Researching understatement in the history of English
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Claudia Claridge
Abstract
A distinction is here introduced into restrictive, hedgy understatementR and emphatic understatementE, which are traced in historical data via the metalinguistic and the form-to-function approach. The metalinguistic approach found the modern sense of understatementE with examples from mostly more formal, written registers, while understatementR could hardly be found in works on rhetoric and etiquette. In contrast, understatementR was generally more prominent in the instances found with the corpus linguistic form-to-function approach, based on negation, a bit of a and a N or two, although understatements made up only a tiny fraction of those constructions’ uses. UnderstatementE could be attested from Middle English onwards, while understatementR appeared later, with both becoming more common after 1800, pointing to late British preference for this speech style.
Abstract
A distinction is here introduced into restrictive, hedgy understatementR and emphatic understatementE, which are traced in historical data via the metalinguistic and the form-to-function approach. The metalinguistic approach found the modern sense of understatementE with examples from mostly more formal, written registers, while understatementR could hardly be found in works on rhetoric and etiquette. In contrast, understatementR was generally more prominent in the instances found with the corpus linguistic form-to-function approach, based on negation, a bit of a and a N or two, although understatements made up only a tiny fraction of those constructions’ uses. UnderstatementE could be attested from Middle English onwards, while understatementR appeared later, with both becoming more common after 1800, pointing to late British preference for this speech style.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction 1
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Part I. Pragmatics and prescriptivism
- Researching understatement in the history of English 10
- The rise and fall of sentence-internal capitalization in English 33
- Gender, genre, and prescriptivism 60
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Part II. Political, legal and medical text types
- A manipulative technique in a congressional debate 86
- Is legal discourse really “outside the ravages of time”? 101
- Duties, offices, and conduct 129
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Part III. The language of late modern letters
- Changing styles of letter-writing? 154
- “No criticism or remarks & pray burn it as fast as you read it” 180
- Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions to the Foundling Hospital 198
- “Quhen I am begun to write I really knou not what to say” 225
- Index 251
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Foreword vii
- Introduction 1
-
Part I. Pragmatics and prescriptivism
- Researching understatement in the history of English 10
- The rise and fall of sentence-internal capitalization in English 33
- Gender, genre, and prescriptivism 60
-
Part II. Political, legal and medical text types
- A manipulative technique in a congressional debate 86
- Is legal discourse really “outside the ravages of time”? 101
- Duties, offices, and conduct 129
-
Part III. The language of late modern letters
- Changing styles of letter-writing? 154
- “No criticism or remarks & pray burn it as fast as you read it” 180
- Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions to the Foundling Hospital 198
- “Quhen I am begun to write I really knou not what to say” 225
- Index 251
