Home Chapter 12. Paratext, information studies, and Middle English manuscripts
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 12. Paratext, information studies, and Middle English manuscripts

  • Colette Moore
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena
This chapter is in the book The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena

Abstract

Investigations of paratextual elements can be approached methodologically from the vantage of information science. Information structure (the organization of information on the clausal and sentence level) is connected to the discipline of linguistics, and information design (the ways that a text presents material in its layout or appearance) derives from website construction and digital humanities. Although they stem from different disciplinary conversations and contexts, information structure and design collectively provide tools for examining aspects of text on the manuscript page, and drawing upon these analytic rubrics rather than the more traditional rubrics of manuscript studies serves to highlight new features and put manuscript work in closer conversation with present-day visual and textual analysis. This investigation draws upon illustrative examples from the Middle English Brut Chronicle to examine how the structural and graphical choices of the late Middle English manuscript page work together to organize and structure information, and examines the terminological and interpretative distinctions between different analytical frameworks.

Abstract

Investigations of paratextual elements can be approached methodologically from the vantage of information science. Information structure (the organization of information on the clausal and sentence level) is connected to the discipline of linguistics, and information design (the ways that a text presents material in its layout or appearance) derives from website construction and digital humanities. Although they stem from different disciplinary conversations and contexts, information structure and design collectively provide tools for examining aspects of text on the manuscript page, and drawing upon these analytic rubrics rather than the more traditional rubrics of manuscript studies serves to highlight new features and put manuscript work in closer conversation with present-day visual and textual analysis. This investigation draws upon illustrative examples from the Middle English Brut Chronicle to examine how the structural and graphical choices of the late Middle English manuscript page work together to organize and structure information, and examines the terminological and interpretative distinctions between different analytical frameworks.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Part I. Conceptualisations of text and framing phenomena
  5. Chapter 1. Framing framing 3
  6. Chapter 2. On the dynamic interaction between peritext and epitext 33
  7. Chapter 3. The footnote in Late Modern English historiographical writing 63
  8. Chapter 4. Threshold-switching 91
  9. Chapter 5. Framing material in early literacy 115
  10. Part II. Framing and audience orientation
  11. Chapter 6. Paratext and ideology in 17th-century news genres 137
  12. Chapter 7. “All which I offer with my own experience” 163
  13. Chapter 8. “I write not to expert practitioners, but to learners” 187
  14. Chapter 9. Book producers’ comments on text-organisation in early 16th-century English printed paratexts 209
  15. Part III. Form and layout in framing
  16. Chapter 10. Paratextual features in 18th-century medical writing 233
  17. Chapter 11. Recuperating Older Scots in the early 18th century 267
  18. Chapter 12. Paratext, information studies, and Middle English manuscripts 289
  19. Index 309
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.317.12moo

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. Acknowledgements vii
  4. Part I. Conceptualisations of text and framing phenomena
  5. Chapter 1. Framing framing 3
  6. Chapter 2. On the dynamic interaction between peritext and epitext 33
  7. Chapter 3. The footnote in Late Modern English historiographical writing 63
  8. Chapter 4. Threshold-switching 91
  9. Chapter 5. Framing material in early literacy 115
  10. Part II. Framing and audience orientation
  11. Chapter 6. Paratext and ideology in 17th-century news genres 137
  12. Chapter 7. “All which I offer with my own experience” 163
  13. Chapter 8. “I write not to expert practitioners, but to learners” 187
  14. Chapter 9. Book producers’ comments on text-organisation in early 16th-century English printed paratexts 209
  15. Part III. Form and layout in framing
  16. Chapter 10. Paratextual features in 18th-century medical writing 233
  17. Chapter 11. Recuperating Older Scots in the early 18th century 267
  18. Chapter 12. Paratext, information studies, and Middle English manuscripts 289
  19. Index 309
Sign up now to receive a 20% welcome discount
Institutional Access
How does access work?
Have an idea on how to improve our website?
Please write us.
© 2025 De Gruyter Brill
Downloaded on 10.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/pbns.317.12moo/html
Scroll to top button