An atypical commercial correspondence
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Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti
Abstract
This paper investigates how artefacts and identities are textually constructed in an unpublished nineteenth-century epistolary exchange between the Director of the National Gallery, London, Sir Frederic Burton (1816–1900) and the painter, collector and dealer Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1919). The analysis of this corpus will shed light on how artefacts can be identified in textual space; in addition, it will provide evidence of the negotiation of social identity and status within an atypical commercial context. The analysis is primarily qualitative, and is based on the formal notions of collocation (Stubbs 2001) and semantic sequences (Hunston 2008), with a view to isolating patterns of use which through their repetition and/or topic relevance signal typical descriptive/evaluative functions (Del Lungo Camiciotti 2009). It will thus be possible to investigate the development of practices used to achieve the specific aims of the discursive community of art dealers, and to textually construct identities both in the private and the public sphere; moreover, it will be possible to provide information about contemporary ways of perceiving identities of artefacts and people.
Abstract
This paper investigates how artefacts and identities are textually constructed in an unpublished nineteenth-century epistolary exchange between the Director of the National Gallery, London, Sir Frederic Burton (1816–1900) and the painter, collector and dealer Charles Fairfax Murray (1849–1919). The analysis of this corpus will shed light on how artefacts can be identified in textual space; in addition, it will provide evidence of the negotiation of social identity and status within an atypical commercial context. The analysis is primarily qualitative, and is based on the formal notions of collocation (Stubbs 2001) and semantic sequences (Hunston 2008), with a view to isolating patterns of use which through their repetition and/or topic relevance signal typical descriptive/evaluative functions (Del Lungo Camiciotti 2009). It will thus be possible to investigate the development of practices used to achieve the specific aims of the discursive community of art dealers, and to textually construct identities both in the private and the public sphere; moreover, it will be possible to provide information about contemporary ways of perceiving identities of artefacts and people.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- The study of correspondence 13
- A historical digital archive of Portuguese letters 31
- Between linguistic creativity and formulaic restriction 45
- Performing identities and interaction through epistolary formulae 65
- Fanny to William 89
- An atypical commercial correspondence 105
- Reporting the news in English and Italian diplomatic correspondence 121
- Letters as loot 139
- The problem of reading dialect in semiliterate letters 163
- “I will be expecting a letter from you before this reaches you” 179
- Letters in mechanically-schooled language 205
- Teaching grammar and composition through letter writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England 229
- Index 251
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction 1
- The study of correspondence 13
- A historical digital archive of Portuguese letters 31
- Between linguistic creativity and formulaic restriction 45
- Performing identities and interaction through epistolary formulae 65
- Fanny to William 89
- An atypical commercial correspondence 105
- Reporting the news in English and Italian diplomatic correspondence 121
- Letters as loot 139
- The problem of reading dialect in semiliterate letters 163
- “I will be expecting a letter from you before this reaches you” 179
- Letters in mechanically-schooled language 205
- Teaching grammar and composition through letter writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England 229
- Index 251
