ABSTRACT
John Walker's A Critical Pronouncing Dictionary (1791) is in many ways the culmination of the elocution movement in the eighteenth century and played a role in regard to pronunciation similar to that performed by Johnson's Dictionary in regard to lexicography and to Lowth's Short Introduction to grammar. His methodology is to set out the English vocabulary in the style of a dictionary,
in which not only the meaning of every word is clearly explained, and the sound of every syllable distinctly shown, but where words are subject to different pronunciations, the reasons for each are at large displayed, and the preferable pronunciation pointed out.
