1.Metaphors�� myths�� ideologies and archives 1.Defining myths 2.Conceptual metaphors and myths 3.Language myths and conceptual metaphors 4.Foucault's understanding of discourse 5.Discourse archives 6.Myths are the ��stuff that ideologies are made on" 7.The structure of the book2.Establishing a linguistic pedigree 1.The fire at Ashburnham House 2.The myth of the longewty of English 3.Tracing the growth of interest in the Beowu/[manuscript 4.The dating of Beowulf 5.Kiernan's arguments 6.Sociolinguistic arguments in favour of a Danelaw provenance for Beowulf 7.Switching discourse archives3.Breaking the unbroken tradition 1.Linking two myths 2.Metapragmatic and metadiscursive linguistic expressions and their significance in inscribed ora��lity 3.The Anglo-Saxon Chronicles and the archive they instantiated 4.The breakdown of the archive and inscribed orality 5.The disappearance of the ASC�� The end of a discourse archive4.The construction of a modern myth��Middle English as a creole 1.The creolisation hypothesis 2.The discussion thread ��Is English a creole �� 3.The ��Middle English is a creole�� debate in the academicliterature 4.All language is language in contact 5.Simplification processes not resulting in a creole 6.Creolisation or no creolisation 5.Barbarians and others 1.The nation-state and the notion of Kultursprache 2.Language versus a language versus the language 3.The��other�� chronicle tradition 4.Myths in the Polychronicon 5.Linking up and extending the myths 6.The central nexus of language myths6.The myth of ��greatness�� 1.Introduction 2.Dating the GVS 3.A reappraisal of research work on an elusivephenomenon 4.GVS disputes 5.Challenging the GVS 6.Sociolinguistic aspects of the GVS 7.The myth of greatness reconsidered7.Reinterpreting Swift's A Proposal for Correcting�� Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue�� Challenging an embryonic modern myth 1.Potential new myths 2.The ��ideology of the standard language�� and the complaint tradition 3.Swift's Proposalas the beginning of a complaint tradition 4.Contcxtualising the Proposa/sociohistorically 5.Alternative readings of Swift's Proposal 6.Swift and after8.Polishing the myths: The commercial side of politeness 1.The obsession with politeness 2.The origins of eighteenth-century politeness 3.The honnete homme and Descartes' physiological metaphor 4.Gentrifying philosophy 5.Commercialising the myth of the polite language 6.Postscript9.Challenging the hegemony of standard English 1.��Polite English�� and social stratification at the end of the eighteenth century 2.Radicals�� revolutionaries and language 3.Language and working-class movements at the beginning of the nineteenth century 4.William Hone�� Peterloo and the Chartist movement 5.From the legitimate language to the standard language10.Transforming a myth to save an archive:When polite becomes educated 1.From homo socialis to homo culturalis 2.Language and politeness�� language and ��educatedness�� 3.Comprehensive schools and the teaching of standard English 4.Planning the reintroduction of grammar into the National Curriculum 5.John Honey and the notion of educatedness 6.What is standard English 11.Commodifying English and constructing a new myth 1.The emergence of a modern myth 2.English--��the language of the world�� 3.The commodification of English 4.The price of English in Switzerland 5.Problems in the assumption that English is the global language12.Myths�� ideologies of English and the funnel view of the history of English 1.From conceptual metaphors to discourse archives:The function of the myth 2.The funnel view of the history of English 3.Myths as stories 4.Establishing the ��superiority�� of English 5.Linguistic homogeneity versus linguistic heterogeneityReferencesIndex