As pointed out by Mugglestone (2003), among others, accent started to be a British obsession in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the market for ‘proper speech’ flourished not only in the UK but also in the USA (see, for example, Algeo 2001; Beal 2004a; Hickey 2010). Together with orthoepists and elocutionists, actors were perceived as good models of ‘correct pronunciation’ which was a guarantee of reliability and success (Goring 2005; 2014). This paper argues that their experience on the stage favoured their profession as elocutionists. The qualitative analysis of the prefatorial materials of 18th-and 19th-century elocutionary manuals will show that actors/orthoepists had a primary role in the construction of the standard accent ideology and also in the making of American linguistic independence.
Eighteenth-and nineteenth-century theatre and the standard language ideology: actors as elocutionists [18th- and 19th-Century Theatre and the Standard Language Ideology: Actors as Elocutionists] / M. Sturiale. - In: TEXTUS. - ISSN 1824-3967. - 35:1(2022), pp. 59-73. [10.7370/103899]
Eighteenth-and nineteenth-century theatre and the standard language ideology: actors as elocutionists [18th- and 19th-Century Theatre and the Standard Language Ideology: Actors as Elocutionists]
M. Sturiale
2022
Abstract
As pointed out by Mugglestone (2003), among others, accent started to be a British obsession in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries when the market for ‘proper speech’ flourished not only in the UK but also in the USA (see, for example, Algeo 2001; Beal 2004a; Hickey 2010). Together with orthoepists and elocutionists, actors were perceived as good models of ‘correct pronunciation’ which was a guarantee of reliability and success (Goring 2005; 2014). This paper argues that their experience on the stage favoured their profession as elocutionists. The qualitative analysis of the prefatorial materials of 18th-and 19th-century elocutionary manuals will show that actors/orthoepists had a primary role in the construction of the standard accent ideology and also in the making of American linguistic independence.File | Dimensione | Formato | |
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