The Codification Of English Language: Standardization Via Grammar And Dictionaries

Tools for language standardization

Question:

Discuss about the Codification in English for Origins and Development.

Codification is an essential process through which a language is standardized. It helps the language to gain a form that is easily understandable by everyone. Even the people who do not use that specific language as their mother tongue can use it with ease if a specific structure is clearly defined. Grammar is the tool that is used to standardize a language and further modifications are done by reshaping words and phonetics. Two of the most important tools to facilitate in the codification process are grammar and the making of dictionaries (Braine 2014). Grammar helps to give a formidable structure to the language which makes it easy to understand and fathom how the language operates; while dictionaries help to give an idea as to which are the accepted words in the language and helps to create the vocabulary of the language. Dictionaries also help to make the user know the meaning of the words of the language, which helps to understand which words are best suited for a purpose and accordingly employ those words to deliver the opinions and facts in the best possible way (Sung 2016). The paper seeks to give answers as to these aspects regarding how the English language was codified and how and why were grammar standardized and dictionary books were created.

The linguistic term “codification” normally refers to the different methods that are used to standardize a language, English for the case of the current paper, which was coined by Einar Haugen, a popular linguist. It was defined as the process leading to “minimal variation in form”. This means that the language is more or less of the same form across the places where it is spoken. Creating dictionaries, guides about how to use different styles and guidelines of using the language, a structure put forth by grammar books are all tools that are used to standardize a language (Brems 2015).

Codification is a continuous and ongoing process; but the most important period was during the 18^th century, where a huge number of grammar books and dictionaries were being published, all trying to give the language a proper structure. Among these, the most notable were Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language, published in the Great Britain in 1755, and Noah Webster’s The American Spelling Book, published in 1783 in the United States.

The history of the codification of English

Codification is often seen as the final process in the standardization of a language. During the 16^th and 17^th centuries, the English language was given a lot of attention in the attempt to standardize it. The victory of Henry the 8^th over the Catholic church led to a fall in its control over education and that made the importance of Latin to fall in terms of use (Kroskrity 2015). The language of the emerging nation of England as a state required it to be standardized in order to be used widely. In 1523, one of the first grammar books, A Shorte Introduction of Grammar was published by William Lily, that took an attempt to give a standard idea of language. The stark disparity in the number of grammar books that were published before and after 1600 is huge and is one of the best evidences that more people were trying to standardize the language (Mosel 2014). The first grammar book that tied to give a logical explanation regarding how does English work as a language or tried to give a proper idea about the spelling and syntax of the language was Bullokar’s Bref Grammar for English. This was the first book that described how English “should be” and not just how “it was”.

There are a few ways and methods that are put into action to standardize languages. Some being:

• Dialect leveling: This refers to the process of lingual standardization by reducing, or even eliminating, the differences that a language has in different regions. This happens over a period of time and several generations. English across the countries are increasingly becoming generic and loosing local characters. This may be attributed to the advent of the internet.
• Linguistic imperialism: This is when one language is imposed on the speakers of another language and subjugate them to use this new language instead their native one. The primary example of this would the expansion of English language.
• Purism: This means holding a very conservative perspective regarding the use and development of a language. The problem with English in this aspect is, despite some vehement defenders, it is not at all pure and has inputs from numerous other languages, words it has molded and incorporated as its own.
• Linguistic insecurity: This happens when the users of a certain language are not confident enough to think that their use of the language is not up to the mark of the standard form of the language. This feeling of insecurity prompts them to alter their unique way of using the language and bring it in accordance to how other people use it (Weber 2015). This makes everyone trying to speak or use the language in the same way, making the language standardized.
• Prescriptivism: This notion refers to the belief that one language, or dialect of the same language, is superior to the others and ought to be promoted more. This is another form of purism, that hails a particular dialect and form an d dismisses another. This makes some users of a language to be more controlling and tend to try and make others speak and use the language as they see fit and the only proper way.

Dictionaries are one of the two pillars that uphold the basic tenets of any language. A dictionary helps an individual to be autonomous, who does not need to be reliant on others in order to properly use the language. Dictionaries help to shape a language in many ways. Dictionaries are essentially the compilation of words that are accepted in a language and can best explain what one wants to mean. A proper notion and knowledge about these words can help to translate better: without the knowledge on words, it is tricky to communicate with people who speak another language, simply because translations are rendered useless. Dictionaries help an individual to use proper grammar as well as giving ideas and knowledge about the background of a word and also how it should be pronounced and the word family it belongs to, the properties of that segment of words and also the best ways and situations to use them (Algeo and Butcher 2013). Dictionaries also help to give the knowledge regarding the different forms of the same word: how it is spoken as a verb or as a noun or as an adverb.

The importance of dictionaries

Dictionaries were being commissioned more and more in numbers during the period of the industrial revolution in Europe. In that time, there was a great need to educate the people because the lifestyle was changing fast and with that the outlook and views on different things were quickly changing. Every country had people who were writing their own and selling dictionaries. With the industrial revolution came the advent of scientific research and new discoveries, inventions, innovations were being done every day. This was one of the most important reasons to develop and standardize English as a language (Pennycook 2017). The need to communicate about the new scientific discoveries and to expand the knowledge. English helped in this aspect and it was necessary to give a proper form that would enable the scientists to discuss about the new researches that were going on around the world. Books being expensive during that time, dictionaries were the only option through which the idea and the knowledge about the language could be spread. This had another political aspect to it: the rise of English as a language resulted in the reduction of Latin as in popularity. This was used by the royal families and churches to write books and scrolls. English suddenly made everyone able to read and knowledge was rendered to be free. This simultaneously paved the path for the monarchy to fall and the rise of the educated middle class was initiated.

There are many criteria for a word to be included in a dictionary. The process is lengthy and requires a lot of requirements to be fulfilled. At the very beginning, it must be observed very carefully which words are used the most and how are they being used (Aarts, Chalker and Weiner 2014). This gives important insight regarding how important is a particular word. One good way to achieve this is by reading daily publications in every possible way. Online or digital publications are also given a lot of emphasis in today’s world as the internet has been seen to be the reason for the establishment of many words in popular culture. If any of these new words are found to be in use for a long period of time and if they are even started to be used in official work as well, albeit not being included in the dictionary even then, then these words are tried to be given a proper definition (Knowles 2014). To observe and understand the trends and situations where these words are used can help to understand what purpose do these words serve and may they be used. The definitions are established on this and any further use of the words are kept in accordance with the explanations of the words (Kubota 2014). The sources of these words are of paramount importance as they hold the key to understand the use of the words. Noting down the sources of these words is called citations and gives important understanding regarding just how much used is the word.

The process of including words in dictionaries

These citations are then compiled and alphabetic segments are divided into according to alphabets. While new words are being incorporated into the dictionary, already existing words are also examined to see whether there have been any changes in their definition or what they represent. Throughout the history of language, numerous words have gone through a drastic change in terms of what they define or refer to. The words are then included into the dictionary with a clear description, how should it be pronounced and what is the best situation to use it.

This term, as defined earlier, refers to the notion that one language or dialect is better than another and leads to subjugation of one of them. But in a broad and general sense, most of the words that are used today or are part of the dictionaries, are descriptive. The only words that come across as prescriptive are mostly slangs or are non-standard. Prescriptive words are used these days only in cases of being misused.

Descriptivism means taking an objective approach towards the language, while prescriptivism is more like a set of rules that dictate what should be the structure of the language (Gray 2014). In the modern world, it is hard for anything to have such a hard and fast rule. This makes almost all the modern day dictionaries to be descriptive rather than prescriptive.

References

Aarts, B., Chalker, S. and Weiner, E., 2014. The Oxford dictionary of English grammar. Oxford University Press.

Algeo, J. and Butcher, C.A., 2013. The origins and development of the English language. Cengage Learning.

Braine, G. ed., 2014. Teaching English to the world: History, curriculum, and practice. Routledge.

Brems, L., 2015. Martin Hilpert, Construction Grammar and its Application to English. English Text Construction, 8(1), pp.132-136.

Gray, W., 2014. Codification, Decodification and Recodification: History, Politics and Procedure. In Codification in International Perspective (pp. 3-10). Springer International Publishing.

Knowles, G., 2014 . A cultural history of the English language. Routledge.

 Kroskrity, P.V., 2015. Designing a dictionary for an endangered language community: lexicographical deliberations, language ideological clarifications.

Kubota, R., 2014. Standardization of language and culture. Rethinking language and culture in Japanese education: Beyond the standard, pp.19-34.

Mosel, U., 2014. Corpus linguistic and documentary approaches in writing a grammar of a previously undescribed language.

 Pennycook, A., 2017. The cultural politics of English as an international language. Taylor & Francis.

Sung, C.C.M., 2016. Exposure to multiple accents of English in the English Language Teaching classroom: from second language learners’ perspectives. Innovation in Language Learning and Teaching, 10(3), pp.190-205.

Weber, J.J., 2015. What Is a Language? In Language Racism(pp. 21-49). Palgrave Macmillan UK.