Standardising English Spelling
The Role of Printing in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-century Graphemic Developments

With a particular focus on the Early Modern English period, this book explores the standardisation of English spelling.

Marco Condorelli (Author)

9781009098144, Cambridge University Press

Hardback, published 7 April 2022

200 pages
23.5 x 15.7 x 2.1 cm, 0.551 kg

The standardisation of English spelling that resulted from the advent of printing is one of the most fascinating aspects of the history of English. This pioneering book explores new avenues of investigation into spelling development by looking at the Early Modern English period, when irregular features across graphemes became standardised. It traces the development of the English spelling system through a number of 'competing' standards, raising questions about the meaning of 'standardisation'. It introduces a new model for the analysis of large-scale graphemic developments from a diachronic perspective, and provides a new empirical method geared specifically to the study of spelling standardisation between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The method is applied to four interconnected case studies, focusing on the standardisation of positional spellings, i and y, etymological spelling and vowel diacritic spelling. This book is essential reading for researchers of writing systems and the history of English.

1. Introduction
Part I. Context: 2. Theoretical framework
3. Pragmatic framework
Part II. Empirical method: 4. Corpus material
5. Rationale
6. Foundational explorations
Part III. Case Studies: 7. The standardisation of positional spellings
8. The standardisation of i and y
9. The standardisation of etymological spelling
10. The standardisation of vowel diacritic spelling
11. Conclusion.

Subject Areas: Historical & comparative linguistics [CFF], Sociolinguistics [CFB], Linguistics [CF]