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Article published In:
Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 18:1 (2017) ► pp.1–29

“Speaking base approbious words”

Speech representation in Early Modern English witness depositions

 | Mid-Sweden University
 | University of Kansas
This paper explores the representation of speech in Early Modern English witness depositions. We demonstrate that Semino and Short’s (2004) framework of description, which has for the most part been used in explorations of present-day texts, is generally applicable to our historical data. Our study shows that factors such as the importance of the evidence cited and the clarity of the deposition narrative were crucial considerations in representing speech in different contexts.
Keywords: Early Modern English, speech representation, witness depositions
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Material
  • 3.Previous research and methodology
    • 3.1Narrator’s representation of voice (NV)
    • 3.2Narrator’s representation of speech acts (NRSA)
    • 3.3Indirect speech (IS)
    • 3.4Free indirect speech (FIS)
    • 3.5Direct speech (DS) and free direct speech (FDS)
    • 3.6Hypothetical speech (h)
    • 3.7Quotations (q)
    • 3.8Portmanteau and other
    • 3.9Speech embedding
  • 4.Quantitative results
  • 5.Qualitative analysis
    • 5.1Narrator’s representation of voice (NV)
    • 5.2Narrator’s representation of speech act (NRSA)
    • 5.3Indirect speech/direct speech (IS/DS)
    • 5.4Indirect speech (IS) and direct speech (DS)
  • 6.Summary and conclusion
  • Notes
  • Sources
  • References


This article is currently available as a sample article.

Published online: 26 October 2017
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.18.1.01wal
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