Cordials and sharp satyrs
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Anni Sairio
Abstract
Expressions of stance are considered to be a basic resource for the study of identities (Ochs 1996; Bucholtz & Hall 2005; Jaffe 2009). In this paper I look at stance-taking in eighteenth-century English correspondence as intentional self-fashioning (as per Greenblatt 1980) and identity performance, explored through address terms, first- and second-person mental verb phrases, intertextuality, and verbal irony. Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson 1718–1800) and Lady Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, the Duchess of Portland (1715–1785) observe eighteenth-century epistolary formalities in their use of address terms and references to self and the other, but intertextuality and verbal irony enable Montagu (of lower status) to express ambiguous criticism and subversive attitudes. The study presents a multifaceted approach to stance-taking in historical texts.
Abstract
Expressions of stance are considered to be a basic resource for the study of identities (Ochs 1996; Bucholtz & Hall 2005; Jaffe 2009). In this paper I look at stance-taking in eighteenth-century English correspondence as intentional self-fashioning (as per Greenblatt 1980) and identity performance, explored through address terms, first- and second-person mental verb phrases, intertextuality, and verbal irony. Elizabeth Montagu (née Robinson 1718–1800) and Lady Margaret Cavendish Bentinck, the Duchess of Portland (1715–1785) observe eighteenth-century epistolary formalities in their use of address terms and references to self and the other, but intertextuality and verbal irony enable Montagu (of lower status) to express ambiguous criticism and subversive attitudes. The study presents a multifaceted approach to stance-taking in historical texts.
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
