Resumen de “Rules to be Observed”: A Look into Thomas Sheridan’s and John Walker’s Attitudes in the Late Eighteenth Century
This paper contributes to the growing body in the study of the standardisation of spoken English in the Late Modern English period, within the framework of Normative Linguistics. It presents an analysis of attitudes towards deviations in pronunciation in the late-eighteenth-century society with a focus on the works by the two main elocutionists at the time, namely Thomas Sheridan and his A General Dictionary of the English Language (1780) and John Walker and his A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791). Pronouncing dictionaries were in high demand in this period and the authors’ insightful views into the norms and use of the English language as portrayed in their prologues and prefatory materials consolidate them as reliable sources for the study of historical phonology. The relevance of these two dictionaries in particular lies in their popularity and influence at the time of publication and throughout the nineteenth century.
