0 INTRODUCTION

4. RHETORIC AND THE WORLD OF SCIENCE IN THE EModE PERIOD
however, a considerable impact on the increased vernacularization of scientific writing
(Taavitsainen and Pahta 2004: 15). Although the majority of the English population could
read English, Latin was understood by educated people only. For this reason, scientists
started to use English in their writings already in the late ME period in order to reach a
wider readership. Furthermore, as already hinted at in the previous section, nationalistic
and patriotic writers worked for the enhancement of the status of the English language
(Taavitsainen 2006: 691; Jones 1953: 119).
4.3.2.1. Deficiencies in the vernacular
As the number of literate people increased, English came to be used in a wider variety of
registers; not only in public and private letters, but also in business documents, legal
proceedings and literary and scholarly writings (Russ 1982: 19). However, there was a
strong undercurrent against the use of English in the high registers during the 15 th and
16 th centuries. This was so because English was thought to be unsuitable for use in such
prestigious registers due to its deficiencies and inaccuracies (Gotti 2011: 206). Translators
and authors writing in English soon realized the problems that English writing could
cause since
[it] was subject to rapid change and decay; it lacked sufficiently
“copious” vocabulary; it did not allow the principles of classical
quantitative meter to be applied in the composition of “lofty” verse and
had few of the figures and ornaments available to writers in Latin and
Greek. (Russ 1982: 19)
That the English language was considered to be uneloquent was shown by the adjectives,
listed by Jones (1953: 7), that were often used to describe the vernacular, namely,
barbarous, gross, rude, base and vile. However, he notes that these adjectives did not
110