Theorising the Standard: Jones and Wyld

Abstract

It has been argued over the last two chapters that the term ‘standard English’ was used to cover the literary language and a particular form of the spoken language that was defined in terms of its speakers. It was also argued that the ambiguity of such usage led to powerful possibilities in the use of this term in cultural, political and linguistic debates. In the present chapter it is proposed to consider the realisation of such possibilities in the work of two linguists in the early twentieth century by examining how they used the term in their theoretical and practical research and thus how the term itself was developed. This will be followed by a consideration of uses of the term in specific cultural and political debates in order to see what sort of role it played. Again this will involve a delineation of continuities and ruptures in the use of the term: continuities with the line of argument that has been developed and ruptures in the sense of new uses and possibilities. The two linguists whose work is to be considered are Daniel Jones and Henry Wyld, two of the most independent of the early-twentieth-century British linguists.