Self-reference and ego involvement in the 1820 Settler petition as a leaking genre
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Matylda Włodarczyk
Abstract
This article illustrates the complexity of the official/personal interface in nineteenth-century letters of petition addressed to the British colonial authorities in Cape Town (1820–25). Despite the rigid institutionalised demands on message clarity and petitioner’s detachment, the author’s ego “intentionally or unintentionally discloses (…) itself” (Presser 1969: 286; as quoted in Dekker 2002: 7). One type of ego disclosure is self-reference, a feature of personal involvement illustrated in the letters of a woman settler, Jane Erith. The study shows that frequencies of self-reference, relative to its values in personal correspondence (e.g. Palander-Collin 2009b), are high in Jane Erith’s letters and in other 1820 Settler petitions. Moreover, the high level of ego involvement in the petition appears to be a distinctive feature of the genre.
Abstract
This article illustrates the complexity of the official/personal interface in nineteenth-century letters of petition addressed to the British colonial authorities in Cape Town (1820–25). Despite the rigid institutionalised demands on message clarity and petitioner’s detachment, the author’s ego “intentionally or unintentionally discloses (…) itself” (Presser 1969: 286; as quoted in Dekker 2002: 7). One type of ego disclosure is self-reference, a feature of personal involvement illustrated in the letters of a woman settler, Jane Erith. The study shows that frequencies of self-reference, relative to its values in personal correspondence (e.g. Palander-Collin 2009b), are high in Jane Erith’s letters and in other 1820 Settler petitions. Moreover, the high level of ego involvement in the petition appears to be a distinctive feature of the genre.
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
