Women as linguistic codifiers in modern Europe. A comparative socio-historical British and Spanish framework

Abstract

Considering the role of grammars as cultural products, influential on the education of women and children of the past, this contribution aims at assessing the extent to which nineteenth-century Spanish women were allowed to enter a community of discourse constituted by grammarians and linguistic codifiers of the vernacular. Following socio-historical lines of study, this new path of exploration intends to give visibility to women as authors and receivers of grammatical discourse and to provide comparative material to previous research in the field, particularly that on eighteenth-century British women grammarians. First, school grammars of the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries are reanalysed from the point of view of ideological discourse. British female grammarians and their audiences are then taken into consideration in order to establish a social and historical framework which may serve as a basis for comparison. The Spanish setting is described and conjectured profiles of women as authors and receivers of grammar-books are given. Finally, a preliminary list of names and works is provided, laying the base for future research.