Language

Abstract

Abstract This chapter provides a critical exploration of a number of aspects of received wisdom about Johnson and language, exploring Johnson’s own linguistic practice in speech and writing, whether in private writing such as letters and diaries as well as within his published works on language, including his celebrated Dictionary. Against a background of strongly normative interest in language and linguistic regulation, it examines Johnson’s interest in, and presentation of, variation, contact, and change, alongside his engagement with other languages, while also directing close attention to Johnson’s documentary and evidential processes in terms of spelling, meaning and use, and the discourses of power, reform, and authority that these reveal. Across the chapter, questions of form and correctness, the nature of literary authority, and the challenges of lexicography, not least in relation to the conflicts of usage versus correctness, are carefully examined.