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This book uses a corpus of manuscript letters from Bess of Hardwick to investigate how linguistic features characteristic of spoken communication function within early modern epistolary prose. Using these letters as a primary data source with reference to other epistolary materials from the early modern period (1500-1750), the author examines them in a unique and systematic way. The book is the first of its kind to combine a replicable scribal profiling technique, used to identify holograph and scribal handwriting within the letters, with innovative analyses of the language they contain. Furthermore, by adopting a discourse-analytic approach to the language and making reference to the socio-historical context of language use, the book provides an alternative perspective to the one often presented in traditional historical accounts of English. This volume will appeal to students and scholars of early modern English and historical linguistics.
List of contents
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Early Modern English manuscript letters as data: distinguishing between holograph and scribal writing.- Chapter 3: Prose structure.- Chapter 4: Prose structure in its social context.- Chapter 5: Lexical bundles.- Chapter 6: Vocatives.- Chapter 7: Conclusion.
About the author
Imogen Marcus is Lecturer in English Language at Edge Hill University, UK. She has published on the scribal profiling of early modern English letters, linguistic borrowing from French into English during the Middle English period and the interface between historical semantics and lexicography. She has also participated in the creation of two historical thesauruses.
Summary
Provides a fresh perspective on debates surrounding linguistic change in the Early Modern Period
Problematizes existing research about the evolution of prose writing and challenges assumptions about the process of standardization in English
Takes a discourse-analytic approach to prose structure that takes orality manifested in textual material into account
Accounts for the complex nature of historical data sources by considering Bess of Hardwick's use of scribes
Additional text
“With the wealth of detail covered, the volume is not necessarily an easy read. The text is richly illustrated by examples ... . The book can be recommended to anyone who is seriously interested in the study of Early Modern English ... .” (Terttu Nevalainen, Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Vol. 22 (1), 2021)
Report
"With the wealth of detail covered, the volume is not necessarily an easy read. The text is richly illustrated by examples ... . The book can be recommended to anyone who is seriously interested in the study of Early Modern English ... ." (Terttu Nevalainen, Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Vol. 22 (1), 2021)
