Samuel Johnson's Contribution Of The English Language

English language is one of the most important and official languages in many countries. English language has many purposes and can be used in many different ways. It can be used in person communication; people use it as a language to understand and communicate between each other. Business communication; business men and workers use English language to expand their work, get more opportunities, build and improve international relationships, help their company to succeed, communicate to trust the colleagues and clients. Entertainment communication; a huge number of famous people usually communicate by using the English language. A huge number of top movies, music and books and published and produced in English. People use dictionaries to understand

The codification of English was as primary component in the process of standardization, it is known that the history of English illustrates the inevitability of linguistic change. “In the seventeenth and eighteenth century, the lexicographers in England had published some developed dictionaries, but the lexicons in both England and America were set to standards by Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary of the English Language.” (Seargeant and Swann, 2012) “Samuel Johnson was born in 1709 in Lichfield, Staffordshire. The son of a bookseller, he rose to become one of the greatest literary figures of the eighteenth century, most famously compiling A Dictionary of the English Language.” (Dr. Johnson’s House, Samuel Johnson, 2012).

Before getting into more details about Dr. Johnson’s dictionary in the seventh and eighteenth century, let’s mention that the English language grew more though years to become a national language. Before it became a national language, English was not even original in England. The Language was a mixture between the Celtic, French and Latin languages. “As Milroy and Milroy specify, written English has been valued in education, primarily

In the seventeenth century, dictionaries had a list of synonyms that served basic definitions to translate foreign languages such as French and Latin. On the other hand, grammar texts had included lexicographical components such as definitions, pronunciation, usage notes and spelling. Grammarians were responsible for the decisions of the English language since these decisions were made by Latin grammars that held for many centuries as tradition of authority. Grammarians still have their same authority to make language decisions and lexicographers had not yet emerged as a distinct group. In the Eighteenth century, a huge change happened to the decisions of language as it increasingly fell under the specialization of lexicographers. On the other hand, grammarians continued to focus on grammar-related material and lexicographers developed more comprehensive dictionaries. “Johnson was able to write his monumental Dictionary of 1755 because he made use of several techniques grammarians had used in grammar texts, such as incorporating usage notes, making decision on correctness, illustrating meanings with quotations, and even attempting witticisms. Johnson’s ability to use the most successful techniques of grammarians, as well as lexicographers, helped to shift language authority to lexicographers.” (Seargeant and Swann,