Multilingual Subjects: On Standard English, Its Speakers, and Others in the Long Eighteenth Century

344 Pages·2017·2.054 MB·English

by  Daniel DeWispelare

Multilingual Subjects
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MULTILINGUAL
SUBJECTS
(cid:18)
On Standard English, Its Speakers,
and Others in the Long Eighteenth Century
Daniel DeWispelare
university of pennsylvania press
philadelphia
Copyright(cid:2)2017UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Allrightsreserved.Exceptforbriefquotationsused
forpurposesofrevieworscholarlycitation,noneofthis
bookmaybereproducedinanyformbyanymeanswithout
writtenpermissionfromthepublisher.
Publishedby
UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress
Philadelphia,Pennsylvania19104-4112
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LibraryofCongressCataloging-in-PublicationData
Names:DeWispelare,Daniel,author.
Title:Multilingualsubjects:onstandardEnglish,itsspeakers,andothersinthelongeighteenth
century/DanielDeWispelare.
Description:1stedition.(cid:2)Philadelphia:UniversityofPennsylvaniaPress,[2017](cid:2)Includes
bibliographicalreferencesandindex.
Identifiers:LCCN2016050486(cid:2)ISBN978–0-8122–4909–5(hardcover:alk.paper)
Subjects:LCSH:Englishlanguage—Politicalaspects—English-speakingcountries—History—
18thcentury.(cid:2)Englishlanguage—Politicalaspects—GreatBritain—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)
Multilingualism—English-speakingcountries—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)Englishlanguage—
Socialaspects—English-speakingcountries—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)Sociolinguistics—
English-speakingcountries—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)Englishlanguage—English-speaking
countries—Standardization—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)Englishlanguage—English-speaking
countries—Variation—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)Languagepolicy—English-speaking
countries—History—18thcentury.(cid:2)Languageandlanguages—Philosophy—History—18th
century.(cid:2)Translatingandinterpreting—English-speakingcountries—History—18thcentury.
Classification:LCCP119.3.D4872017(cid:2)DDC306.442/21—dc23
LCrecordavailableathttps://lccn.loc.gov/2016050486
Tomyfather
DanielDeWispelare
March29,1949–September25,2010
IfIknownotthemeaningofthevoice,Ishall
beuntohimthatspeakethabarbarian;andhe
thatspeakethshallbeabarbariantome.
—1Corinthians14:11,KingJamesVersion
Opacitiesmustbepreserved;anappetite
foropportuneobscurityintranslationmust
becreated;andfalselyconvenientvehicular
sabirsmustberelentlesslyrefuted.
—E´douardGlissant,PoeticsofRelation
contents
(cid:2)
Introduction.MultiplicityandRelation:
TowardanAnglophoneEighteenthCentury 1
multilingual lives: Peros,Jack,Neptune,andCupid 25
Chapter1.TheMultilingualismoftheOther:
Politics,Counterpolitics,Anglophony,andBeyond 33
multilingual lives: ReverendLyons 61
Chapter2.DeCopia:Language,Politics,andAesthetics 67
multilingual lives: DorothyPentreathandWilliamBodener 99
Chapter3.DeLibertate:
AnglophonyandtheIdeaof“Free”Translation 107
multilingual lives: JosephEmin 135
Chapter4.LiteracyFictions:MakingLinguisticDifferenceLegible 143
multilingual lives: AnteraDuke 179
Chapter5.The“AlienWealth”of“LuckyContaminations”:
Freedom,Labor,andTranslation 187
multilingual lives: Sequoyah 215
viii Contents
Conclusion.AnglophoneFutures:
GlobalizationandDivination,LanguageandtheHumanities 223
AppendixA.Selected“Dialect”Prose 235
AppendixB.Selected“Dialect”Poetry 247
Notes 259
WorksCited 317
Index 329
Acknowledgments 335
introduction
(cid:2)
Multiplicity and Relation
Toward an Anglophone Eighteenth Century
Johnson, Scott, and the Highlanders
Bysubsequentopportunitiesofobservation,Ifoundthatmyhost’sdiction
hadnothingpeculiar.ThoseHighlandersthatcanspeakEnglish,commonly
speakitwell,withfewofthewords,andlittleofthetonebywhicha
Scotchmanisdistinguished.Theirlanguageseemstohavebeenlearnedinthe
armyorthenavy,orbysomecommunicationwiththosewhocouldgivethem
goodexamplesofaccentandpronunciation.BytheirLowlandneighbours
theywouldnotwillinglybetaught;fortheyhavelongconsideredthemasa
meananddegeneraterace.Theseprejudicesarewearingfastaway,butso
muchofthemstillremains,thatwhenIaskedaverylearnedministerinthe
islands,whichtheyconsideredastheirmostsavageclans:“Those,saidhe,that
livenexttheLowlands.”1
This passage from Samuel Johnson’s Journey to the Western Islands of
Scotland (1775) registers a charge surrounding the two dimensions of
eighteenth-century linguistic multiplicity that this book explores at length:
(1)heteroglossicdiversityamongdisparateversionsoftheEnglishlanguage
and (2) polyglossic interaction between these varied forms of English and
other languages encountered on the global stage of travel, commerce, and
empire.2 In this passage, as elsewhere, Johnson tarries in the multiplicities
of orality, allowing his reflections to generate descriptive detail about the
relationships among various groups within Britain. Each group is marked
with a particular linguistic character relative to the others. To every group
2 Introduction
itsshibboleths.Thisisoneofthemainpremisesofeighteenth-centurywrit-
ingaboutlanguage.
Bystartingwith thisbriefexampleofmetalinguisticwriting—bywhich
I mean descriptive writing that takes language itself as its topic—I want
to suggest that Johnson’s passage deconstructs the coherence of the term
“English”sothoroughlythattheterm’sanalyticalvalueisthrownintosus-
picion.Inother words,byyokingtogetherseveralformsoflivelylinguistic
multiplicityunderthelimitingterm“English,”Johnson’sdeductionsabout
these linguistic practices reveal their own contingency. In fact, the passage
permitsareadingthatacknowledgestheinsufficiencyofthistermfornam-
ingthemanyinterpenetratinglanguageformsthatpeoplepastandpresent
have employed for speaking, writing, and creating literature. By capturing
linguistic alterity in many forms, Johnson relativizes his own subject posi-
tion. Against the precession of these other anglophone tongues, Johnson’s
Englishisjustoneformamongmany.3
That literature is, among other things, a name for the aesthetic experi-
ence that arises from an encounter with languages and voices as they are
renderedinprintisabequestofthegloballongeighteenthcentury.4Itwas
during this period that anglophone writers learned to evaluate themselves
and others by parsing the linguistic multiplicities around them. It is my
contention in Multilingual Subjects that scholars of cultural and literary
history need to do more with the linguistic multiplicity of the past as it is
encodedintheliteraryandnonliteraryalike.Weneedtobeabletoseenot
only that the term “English” language is insufficient, as in the epigraph
above, but also that the insufficiency of this term is a lived condition that
generatesdescriptivetextureandnarrativemomentuminJohnson’swriting
as well as that of his contemporaries.5 We need to understand linguistic
multiplicitybetter;weneedtonameitscontoursmoreaccurately;weneed
toexploreitsfissuresindetail;weneedtoexploreitsroleinnarrativemore
accurately;and,generally,we need tothinkmorecreativelyabouthowthe
always-existing multiplicity of language is a dimension of identity that
influences literary representation and reception. There are also obvious
political opportunities in a better understanding of how linguistic multi-
plicityis characterizedin(and characterizes)theperiod. Those questionsI
broachalongsidetheaestheticincomingchapters.
Four discrete types of linguistic identities—and, for Johnson, cultural
identities—areinvokedinthisfour-sentencepassage.Threedifferentvarie-
tiesof“English”areclearlyidentifiable.Onenon-Englishlanguageappears