The Influence of French Pragmalinguistic Patterns on the Requestive Style in 16th-Century Scottish Letters

Abstract

16th-century Scots was a developing standard variety that was being elaborated to assume new communicative functions hitherto fulfilled by Latin and French – both languages with well-established discourse traditions. The elaboration of Scots happened by adopting these discursive practices into the vernacular, thus innovating new structures and patterns. This study, which focuses on the epistolary discourse tradition, aims to explore to what extent requestive patterns in 16th-century Scots letters were influenced by French pragmalinguistic models. A comparative analysis of French letters in the foreign correspondence of Mary of Lorraine with letters from her Scots correspondence shows that the French requestive models had a clear impact on the Scots requestive repertoire. It further indicates that the discursive practices did not remain static but evolved in the Scots context.