Finding evidence for a changing society
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Maura Ratia
Abstract
This chapter examines, with the help of collocation analysis, how patients were viewed in medical texts from 1500 to 1800. Previous studies have suggested that this period witnessed considerable changes in society. The field of medicine also underwent major developments during this time, but linguistic analyses have been lacking. Two corpora were used in the study: the Corpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts and the Corpus of Late Modern English Medical Texts, together totaling over 4.2 million words. The results indicate a development from the patient as an object of various treatments and cures in the early modern period to patient as experiencer in the late modern period. The growing importance of hospitals and public health in the latter era also emerges from the results.
Abstract
This chapter examines, with the help of collocation analysis, how patients were viewed in medical texts from 1500 to 1800. Previous studies have suggested that this period witnessed considerable changes in society. The field of medicine also underwent major developments during this time, but linguistic analyses have been lacking. Two corpora were used in the study: the Corpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts and the Corpus of Late Modern English Medical Texts, together totaling over 4.2 million words. The results indicate a development from the patient as an object of various treatments and cures in the early modern period to patient as experiencer in the late modern period. The growing importance of hospitals and public health in the latter era also emerges from the results.
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
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Part I. Changing society
- The great temptation 3
- Changes in society and language 29
- Finding evidence for a changing society 57
- Semantic neology 79
- From burden to threat 113
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Part II. Changing language
- That’s absolutely fine 143
- Two sides of the same coin? 169
- So-called - ingly adverbs in Late Middle and Early Modern English 199
- Analyzing change in the American English amplifier system in the fiction genre 223
- The development and pragmatic function of a non-inference marker 251
- Changes in transitivity and reflexive uses of sit ( me / myself down ) in Early and Late Modern English 277
- Index 303
Chapters in this book
- Prelim pages i
- Table of contents v
- Acknowledgements vii
- Introduction ix
-
Part I. Changing society
- The great temptation 3
- Changes in society and language 29
- Finding evidence for a changing society 57
- Semantic neology 79
- From burden to threat 113
-
Part II. Changing language
- That’s absolutely fine 143
- Two sides of the same coin? 169
- So-called - ingly adverbs in Late Middle and Early Modern English 199
- Analyzing change in the American English amplifier system in the fiction genre 223
- The development and pragmatic function of a non-inference marker 251
- Changes in transitivity and reflexive uses of sit ( me / myself down ) in Early and Late Modern English 277
- Index 303
