English Historical Pragmatics

Your guide to historical pragmatics in English studies

Historical pragmatics is an emerging branch within linguistics and one of the most versatile fields in the historical study of English. It is placed at the intersection between pragmatics, historical linguistics and neighbouring disciplines like (historical) sociolinguistics. It is at such interfaces where exciting new developments take place.

English Historical Pragmatics introduces this field to advanced linguistic students coming to the topic for the first time. It critically evaluates data sources and methodological approaches and takes a broad social pragmatics approach to micro issues within historical pragmatics such as discourse markers, terms of address and actions performed through language. It also covers macro issues of genre, medical and news discourse and fictional literature, and it outlines the underlying principles of language change through grammaticalisation, subjectivisation and pragmaticalisation.

With engaging examples throughout and thought-provoking student exercises, this advanced textbook provides students with a thorough grounding in historical pragmatics.