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The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena: Historical approaches to paratext and metadiscourse in English
Edited by Matti Peikola and Birte Bös
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 317] 2020
► pp. 289–307

Chapter 12
Paratext, information studies, and Middle English manuscripts

ORCID logo | University of Washington

Investigations of paratextual elements can be approached methodologically from the vantage of information science. Information structure (the organization of information on the clausal and sentence level) is connected to the discipline of linguistics, and information design (the ways that a text presents material in its layout or appearance) derives from website construction and digital humanities. Although they stem from different disciplinary conversations and contexts, information structure and design collectively provide tools for examining aspects of text on the manuscript page, and drawing upon these analytic rubrics rather than the more traditional rubrics of manuscript studies serves to highlight new features and put manuscript work in closer conversation with present-day visual and textual analysis. This investigation draws upon illustrative examples from the Middle English Brut Chronicle to examine how the structural and graphical choices of the late Middle English manuscript page work together to organize and structure information, and examines the terminological and interpretative distinctions between different analytical frameworks.

Keywords: paratext, peritext, information structure, information design, information science, ordinatio , layout, Brut , Chronicle
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The framework of information studies
  • 3. Peritextual structure and information studies in manuscripts of the Brut
    • 3.1Introduction to the Brut Chronicle
    • 3.2Headings
    • 3.3Paraph marks
    • 3.4Clause structure marking of given and new information
    • 3.5Ruling
  • 4.Analytic models
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Primary sources
  • Secondary sources
Published online: 18 November 2020
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.317.12moo
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