Research Questions & Aims
In 1989, Charles Jones described the Late Modern English period as the "Cinderella of English historical linguistic study" (1989: 279), referring to the little scholarly attention given to the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. In recent years, however, this two-century period has received increasing attention, especially the eighteenth century and, more precisely, the eighteenth-century grammatical tradition (see Pérez-Guerra et al. 2007: 11-24). Since new research trends demand an update of the resources available to the growing research community, the time seems to be right for the ECEG-database. ECEG presents itself as a new data source in electronic format which contains up-to-date bibliographic information about eighteenth-century English grammars and biographical information about the grammar-writers.
In the preface to volume I of A Bibliography of the English Language from the Invention of Printing to the Year 1800, Robin C. Alston wrote the following:
This volume is devoted exclusively to English grammars written in English by Englishmen, Americans, and in one or two cases foreigners, as well as a very few grammars written in Latin by native speakers. [&] the following sorts of books are specifically excluded here: (1) spelling books containing abstracts of grammar; (2) miscellaneous works, epistolary manuals, &c., containing brief grammars; (3) dictionaries containing grammars; (4) polyglot grammars; (5) grammars of English written in foreign languages, as well as grammars written in Latin by foreigners and published abroad (Alston 1965: xiv; emphasis added).
Bearing in mind that Alston's bibliography, in particular the first volume, has been the starting point of most studies on the eighteenth-century grammatical tradition, it is to be expected that previous work might have been biased by his selection of 'distinct' English grammars. It thus follows that English grammars contained in other types of work, such as dictionaries and epistolary manuals, have often been overlooked in the literature, despite being listed in his other volumes (1966-1970). Several methodological questions arise: which are the eighteenth century grammars "specifically" selected in Alston (1965)?; which ones are "specifically" excluded?; has any other (earlier or later) scholar investigated those "excluded" grammars?; do scholars after Alston rely on him alone when selecting their primary sources?; which are the eighteenth-century grammars most commonly studied in this field?
In order to answer these questions, Alston (1965) was, evidently, the starting point of our project, but the scope needed to be broadened in time, sources and expectations. We had three aims in mind: (i) to revisit Alston's bibliographic work by covering not only his volume I (1965) but also other volumes in the series (1966-70), supplements (1973-74) and addenda (2008); (ii) to provide an up-to-date database by compiling bibliographic information from other reference sources published before and after Alston's work (1903-2010) in order to offer a more comprehensive account of the grammar-writing activities in the eighteenth century; and (iii) to include biographical information about the authors of the grammars as well.