Publisher's Synopsis
The overall structure of the book sustains the view of the development of the language through successive historical periods towards the present-day standard. The collection of texts emphasizes the stylistic and dialectal variety of English, acknowledging this as important to linguistic change. Among the topics which might arise from this collection are the relationship between dialect speech and the standard at various periods, its social implications, the influence upon English of foreign languages, the occurrence of colloquial expression in writing or the characteristics of Latin-based prose.;The selection of particular types of writing from a range of periods permits the exploration of certain pathways through the history of English, including scientific writings, from Aelfric to Darwin, attitudes to, and understanding of, language, from the 14th to the 19th centuries, the continuing art of letter writing or the development of the language of a region.
