| Lerninhalte |
English can boast an exceptionally long, albeit discontinuous, history of standardization. The conscious development and cultivation of a supra-regional Schriftsprache in late Anglo-Saxon times was followed by more than 300 years of largely unrestrained diversification, before a new process of standardization set in during the early 15th century. After examining the linguistic and social determinants and effects of this process, both with regard to writing and speech, we will study normative endeavours culminating in the "Age of Prescriptivism" and take a critical look at the current position of British Standard English and its associated prestige accent, RP, or rather NRP.
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