30.344, Books: Samuel Johnson and the Journey into Words: Mugglestone

[The LINGUIST List]

LINGUIST List: Vol-30-344. Tue Jan 22 2019. ISSN: 1069 - 4875.

Subject: 30.344, Books: Samuel Johnson and the Journey into Words: Mugglestone

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Date: Tue, 22 Jan 2019 10:28:43
From: Alyssa Russell [Alyssa.Russell at oup.com]
Subject: Samuel Johnson and the Journey into Words: Mugglestone

 


Title: Samuel Johnson and the Journey into Words 
Publication Year: 2018 
Publisher: Oxford University Press
	   http://www.oup.com/us
	

Book URL: https://global.oup.com/academic/product/samuel-johnson-and-the-journey-into-words-9780198830689 


Author: Lynda Mugglestone

Paperback: ISBN:  9780198830689 Pages: 305 Price: U.S. $ 21.95


Abstract:

Popular readings of Johnson as a dictionary-maker often see him as a writer
who both laments and attempts to control the state of the language. Lynda
Mugglestone looks at the range of Johnson's writings on, and the complexity of
his thinking about, language and lexicography. She shows how these reveal him
probing problems not just of meaning and use but what he considered the
related issues of control, obedience, and justice, as well as the difficulties
of power when exerted over the 'sea of words'. She examines his attitudes to
language change, loan words, spelling, history, and authority, describing,
too, the evolution of his ideas about the nature, purpose, and methods of
lexicography, and shows how these reflect his own wider thinking about
politics, culture, and society. The book offers a careful reassessment of
Johnson's lexicographical practice, examining in detail his commitment to
evidence, and the uses to which this might be put.

Dictionary-making, for Johnson, came to be seen as a long and difficult voyage
round the world of the English language. While such images play their own role
in lexicographical tradition, Johnson would, as this volume explores, also
make them very much his own in a range of distinctive, and illuminating, ways.
Johnson's metaphors invite us to consider-and reconsider-the processes by
which a dictionary might be made and the kind of destination it might seek, as
well as the state of language that might be reached by such endeavours. For
Johnson, where the dictionary-maker might go, and what should be accomplished
along the way, can often seem to raise pertinent and perhaps troubling
questions.

Lynda Mugglestone's generous, wide-ranging account casts new light on
Johnson's life in language and provides an engaging reassessment of his impact
on English culture, the making of dictionaries, and their role in a nation's
identity.
 



Linguistic Field(s): Lexicography


Written In: English  (eng)

See this book announcement on our website: 
http://linguistlist.org/pubs/books/get-book.cfm?BookID=132554




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