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The English Language In Samuel Johnson's As The Seventeenth Century

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INTRODUCTION
The English language has gone through tremendous development to reach where it is today. The development changes exists in seven critical stages. However, it is the transition phase between the seventeenth century and eighteenth century that has generated many public debates, because, as some scholars of English language put, it represents the transition of the tongue from the guidance of grammarians to the leadership of lexicographers. One such scholar is Mitchel who claims that while grammarians were the guardians of the English language in the seventeenth century, in the eighteenth century, it shifted to lexicographers. In this essay, therefore, I intend to critically evaluate Mitchell’s claim by comparing it with Samuel Johnson’s …show more content…

Lexicons are still elementary and consist of synonym, also included are the meanings of words that are not long, and commentary for a given the name. However, dictionaries start to emerge as a result of a conflict that arises among grammarians who fail to agree on translations. Lexicographers start to set standards on how the language should appear. At first, some of the times, dictionaries disappoint many as they comprise documents that are not complete of the tongue, thus giving a definition of the meaning of a word that is not clear (Mitchell, 1994). It is during this time that Samuel Johnson introduces his dictionary that has the responsibility to legislate rules that guide the language. For him to achieve his goal, the dictionary codifies and further standardize in a well-arranged manner, the English language (Lane, …show more content…

As evident above, it is not until 18th century that lexicographers emerge as the legislature of the English language. Also, it is only Samuel Johnson who becomes recognized for his work in writing a dictionary even though lexicographers existed before him. The illustration here is that, depicts that grammarians never wished to be toppled as the ones in charge of making language decisions. The prestige of which this comes with unable grammarians from seeing the mutual benefit it has to both the people and their understanding of the tongue. As evidence of mutual benefit, after lexicographers emerge as certain individuals in charge of setting standards of the language, they start including grammar in dictionaries to ensure accuracy in the

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