6. ‘A Highly Poetical Language’? Scots, Burns, Patriotism and Evaluative Language in 19th-century Literary Reviews and Articles

‘An Eye for an Aye’: linguistic and political backlash and conformity in eighteenth-century Scots

“…As a result, the Scots tongue came under scrutiny and was increasingly rejected by the socially mobile classes in Scotland as sullying and degrading, associated only with conservatives, eccentrics and the common or 'vulgar' people (Aitken, 1979;Smith, 1970;Millar, 2003). Language usage became split along class rather than regional-based lines, and the gap between prestige and contextsuitability became significantly wider through the combined effort of the Union and the Age of Politeness (Dossena, 2012). Such attitudes have been observed time and again in sociolinguistic studies; speakers accommodate their speech style as a means of acquiring social approval and maintaining a positive social identity.…”

“…They argued that the Scots tongue only served to impose an unfavourable barrier to social success: English models instead (Dossena, 2002(Dossena, , 2011. Scottish intellectuals sought recognition on a nationwide basis, and this relied on English models of work (Dossena, 2012).…”

“…Alongside the increasing recognition of Scottish Standard English, the late eighteenth century saw a wave of Antiquarianism that rode on the crest of the excessive anglicising from earlier on (Dossena, 2012). However, this could manifest as a patriotic backlash to the Select Societies of earlier, but could also be a direct product of them, by pushing for language preservation rather than continuation.…”

“…Adams' publication The Pronunciation of the English Language Vindicated (1799) was a particularly powerful defence of the Scots language and the eloquence and dignity of those who speak it well (Dossena, 2005;Beal, 1997). These arguments became in fact crucial to the defence of the dialect (Smith, 2007;Dossena, 2011), as antiquity and independence became the cornerstones on which linguistic respectability was built (Dossena, 2012) Antiquarianism and the reassessment of original linguistic features became increasingly associated with patriotism and sentimentality (Jones, 1997), as political sentiments lent an idealised overtone to Scots (Dossena, 2005). MacDonald (2011) has suggested that the republishing of many Scottish works from the Middle Ages was not simply an act of cultural nostalgia, but rather a reaffirmation of Scotland's own identity following the Union, in consequence of the controversies resulting from the event.…”

From Clerks to Corpora: Essays on the English language yesterday and today

“…While Scots was stigmatized in everyday usage, its occurrence in literary texts was perceived to be both 'pithy' and appropriate. Comments on Burns's poetry were typically accompanied by remarks on the difficulty of his language (Dossena 2012a), which stressed the 'exotic' character of Scots, but praises of its antiquity were also frequent, on account of its supposedly greater proximity to 'pure Saxon'. This attention to linguistic roots appears to have close cultural connections with the fashionable search for antiquity, the picturesque and the sublime, which persisted through the times of the Napoleonic wars and reached a turning point during the Victorian age.…”