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Introduction to Old and Middle English: Part I

Introduction to Old and Middle English: Part I. Historical pragmatics January 26, 2006 Andreas H. Jucker. Definitions. Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society. (Mey 2001: 6)

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Introduction to Old and Middle English: Part I

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  1. Introduction to Old and Middle English:Part I Historical pragmatics January 26, 2006 Andreas H. Jucker

  2. Definitions • Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society. (Mey 2001: 6) • Historical pragmatics can be defined as the study of historical data from a pragmatic perspective, the diachronic study of pragmatic elements or the study of study of language change from a pragmatic perspectives. (Jucker 2000: 90)

  3. Subfields • Pragmaphilology • Historical texts studied from a pragmatic perspective • Diachronic pragmatics • Form-to-function mapping • A linguistic form: How does its function change? • Function-to-form mapping • A linguistic function: How is it realized in the course of time?

  4. “Bad data” • Historical pragmatics and, in a wider sense, historical sociolinguistics need access to spoken texts, preferably items of spontaneously spoken language of earlier periods; these are, however, no longer available. This plight has recently been referred to as the problem of “bad data”. (Fries 1998: 85)

  5. Data in historical pragmatics monologic books, poems Genuinelywritten dialogic letters, pamphlets retrospective reports, protocols in poetry, in narratives Represen- tation of spoken fictional in academic texts drama in conversation manuals prospective in language textbooks

  6. Corpus of Dialogue (Culpeper & Kytö 2000)

  7. Communicative immediacy versus distance Legal contract Academic paper Private letter Email Communi-cativeimmediacy Communi-cativedistance written codespoken code Lecture Job interview Radio interview Intimate conversation (Based on Koch and Oesterreicher 1985; Koch 1999)

  8. Research agenda forhistorical pragmatics • Speech acts • Patterns of social interaction • Pragmatic factors in language change • Discourse organisation • Discourse types • Patterns of the dissemination of knowledge and information

  9. St. Peter’s Church at Monkwearmouth, Jarrow

  10. Whitby Abbey

  11. Christianization • Christianization of the Celtic inhabitants during Roman rule • Christianization of Anglo-Saxons from Rome and from the Irish-Scottish monastery of Iona • 597 St Augustine sent by Pope Gregory • C 700 all of Anglo-Saxon England was Christian • C 800 Danish attacks on monasteries • Late 10th century: Benedictine Reform

  12. Christianization • Christianization of the Celtic inhabitants during Roman rule • Christianization of Anglo-Saxons from Rome and from the Irish-Scottish monastery of Iona • 597 St Augustine sent by Pope Gregory • 657 Abbess Hild at Whitby Abbey (Cædmon) • C 700 all of Anglo-Saxon England was Christian • 731 Bede‘s Latin Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum written at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow • C 800 Danish attacks on monasteries • King Alfred‘s reign (871-99) Historia translated • Late 10th century: Benedictine Reform

  13. Anglo-Saxon Dialects Jarrow Whitby Northumbria Northumbrian Mercian Mercia East Anglia Essex Westsaxon Kent Sussex Wessex Kentish Cf.Baugh & Cable 1978: 53

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