Cover not available
Article published In:
Dialogues in Diachrony: Celebrating Historical Corpora of Speech-related Texts
Edited by Merja Kytö and Terry Walker
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 19:2] 2018
► pp. 265–285

Beyond speech representation

Describing and evaluating speech in Early Modern English prose fiction

 | University of Kansas
This article is concerned with “speech descriptors”, markers that describe or evaluate the nature of represented speech, such as very modestly in “The Gentlewoman very modestly bade him welcome” (CED, D2FKIT). The form, frequency and function of such features are charted in Early Modern English prose fiction, drawn from A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760, and the results are compared to those of Grund (2017a), which considers speech descriptors in contemporaneous witness depositions. The comparison reveals generic differences and points to the importance of studying speech descriptors for our understanding of the dynamics of speech representation in the history of English.
Keywords: A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 (CED), Early Modern English, prose fiction, speech descriptors, speech representation
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Background
  • 3.Material and method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1Overall distribution: Linguistic realizations and semantic-functional types
    • 4.2Evaluation
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • Corpora
  • References
Published online: 1 February 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00022.gru
References (39)
Corpora
A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 (CED). 2006. Compiled under the supervision of Merja Kytö (Uppsala University) and Jonathan Culpeper (Lancaster University).Google Scholar
References
Baynham, Mike and Stef Slembrouck. 1999. “Speech Representation and Institutional Discourse”. Text 19 (4): 439–457. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 2004. “Historical Patterns for the Grammatical Marking of Stance: A Cross-Register Comparison”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5 (1): 107–136. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Biber, Douglas, Stig Johansson, Geoffrey Leech, Susan Conrad and Edward Finegan. 1999. Longman Grammar of Spoken and Written English. Harlow: Pearson.Google Scholar
Brown, Gillian. 1990. Listening to Spoken English. (Second edition.) London: Longman.Google Scholar
Busse, Beatrix. 2010. “Adverbial Expressions of Stance in Early Modern ‘Spoken’ English”. In Jörg Helbig and René Schallegger (eds), Proceedings. Anglistentag 2009 Klagenfurt, 47–63. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag.Google Scholar
Camiciotti, Gabriella Del Lungo. 2007. “Discoursal Aspects of the Legends of Holy Women by Osbern Bokenham”. In Susan M. Fitzmaurice and Irma Taavitsainen (eds), Methods in Historical Pragmatics, 285–305. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Chaemsaithong, Krisda. 2012. “Performing Self on the Witness Stand: Stance and Relational Work in Expert Witness Testimony”. Discourse and Society 23 (5): 465–486. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Clark, Herbert H. and Richard J. Gerrig. 1990. “Quotations as Demonstrations”. Language 66 (4): 764–805. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan. 2001. Language and Characterisation: People in Plays and Other Texts. Harlow: Longman.Google Scholar
Culpeper, Jonathan and Merja Kytö. 2010. Early Modern English Dialogues: Spoken Interaction as Writing. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Du Bois, John W. 2007. “The Stance Triangle”. In Robert Englebretson (ed.), Stancetaking in Discourse: Subjectivity, Evaluation, and Interaction, 139–182. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fitzmaurice, Susan. 2003. “The Grammar of Stance in Early Eighteenth-Century English Epistolary Language”. In Pepi Leistyna and Charles F. Meyer (eds), Corpus Analysis: Language Structure and Language Use, 107–131. Amsterdam: Rodopi. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Fludernik, Monika. 1993. The Fictions of Language and the Languages of Fiction: The Linguistic Representation of Speech and Consciousness. London: Routledge.Google Scholar
Garretson, Gregory and Annelie Ädel. 2008. “Who’s Speaking? Evidentiality in US Newspapers during the 2004 Presidential Campaign”. In Annelie Ädel and Randi Reppen (eds), Corpora and Discourse: The Challenges of Different Settings, 157–187. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Gray, Bethany, Douglas Biber and Turo Hiltunen. 2011. “The Expression of Stance in Early (1665–1712) Publications of the Philosophical Transactions and Other Contemporary Medical Prose: Innovations in a Pioneering Discourse”. In Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta (eds), Medical Writing in Early Modern English, 221–247. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Grund, Peter J. 2017a. “Description, Evaluation and Stance: Exploring the Forms and Functions of Speech Descriptors in Early Modern English”. Nordic Journal of English Studies 16 (1): 41–73. Special issue “Texts from Speech and Speech in Texts”, Terry Walker and Merja Kytö (eds). DOI logoGoogle Scholar
2017b. “From ‘ludicrously faintly’ to ‘warmingly, in a modulated voice’: Speech Description and Stance in Late Modern English”. Paper presented at LMEC6. 17–19 August. Uppsala University.
Güldemann, Tom and Manfred von Roncador (eds). 2002. Reported Discourse: A Meeting Ground for Different Linguistic Domains. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
de Haan, Pieter. 1996. “More on the Language of Dialogue in Fiction”. ICAME Journal 201: 23–40.Google Scholar
Holt, Elizabeth and Rebecca Clift (eds). 2007. Reporting Talk: Reported Speech in Interaction. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Jacobs, Andreas and Andreas H. Jucker. 1995. “The Historical Perspective in Pragmatics”. In Andreas H. Jucker (ed.), Historical Pragmatics: Pragmatic Developments in the History of English, 3–33. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Johnson, Deidre. 1982. Stratemeyer Pseudonyms and Series Books. Westport, Connecticut: Greenwood Press.Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas H. and Manuel Berger. 2014. “The Development of Discourse Presentation in The Times, 1833–1988”. Media History 20 (1): 67–87. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Kytö, Merja and Terry Walker. 2006. Guide to A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760. Uppsala: Acta Universitatis Upsaliensis.Google Scholar
Lederer, Richard. 2006. Get Thee to a Punnery: An Anthology of Intentional Assaults upon the English Language. Layton, Utah: Wyrick.Google Scholar
Levorato, Alessandra. 2009. “‘Be Steady Then, My Countrymen, Be Firm, United and Determined’: Expressions of Stance in the 1798–1800 Irish Paper War”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 10 (1): 132–157. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lippman, Louis G., Kristine Bennington and Ivan L. Sucharski. 2002. “Contextual Connections to Puns in Tom Swifties”. Journal of General Psychology 129 (2): 202–208. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Lippman, Louis G. and Sarah L. Tragesser. 2005. “Constructing Something Funny: Levels of Associative Connection in Tom Swifties”. Journal of General Psychology 132 (3): 231–242.Google Scholar
Lutzky, Ursula. 2015. “Quotations in Early Modern English Witness Depositions”. In Jenny Arendholz, Wolfram Bublitz and Monika Kirner-Ludwig (eds), The Pragmatics of Quoting Now and Then, 343–367. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
McIntyre, Dan and Brian Walker. 2011. “Discourse Presentation in Early Modern English Writing: A Preliminary Corpus-Based Investigation”. International Journal of Corpus Linguistics 16 (1): 101–130. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Moore, Colette. 2011. Quoting Speech in Early English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Oostdijk, Nelleke. 1990. “The Language of Dialogue in Fiction”. Literary and Linguistic Computing 5 (3): 235–241. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Pooley, Roger. 1992. English Prose of the Seventeenth Century, 1590–1700. London: Longman.Google Scholar
Semino, Elena and Mick Short. 2004. Corpus Stylistics: Speech, Writing and Thought Presentation in a Corpus of English Writing. London: Routledge. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
Tannen, Deborah. 1989. Talking Voices: Repetition, Dialogue, and Imagery in Conversational Discourse. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar
Walker, Terry and Peter J. Grund. 2017. “‘Speaking ase approbious words’: Speech Representation in Early Modern English Witness Depositions”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 18 (1): 1–29. DOI logoGoogle Scholar
. Forthcoming. “Free Indirect Speech, Slipping, or a System in Flux? Exploring the Continuum between Direct and Indirect Speech in Early Modern English”. In Peter J. Ground (eds), Speech Representation in the History of English: Topics and Approaches. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
Włodarczyk, Matylda. 2007. Pragmatic Aspects of Reported Speech: The Case of Early Modern English Courtroom Discourse. Frankfurt: Peter Lang.Google Scholar
Cited by (5)

Cited by five other publications

Bouso, Tamara & Pablo Ruano San Segundo
2024. The Reaction Object Construction in the Leech and Short’s model: A new strategy of discourse presentation in the nineteenth-century novel. Studia Neophilologica ► pp. 1 ff. DOI logo
Grund, Peter J.
2020. What it means to describe speech. In Late Modern English [Studies in Language Companion Series, 214], ► pp. 296 ff. DOI logo
GRUND, PETER J.
2023. Disgusting, obscene and aggravating language: speech descriptors and the sociopragmatic evaluation of speech in theOld Bailey Corpus. English Language and Linguistics 27:3 ► pp. 517 ff. DOI logo
Walker, Terry & Peter J. Grund
2020. Chapter 5. Saying, crying, replying, and continuing. In Voices Past and Present - Studies of Involved, Speech-related and Spoken Texts [Studies in Corpus Linguistics, 97], ► pp. 64 ff. DOI logo
[no author supplied]
2021. The Sociopragmatics of Stance [Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 329], DOI logo

This list is based on CrossRef data as of 21 november 2024. Please note that it may not be complete. Sources presented here have been supplied by the respective publishers. Any errors therein should be reported to them.