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Changing Genre Conventions in Historical English News Discourse
Edited by Birte Bös and Lucia Kornexl
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 5] 2015
► pp. 3–22

“We have in some former bookes told you”

The significance of metatext in 17th-century news

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This contribution examines metatextual comment in 17th-century periodical news publications. Periodical news publication was a new genre and those involved in its production had to determine the language they should use in the writing up of such news. In the article I analyze the terminology 17thcentury news writers themselves adopt in relation to their own publications and the news they are presenting. The analysis focuses both on the frequency and content of editorial metadiscourse between 1620 (the start of periodical news) and 1695 (the lapse of the Licensing Act). The diachronic analysis of frame and endophoric metatextual markers provides insight into editorial aspirations, anxieties, commercial concerns and general attitudes to news discourse.

Keywords: 17th-century English news, book, coranto, editorial metadiscourse, endophoric markers, frame markers, London Gazette, newsbook, pamphlet
Published online: 24 July 2015
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https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.5.01bro
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Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Bös, Birte
2017. Chapter 2. Of hopes and plans. In Diachronic Developments in English News Discourse [Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics, 6], ► pp. 15 ff. DOI logo
Bös, Birte & Matti Peikola
2020. Chapter 1. Framing framing. In The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 317], ► pp. 3 ff. DOI logo
Cecconi, Elisabetta
2020. Chapter 6. Paratext and ideology in 17th-century news genres. In The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 317], ► pp. 137 ff. DOI logo
Salmi, Hanna
2020. Chapter 8. “I write not to expert practitioners, but to learners”. In The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 317], ► pp. 187 ff. DOI logo
Suhr, Carla
2018. Chapter 2. News and relations. In Sociocultural Dimensions of Lexis and Text in the History of English [Current Issues in Linguistic Theory, 343], ► pp. 41 ff. DOI logo
Varila, Mari-Liisa
2020. Chapter 9. Book producers’ comments on text-organisation in early 16th-century English printed paratexts. In The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 317], ► pp. 209 ff. DOI logo

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