Language ideologies in the 18th century: the public discussion of language in the 'Spectators' from the English-, Italian- and German-speaking areas
- In the 18th century, public discussion on language was influenced by the philosophical debates of the Age of Enlightenment, bearing a theoretical character. The discussions found concrete expression in the moral weeklies (known as “Spectators”), a prototype of opinion journalism which developed from Joseph Addison and Richard Steele’s periodical The Spectator (London, 1711–1712 and 1714). The Spectators experienced a European circulation through translations and imitations, thus contributing to the creation of wide communication networks among scholars. Concurrently, the language discussion and related ideas also spread beyond national borders. This study aims to compare the use of some topoi in the language discussions of the Spectator periodicals to investigate the continuity or innovation of metalinguistic concepts and their underlying language ideologies.
