Pillaging the Tombs of Noncanonical Texts Technical Writing and the Evolution of English Style

• Published in: Journal of business and technical communication Vol. 18; no. 2; pp. 165 - 197
• Main Author: Tebeaux, Elizabeth
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Thousand Oaks SAGE Publications 01.04.2004; SAGE PUBLICATIONS, INC
• Subjects: English language; Historians; Historical analysis; Humanism; Language; Middle class; Protestantism; Studies; Syntax; Technical communication; Utilitarianism; Writing; technical communication history; history of English; English style
• ISSN: 1050-6519; 1552-4574
• DOI: 10.1177/1050651903260738

Contrary to literary historians, humanist influences did not produce modern English prose style. Instead, technical or utilitarian discourse is inextricable from the development of modern English prose style. Modern English resulted from written text shaped by five factors: (a) brevity induced from accounting/administrative format; (b) aural/oral-based text, written to be heard and seen, that produced conversational style; (c) persistence of indigenous subject-verb-object syntax found in the earliest English documents; (d) a growing Renaissance book market of literate middle-class readers responding to speech-based prose; and (e) English scriptural renditions of the late Renaissance that associated colloquial speech with Protestantism. Of all writing produced before 1700, only a small amount was humanistic; the bulk was utilitarian. The Royal Society’s demand for “plain English” prevailed because the call for precise language by these early scientists reflected the indigenous nature of a plain English that had surfaced as early as 900.