A bit ofthisand a bit ofthat: on social identification in Early and Late Modern English letters

Abstract

Abrams 1988) call social identification. Since previous research has shown that the use of person reference in Present-Day English is biased towards group distinction, linking positive characteristics to members of one's in-group and distancing people in the out-group with negative reference, it is probable that this was the case in historical language use as well.The study shows that most of the referents in the letter writers', and in many cases also in the recipients', in-group are indexed with positive descriptions and reference terms in positive contexts, whereas identifiable out-group referents mostly receive negative descriptions. The negatively, positively and neutrally evaluative functions were found to be central during both centuries. The neutral function is more prevalent than the others in the seventeenth century, but the negative and positive gain more emphasis in the eighteenth century. This shows that when both pronouns increasingly started to appear as connotative demonstrative determiners, their use as mere indexicals decreased. Overall, we can conclude that although the historical use of demonstrative pronouns as determiners in reference did not show a similar bias towards negative foregrounding to their Present-Day English equivalents, there is some indication that a change towards a more specialised use was on the way from the eighteenth century onwards.

The year’s work in stylistics 2012

“…The stylistic tendencies of Late Modern English are revealed in a series of articles in a special issue of English Language and Linguistics (Beal et al, 2012). Those likely to be of particular interest to readers of Language and Literature include Nevala's (2012) analysis of social identification in Early and Late Modern English letters, Percy's (2012) Respondents were asked to rate the characters on a scale of emotional response, as well as to indicate whether they wished the character to succeed in his or her goals. The authors then analysed the results of these questionnaires statistically to generate insights into long-standing questions in literary studies such as, for example, whether literary meaning can be objectively determined.…”

“…The stylistic tendencies of Late Modern English are revealed in a series of articles in a special issue of English Language and Linguistics (Beal et al, 2012). Those likely to be of particular interest to readers of Language and Literature include Nevala’s (2012) analysis of social identification in Early and Late Modern English letters, Percy’s (2012) discussion of metalanguage in anecdotes about George III, Fens-de-Zeeuw and Straaijer’s (2012) exploration of long- s in Later Modern English manuscripts and Hundt et al’s (2012) analysis of complexity in scientific discourse. Anecdotally at least, it would appear that historians are beginning to notice the advances being made in other disciplines and seeing the value in such different approaches.…”