oxford handbook of the history of English, 457–469. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mugglestone, Lynda. 2003. Talking proper: The rise of accent as social symbol. 2nd edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevalainen, Terttu & Helena Raumolin-Brunberg. 2003. Historical sociolinguistics: Language change in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Longman.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Puttenham, George. 1589. The arte of English poesie. London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rogos, Justyna. 2013. Crafting text languages: Spelling systems in manuscripts of the Man of Law's Tale as a means of construing scribal community of practice. In Joanna Kopaczyk & Andreas Jucker (eds.), Communities of practice in the history of English, 136–155. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Romaine, Suzanne. 1982. Socio-historical linguistics: Its status and methodology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sheridan, Thomas. 1761. A dissertation on the causes of difficulties which occur, in learning the English tongue. London: R. and J. Dodsley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1762. A course of lectures on elocution. London.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1780. A general dictionary of the English language. London: J. Dodsley, C. Dilly and J. Wilkie.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Silverstein, Michael. 1976. Shifters, linguistic categories, and cultural description. In Keith H. Basso & Henry A. Selby (eds.), Meaning in anthropology, 11–55. Albuquerque, NM: University of New Mexico Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2003. Indexical order and the dialectics of sociolinguistic life. Language and Communication 23. 193–229. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid. 2000. Social network analysis and the history of English. European Journal of English Studies 4 (3). 211–216. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Timofeeva, Olga 2013. ‘Of ledenum bocum to Engliscum gereorde’: Bilingual communities of practice in Anglo-Saxon England. In Joanna Kopaczyk & Andreas Jucker (eds.), Communities of practice in the history of English, 246–282. Amsterdam: Benjamins, Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Trapateau, Nicolas 2016. ‘Pedantick’, ‘polite’ or ‘vulgar’? A systematic analysis of 18th century normative discourse on pronunciation in John Walker's dictionary (1791). Language and History 59 (1). 25–36. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tyrkkö, Jukka 2013. Printing houses as communities of practice: Orthography in Early Modern medical books. In Joanna Kopaczyk & Andreas Jucker (eds.), Communities of practice in the history of English, 186–219. Amsterdam: Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wales, Katie 2006. Northern English. A social and cultural history. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Walker, John 1791. A critical pronouncing dictionary. London: G.G.J. and J. Robinson and T. Cadell.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Watts, Richard J. & Peter Trudgill (eds.). 2002. Alternative histories of English. London: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wells, John C. 1982. Accents of English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Whomersley, Derek. 1981. Sheffieldish: a beginner's phrase book. Sheffield: City of Sheffield Publicity Department.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wyld, Henry C. 1927. A short history of English. 3rd edition. London: Murray.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Zhang, Qing. 2005. A Chinese yuppie in Beijing: Phonological variation and the construction of a new professional identity. Language in Society 34(3). 431–466. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Gerwin, Johanna
2023. Between Nottin’ Ill Gite and Bleckfriars – the enregisterment of Cockney in the 19th century. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 9:1 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo
Holmstrom, Sarah & Joseph Salmons
2023. 1. The History of North American English. Publication of the American Dialect Society 108:1 ► pp. 8 ff. DOI logo
Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria
2022. Methodological approaches to the study of codification, prescription, and prescriptivism. Studia Neophilologica 94:3 ► pp. 334 ff. DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 2 december 2025. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.

Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue