open access

https://doi.org/10.14943/b.edu.146.131

https://hdl.handle.net/2115/95608

Education and Discipline in Sixteenth- and Seventeenth-Century England : A Lexical History Based on Hits on EEBO-TCP

英語

lexical history

2025-06-26

Faculty of Education, Hokkaido University

Bulletin of Faculty of Education, Hokkaido University

146

131-155

This study investigates the historical and lexical transformation of the concepts of "education" and "discipline" in 16th and 17th century England through vocabulary analysis based on hits on EEBO-TCP. The primary aim is to clarify the historical origins and semantic transition associated with the semantic expansion and transition of the Latin term "educatio" and "educare". This paper describes a landslide of long-term fluctuations in the lexical matrix composed of several discourses. Using EEBO-TCP, this study quantitatively analyzes the frequency and context of "education" and "discipline" from 1473 to 1700. Results reveal a significant predominance of "discipline," especially within religious and moral contexts during the Reformation era. In contrast, the loanword "education" was used for the first time in 1525 (Richard Whitford, The Rule of Saynt Augustyne), it appeared infrequently until the mid-17th century, gradually gaining broader conceptual meanings associated with the formation of morality which had been embedded in the Christian tradition of discipline from the late ancient period. The analysis highlights the critical role of pseudo-Seneca’s widely circulated maxim, "educatio et disciplina facit mores" (education and discipline formeth good manners), in propagating and reinforcing the conceptual amalgam of "education" with "discipline." When this amalgam came to be called «education», significantly the diffusion of the term "education" and such «education» (id est educacio disciplinata) overwhelmed "discipline" around the mid-18th century. In conclusion, this research historically demonstrates how "education and discipline" acted as a conceptual booster in expanding the meaning and the frequency of use of "education," underscoring its integration with the correction and moral reformation of children. It also dispels prevailing misconceptions that education derives from "educere" (to draw out, draw forth, educing). Etymologically, education derives from "educare" (to nourish). That has been demonstrated by Nonius Marcellus, Euthychis, James Donaldson, and John Mackail.

紀要論文

Version of Record

1882-1669

AA12219452