Thomas Sheridan

Thomas Sheridan was the son of a school master, whom he received his education from. He later became a stage actor who was very talented, but found his interest in the English language and endorsed the idea of establishing fixed rules for the usage of language. He eventually became more interested in language than acting and became a proselytizer for elocution. Sheridan went on to write many works regarding his expanding interest, including the Lectures on Elocution, which talk about both written and spoken language being symbols. He agrees with John Locke that "language is the medium of reason, so voice and gesture are too the natural language of the passions". Sheridan agrees with the first half of this statement, but felt like the second part of the statement needed to be elaborated upon. The idea for elaboration on the issues of voice and gesture are where Sheridan seemed to pick up his work, since many of his works went along with linguistic anxiety, which is the popular passion for speaking correctly. Here we are able to see just how he established fixed rules for the language, since they did not exist before and this may be why he thought that Locke needed to expand on this later part of that statement.