This volume is a collection of papers from a colloquium hosted by the University of Catania, Italy, in 2006 which is a sequel to a symposium held in Sheffield three years earlier under the title ‘Histories of Prescriptivism, alternative approaches to the study of English 1700–1900’, selected papers of which were published in a special issue of Historiographia Linguistica (Koerner Reference Koerner2006). While the Sheffield colloquium gathered a group of scholars who challenged the traditional view of prescriptivism as the only voice of authority in Late Modern English, the second colloquium went a step further by incorporating new language areas affected by the (perception of) prescriptivism in the course of the last three hundred years. A good representative sample of the discussions of this topic is found in the volume under review, which poses three questions in the introduction: (i) ‘To what extent is the idea and/or concept of prescriptivism to be considered as a typical product of the eighteenth century?’; (ii) ‘What is the attitude of 21st-century scholars and language guardians?’; and (iii) ‘To what extent were books more prescriptive – rather than descriptive – in Lowth's era?’ (pp. 10–11).

In what follows, I will comment on each of the eleven papers in this volume to assess how successful the book is in carrying out its overall purposes.

The article by Joan C. Beal, ‘“Shamed by your English?”: The market value of a “good” pronunciation’, makes an excellent first article as it epitomizes the aims of this volume by re-addressing prescriptivism in elocution from the eighteenth century to the present day. This article was sparked by a current advertisement which appeals ‘to readers from all points of the political spectrum’ (p. 21) to get rid of their incorrect pronunciation, a task associated with prescriptivism since the eighteenth century. Since such a need is perceived by people from all walks of life, the association of prescriptive and descriptive analysis with conservative and liberal attitudes respectively does not hold anymore. Prescriptivism can no longer be regarded as a threatening force heralded by conservative forces against which the modern and liberal linguist has to fight. In her article, Beal provides a diachronic analysis of the ups and downs of the guides to correct pronunciation and draws attention to the new rising tendency for elocution lessons ‘under the guise of “business communication”’ (p. 31). The author concludes that prescriptivism still persists in contemporary society, only that the model is not the aristocracy, but the neutral language of the professional classes, ‘who fear being taken for “chavs” just as much as their eighteenth-century counterparts dreaded the taint of “vulgarity”’ (p. 38).

Marina Dossena's article is entitled ‘Prescriptivism a century ago: Business correspondence taught to emigrants – a case study’. Dossena examines, from the light of prescriptive attitudes, an early twentieth-century letter-writing guide which offers ‘instances of recommended usage, thus setting the standard against which readers [Italian immigrants to the USA] should measure their own output’ (p. 43). Hampered by the lack of a corpus of nineteenth-century American English letters (p. 56), the letters against which she compares the model letters are taken from the Corpus of Nineteenth-Century Scottish Correspondence (henceforth 19CSC), compiled by Dossena herself and Richard Dury. Firstly, Dossena sketches the main structure of both business and private letters in the 19CSC and letter-writing manual. However, as a second thought, she then narrows down the aim of the article to ‘concentrate on business and professional letters . . . deeming personal ones to be beyond the scope of the current study’ (pp. 46–7). Restricted by the lack of space, self-imposed by the preceding analysis on both private and business letters, she briefly analyses how representative of actual usage the model letters are through a closer examination of the body of the message. Broadly speaking, the author concludes that the letter-writing guide is less sophisticated and does not allow for much deference as compared with the letters in 19CSC, which take advantage of ‘the flexibility with which mutual status is negotiated between participants’ (p. 56). Dossena accounts for this disparity by adducing that the very nature of the model letters compels a prescriptive nature, as they ‘need to present standard models acceptable to different circumstances’ (p. 56). The analysis carried out in this article opens up new perspectives on prescriptivism as ‘a good working basis’ for second-language users (p. 57). Further analysis in this field would help to determine how closely letter-writing guides reflected ‘what went on in the real world’ (p. 57).

Karlijn Navest's contribution is on ‘Ash's Grammatical Institutes and “Mrs Teachwell's library for her young ladies”’. Hers is the only article discussing one of the nine eighteenth-century female grammarians identified so far. Fortunately, the ‘forgotten’ women authors (Cajka Reference Cajka2003) have lately received more attention (see, for example, Tieken-Boon van Ostade Reference Tieken-Boon van Ostade2000 or Rodriguez-Gil Reference Rodriguez-Gil and Tieken-Boon van Ostade2008). Navest tries to determine why Fenn chose Ash's grammar as one of her main sources, and ‘to what extent did Fenn's ideas differ from those of Ash and how were they reflected in her adaptation of his grammar’ (p. 60). The fact that Fenn relied on Ash, and occasionally on Lowth (p. 67), is but one example of how much eighteenth-century grammar-writers copied or relied heavily on each other: plagiarism was rife. However, Navest shows that Fenn did not copy ‘uncritically’ (p. 70), as she also introduced her own comments and explanations to clarify and facilitate learning and teaching to young learners, for instance through the use of sentences with reference to the immediate world of students, like ‘“John is come from school”’ and ‘“[m]y papa is gone [to] London”’ (p. 71). This concern draws Fenn closer to modern pedagogy, which advises making learning meaningful and effective by giving children the opportunity to link their school activities to real-life experience. Navest's article is a wonderful article that provides new and interesting information about the genesis of Fenn's grammar; however, it is difficult to see how this information contributes to broaden our perspectives on prescriptivism as intended in this book.

The article entitled ‘Phonoaesthetic assessment of words in eighteenth-century prescriptions and later’, by Larisa Oldireva Gustafsson, deals with the (ab)use of prepositions and pronouns, focusing on the proscription of using monosyllables in sentence-final position through associations of sounds and social attitudes. At the same time, she explores the relationship between prescription and actual usage through the analysis of the sermons of Hugh Blair. The author concludes that there is no settled pattern as regards usage of this prescription and that these were ‘tentative recommendations, not rules, despite the fact they were often formulated as rules’ (p. 101). Gustafsson puts forward a new interpretation of eighteenth-century prescriptivism, since the actual phrasing of the authoritarian rules formulated in the prescriptive approach could be just a matter of following the conventional writing style at the time. Besides, from her statistical analysis determining the binary prescription- practice we learn that statistical observations ‘should be interpreted with caution’ as they ‘leave much space for text- and author-specific choices’ (p. 99). Though it was quite dense, I quite liked this article as it is very insightful and readable, even for those who are not experts in this field.

Carol Percy's article bears the title ‘Liberty, sincerity, (in)accuracy: Prescriptions for manly English in eighteenth-century reviews and the “Republic of Letters”’. Based on over 200 records containing the word manly retrieved from a self-compiled database, Percy surveys ‘the descriptions and constructions of manly writing in practice, as articulated in mid-eighteenth-century Britain’ (pp. 113–14) in the dissenting periodical the Monthly Review and the conservative Critical Review. In doing so, she explores a new aspect of the complex prism of prescriptivism, as these reviews ‘provide a new body of evidence for mid-century attitudes’ (p. 114). The present article complements Percy's research on eighteenth-century female writing, which was at the time perceived to be ‘sprightly’, ‘easy’, ‘incorrect’ and ‘artless’ (Percy Reference Percy2000: 329). Manly writing was immersed, by contrast, in public life (p. 122). It was sincere, plain and unaffected; in sum ‘an index of integrity’ (p. 124) that allowed for grammatical inaccuracy (p. 125). This concession would soon change with the rise of prescriptive grammars that dictated strict rules and also ascribed social judgments to those not observing them. Thus, the frequency of reviews with the terms ‘manly’ and ‘inaccurate’ or ‘ungrammatical’ sharply decreased from 35 per cent in the 1750s to nearly 8 per cent in the 1770s and 1780s (p. 128). Such a decrease bears witness to the influence that some eighteenth-century prescriptions had on the general willingness to accept incorrect language as the century unfolded.

‘Charles Richardson: Prescriptivist or descriptivist? An analysis based on A new dictionary of the English language (1836–37)’ is discussed by Laura Pinnavaia. With a self-explanatory title, this article explores Richardson's work as a bridge between the old prescriptive dictionaries, epitomized by Johnson's dictionary (1755), and the new descriptive trends in dictionary writing, embodied in the Oxford English dictionary (henceforth OED) (pp. 148–9). Pinnavaia spends seven out of the sixteen pages of the article – five of which consist of unusually long quotations – drawing a comparison between the dictionaries of Johnson, Richardson and the OED to establish the similarities and differences among them. It is only in the last section that she addresses more directly the main theme of the article with an analysis of the preface to Richardson's dictionary. Pinnavaia suggests that Richardson's plan when writing the dictionary ‘may not [have been] in perfect harmony with the final outcome’ (p. 157), the immediate consequence being that descriptive and prescriptive features blend in his work. Whilst the preceding articles have tried to redeem prescriptivism as having traces of descriptivism, in the present article the author revisits this acclaimed descriptive work to show it was compiled ‘with a prescriptive plan in mind’ (p. 161), thus demonstrating that the unfair bias against prescriptivism has blinded some scholars in their analyses. However, to my mind, more analysis of the preface would have been desirable in order to substantiate the author's claims, compelling though they are.

Another eighteenth-century English grammar is addressed in the next article by Giuliana Russo, ‘Joseph Priestley's The rudiments of English grammar; Adapted to the use of schools. With observations on style (1761)’. The author focuses on ‘the coherence between the theoretical background expressed in the preface and its actual realisation in his rules and examples’ (p. 167). In the actual analysis to unearth Priestley's prescriptivism, however, Russo provides many examples that attest to Priestley's descriptivism, and only in the last page does she provide evidence of prescriptivism. Unfortunately, some of these illustrations do not hold. For example, Priestley's prescriptive attitude in his definition of grammar as ‘“the art of using words properly”’ (p. 174) is clarified by the author herself as the customary definition in ‘the “discourse community” of eighteenth-century grammarians’, and not as ‘a deliberate choice of prescription’ (p. 174, fn. 6). Although a deeper and more accurate analysis with more examples to support Priestley's prescriptive side, so to speak, would have been necessary, the conclusions drawn offer interesting insights. She reaches the same conclusion as Pinnavaia when claiming that though Priestley's grammar is generally coherent as regards its descriptive approach, ‘this is not sufficient to proclaim Priestley's unconditioned adherence to descriptivism’ (p. 175). It seems thus that not only are the works traditionally deemed prescriptive in need of being revisited, but so also those frequently labelled as descriptive.

The editor Massimo Sturiale contributes to the book with the article ‘Prescriptivism and eighteenth-century bilingual dictionaries. William Perry's The standard French and English pronouncing dictionary (1795)’. Even though Perry stands out as ‘one of the most prolific and active lexicographers of the second half of the eighteenth century’ (p. 183), the scanty biographical information gathered by Sturiale in the course of his research epitomizes the situation of many other eighteenth-century authors who still need to be investigated. Sturiale points out the prescriptive agenda of the English−French part of the dictionary, determined by its pronunciation standard for foreigners and for Perry's countrymen against ‘“vicious” and “provincial” pronunciation’ (p. 188). By marketing his dictionary to a wide audience, he boosted the potential sales and, accordingly, his own profits. Not only this, but by adopting the prescriptive practices in counterpart monolingual dictionaries as regards pronunciation standards, and by applying them to his bilingual dictionary he took advantage of an effective marketing strategy. A new perspective to prescriptivism arises here, since Sturiale suggests that Perry consciously benefited from the prescriptive spirit to compete for his share in the market ‘following the fashion of his time’ (p. 187).

The next article, ‘The codifiers and the history of multiple negation in English, or, why were eighteenth-century grammarians so obsessed with double negation?’, is written by Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade. The author argues that the high frequency of this particular linguistic feature in eighteenth-century grammars was due to its interpretation as ‘a possible social shibboleth at the time’ (p. 199), since the only class using this feature was the lower social class. More interestingly, Tieken-Boon van Ostade brings into question the repute of Lowth's grammar as an ‘icon of prescriptivism’ (p. 204). Whilst Lowth's comment on multiple negation was ‘strictly descriptive’ (p. 202), Priestley, the descriptive grammar-writer of the eighteenth century, ‘must be labelled as proscriptive’ (pp. 202–3), since he included value judgements in his discussion (p. 202). Besides, Tieken-Boon van Ostade claims, ‘it is evident that he [Lowth] owes much of his present status to the way in which Murray adapted parts of his grammar’ (pp. 204–5). Another thought-provoking point is that all the proscription against this linguistic feature did not make it disappear from actual usage, contrary to Percy's analysis above, since it is still ‘“used by working-class speakers throughout and beyond Britain”’ (p. 209). This present-day usage challenges the effective and negative influence of eighteenth-century grammarians on actual usage. This outstanding article provides sound evidence that prescriptivism is in need of revision.

Laura Wright deals with a new socially marked rising feature in her article ‘Social attitudes towards Londoners’ front-glide insertion after velar consonants and before front vowels’. This feature points to a new shibboleth, as it ‘reflected upon social features rather than linguistic ones (there being nothing objectively good or bad about front-glide insertion at any point in history)’ (p. 215), which ‘attracted both positive and negative prescriptive comment’ (p. 215) in the course of time. One might expect a corpus analysis to prove the development of this feature through time, very much in the same way as Dossena or Percy did in their articles. However, the compilation of such a corpus would have been simply impossible since this phonetic feature does not show in spelling variation. It seems, thus, that prescriptive orthoepists and grammarians did not totally mould the language to their own whims, but they also recorded the contemporary language that actually existed, by describing it. As Wright states, ‘had they not squabbled about the status of front-glide insertion after velar stops we would know very little about this sound-change’ (p. 232). So, I, like Wright, ‘do extend gratitude’ (p. 232) to them all.

Nuria Yáñez-Bouza in her article ‘To end or not to end a sentence with a preposition: An eighteenth-century debate’ complains that modern studies are more concerned with how to ‘ascertain the negative influence of prescriptivism’ (p. 238) than with a detailed analysis of the real attitudes featured in those prescriptive works. Based on a self-compiled corpus, the author carries out a diachronic analysis which is innovative in various ways: (i) it includes a wide variety of text-types; (ii) several editions of the same work, as well as different works of the same author, are used; and (iii) there are four types of attitudes to preposition stranding: ‘mention’, ‘advocate’, ‘opponent’ and ‘nothing found’. These four types are further qualified according to a wide range of semantic labels that account for different nuances used by eighteenth-century commentators on this language feature, though I would have liked to read more quotations illustrating the different nuances and attitudes. Following these parameters, Yáñez-Bouza supersedes the traditional analysis by providing a deeper and more accurate picture of what really happened at the time. This fresh approach paves the way for new and fruitful analyses of particular grammatical features as described by eighteenth-century authors, which is a far cry from the anti-prescriptive stance found in the modern literature.

At this point, I should like to briefly mention some problems with the editing. Besides the inevitable typos scattered throughout, in the paper by Yáñez-Bouza there is a mismatch between the figures as presented in the graphs and the subsequent explanation in the body of the article, as well as mistakes in the labelling of the categories in the figures. There are also several problems as regards the bibliography of the book as a whole: (i) there are some references missing in many articles; (ii) the references are divided into primary and secondary sources in some articles, for instance those by Beal or Sturiale, whereas in others, Russo's article for example, this division is not made; and (iii) some secondary sources are listed among primary sources and vice versa. I must say, however, that including the references after each article, instead of providing an all-inclusive list at the end of the book, makes consulting a much easier task.

To conclude, though we find variability in the quality and depth of the articles, this book offers innovative approaches to prescriptivism which serve to redeem it. It seems that a new research attitude has arisen which aims to scrutinize prescriptive attitudes in their sociohistorical context. This new attitude emerged in 2003, broadened its perspectives in 2006, and will be developed further at the next conference on prescriptivism, to be held in Toronto in 2009, which aspires to focus on a wide variety of topics, among them language contact, missionary linguistics, postcolonial theory, diaspora studies, Anglophone and Francophone identities, alterity studies, gender and linguistic nationalism, and creoles.