Written documents
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France Martineau
Abstract
This paper explains why large historical sociolinguistic corpora are needed to interpret traces of spoken features through the written medium. To support this, the eighteenth-century personal diary of a small merchant is compared with other documents to show that the diary displays a number of vernacular and formal features and is therefore considered hybrid in nature. It is also shown that even a homogeneous collection of family letters can constitute a microcosm of linguistic communities and can reveal sociolinguistic changes. Through a study of the relations between close and extended family members living in Detroit in the nineteenth century, the author examines how to interpret the linguistic variation found in documents written by less-skilled authors.
Abstract
This paper explains why large historical sociolinguistic corpora are needed to interpret traces of spoken features through the written medium. To support this, the eighteenth-century personal diary of a small merchant is compared with other documents to show that the diary displays a number of vernacular and formal features and is therefore considered hybrid in nature. It is also shown that even a homogeneous collection of family letters can constitute a microcosm of linguistic communities and can reveal sociolinguistic changes. Through a study of the relations between close and extended family members living in Detroit in the nineteenth century, the author examines how to interpret the linguistic variation found in documents written by less-skilled authors.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface & Acknowledgements vii
- Ego-documents in a historical-sociolinguistic perspective 1
- A lady-in-waiting’s begging letter to her former employer (Paris, mid-sixteenth century) 19
- Epistolary formulae and writing experience in Dutch letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 45
- From ul to U.E. 67
- Flat adverbs and Jane Austen’s letters 91
- Letters from Gaston B. 107
- Written documents 129
- The rhetoric of autobiography in the seventeenth century 149
- “All the rest ye must lade yourself” 165
- Cordials and sharp satyrs 183
- Self-reference and ego involvement in the 1820 Settler petition as a leaking genre 201
- Ego-documents in Lithuanian 225
- The language of slaves on the island of St Helena, South Atlantic, 1682–1724 243
- Index 277
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Preface & Acknowledgements vii
- Ego-documents in a historical-sociolinguistic perspective 1
- A lady-in-waiting’s begging letter to her former employer (Paris, mid-sixteenth century) 19
- Epistolary formulae and writing experience in Dutch letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries 45
- From ul to U.E. 67
- Flat adverbs and Jane Austen’s letters 91
- Letters from Gaston B. 107
- Written documents 129
- The rhetoric of autobiography in the seventeenth century 149
- “All the rest ye must lade yourself” 165
- Cordials and sharp satyrs 183
- Self-reference and ego involvement in the 1820 Settler petition as a leaking genre 201
- Ego-documents in Lithuanian 225
- The language of slaves on the island of St Helena, South Atlantic, 1682–1724 243
- Index 277
