Home Chapter 6. Interjections in early popular literature
Chapter
Licensed
Unlicensed Requires Authentication

Chapter 6. Interjections in early popular literature

Stereotypes and innovation
  • Irma Taavitsainen
View more publications by John Benjamins Publishing Company
Search
Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts
This chapter is in the book Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts

Abstract

Early modern jests and drama provide excellent materials for studies on speech-based language. This article focuses on a core group of interjections, alas, lo and O, and assesses their use from a diachronic perspective. The method of study is qualitative stylistic analysis and the data comes mostly from the popular genres of the Helsinki Corpus (HC) and the Corpus of English Dialogues (CED). Genuine feelings are depicted in romances and tragedies, but in popular genres these items express stereotypical reactions to awkward situations, contributing to audience involvement. Innovative uses emerge with novel stylistic effects in the early seventeenth century.

Abstract

Early modern jests and drama provide excellent materials for studies on speech-based language. This article focuses on a core group of interjections, alas, lo and O, and assesses their use from a diachronic perspective. The method of study is qualitative stylistic analysis and the data comes mostly from the popular genres of the Helsinki Corpus (HC) and the Corpus of English Dialogues (CED). Genuine feelings are depicted in romances and tragedies, but in popular genres these items express stereotypical reactions to awkward situations, contributing to audience involvement. Innovative uses emerge with novel stylistic effects in the early seventeenth century.

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors ix
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Chapter 1. Voices of English 1
  6. Part I. Early Modern English
  7. Chapter 2. Pragmatic noise in Shakespeare’s plays 11
  8. Chapter 3. Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains 31
  9. Chapter 4. Revealing speech 47
  10. Chapter 5. Saying, crying, replying, and continuing 63
  11. Chapter 6. Interjections in early popular literature 79
  12. Chapter 7. Godly vocabulary in Early Modern English religious debate 95
  13. Chapter 8. Patterns of reader involvement on sixteenth-century English title pages, with special reference to second-person pronouns 113
  14. Part II. Late Modern English
  15. Chapter 9. Epistemic adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus 133
  16. Chapter 10. Question strategies in the Old Bailey Corpus 153
  17. Chapter 11. Sure in Irish English 173
  18. Chapter 12. American English gotten 187
  19. Part III. Present-day English
  20. Chapter 13. Explaining explanatory so 207
  21. Chapter 14. Return to the future 227
  22. Chapter 15. Sort of and kind of from an English-Swedish perspective 247
  23. Chapter 16. From yes to innit 265
  24. Chapter 17. “If anyone would have told me, I would have not believed it” 283
  25. Chapter 18. Intensification in dialogue vs. narrative in a corpus of present-day English fiction 301
  26. Chapter 19. Orality on the searchable web 317
  27. Select list of publications by Merja Kytö 337
  28. Index 347
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.97.06taa

Chapters in this book

  1. Prelim pages i
  2. Table of contents v
  3. List of contributors ix
  4. Foreword xi
  5. Chapter 1. Voices of English 1
  6. Part I. Early Modern English
  7. Chapter 2. Pragmatic noise in Shakespeare’s plays 11
  8. Chapter 3. Keywords that characterise Shakespeare’s (anti)heroes and villains 31
  9. Chapter 4. Revealing speech 47
  10. Chapter 5. Saying, crying, replying, and continuing 63
  11. Chapter 6. Interjections in early popular literature 79
  12. Chapter 7. Godly vocabulary in Early Modern English religious debate 95
  13. Chapter 8. Patterns of reader involvement on sixteenth-century English title pages, with special reference to second-person pronouns 113
  14. Part II. Late Modern English
  15. Chapter 9. Epistemic adverbs in the Old Bailey Corpus 133
  16. Chapter 10. Question strategies in the Old Bailey Corpus 153
  17. Chapter 11. Sure in Irish English 173
  18. Chapter 12. American English gotten 187
  19. Part III. Present-day English
  20. Chapter 13. Explaining explanatory so 207
  21. Chapter 14. Return to the future 227
  22. Chapter 15. Sort of and kind of from an English-Swedish perspective 247
  23. Chapter 16. From yes to innit 265
  24. Chapter 17. “If anyone would have told me, I would have not believed it” 283
  25. Chapter 18. Intensification in dialogue vs. narrative in a corpus of present-day English fiction 301
  26. Chapter 19. Orality on the searchable web 317
  27. Select list of publications by Merja Kytö 337
  28. Index 347
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 12.9.2025 from https://www.degruyterbrill.com/document/doi/10.1075/scl.97.06taa/html
Scroll to top button