Gender, genre, and prescriptivism
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James Hyett
Abstract
This paper extends our previous study of you was and you were in eighteenth-century English drama, examining trends following Robert Lowth’s proscription of you was in his grammar (1762) and complementing Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s (2002) and Laitinen’s (2009) studies of different genres. Comparing close readings of plays by four female playwrights to the same writers’ novels, we find you was used increasingly after 1762 to indicate negative emotion and moments of dramatic significance, not unlike contemporary theatrical thou (Nonomiya 2021). Qualitatively, we confirm that you was had specifically theatrical functions, signalling deception and provocation (often by younger characters) and loss of control (often by older characters). We identify these disparate but recurrent meanings and personae with Eckert’s (2008) concept of the indexical field.
Abstract
This paper extends our previous study of you was and you were in eighteenth-century English drama, examining trends following Robert Lowth’s proscription of you was in his grammar (1762) and complementing Tieken-Boon van Ostade’s (2002) and Laitinen’s (2009) studies of different genres. Comparing close readings of plays by four female playwrights to the same writers’ novels, we find you was used increasingly after 1762 to indicate negative emotion and moments of dramatic significance, not unlike contemporary theatrical thou (Nonomiya 2021). Qualitatively, we confirm that you was had specifically theatrical functions, signalling deception and provocation (often by younger characters) and loss of control (often by older characters). We identify these disparate but recurrent meanings and personae with Eckert’s (2008) concept of the indexical field.
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
