Letter Writing in Late Modern Europe

Edited by Marina Dossena and Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti
University of Bergamo / University of Florence
In recent years there has been a renewed interest in correspondence both as a literary genre and as cultural practice, and several studies have appeared, mainly spanning the centuries between Early and Late Modern times. However, it is between the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries that the roots of contemporary usage begin to evolve, thanks to the circulation of new educational materials and more widespread schooling practices.
In this volume, chapters representing diverse but complementary methodological approaches discuss linguistic and discursive practices of correspondence in Late Modern Europe, in order to offer material for the comparative, cross-linguistic analyses of patterns occurring in different social contexts.
The volume aims to provide a general and solid methodological structure for the study of largely untapped language material from a variety of comparable sources, and is expected to appeal to scholars and students interested in the linguistic history of epistolary writing practices, as well as to all those interested in the more recent history of European languages.
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series, 218]  2012.  vii, 254 pp.
Publishing status: Available
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ISBN 9789027256232 | EUR 95.00 | USD 143.00
 
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Table of Contents

Acknowledgements
vii–viii
Introduction
Marina Dossena and Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti
1–12
The study of correspondence: Theoretical and methodological issues
Marina Dossena
13–30
A historical digital archive of Portuguese letters
Rita Marquilhas
31–44
Between linguistic creativity and formulaic restriction: Cross-linguistic perspectives on nineteenth-century lower class writers’ private letters
Stephan Elspass
45–64
Performing identities and interaction through epistolary formulae
Lea Laitinen and Taru Nordlund
65–88
Fanny to William: A Critical Discourse Analysis approach to the letters of Frances Leonora Macleay
Eleonora Chiavetta
89–104
An atypical commercial correspondence: Negotiating artefacts and status
Gabriella Del Lungo Camiciotti
105–120
Reporting the news in English and Italian diplomatic correspondence
Nicholas Brownlees
121–138
Letters as loot: Confiscated Letters filling major gaps in the History of Dutch
Marijke J. van der Wal, Gijsbert Rutten and Tanja Simons
139–162
The problem of reading dialect in semiliterate letters: The correspondence of the Holden family, 1812–16 and of Richard Taylor 1840–51
Robert McColl Millar
163–178
“I will be expecting a letter from you before this reaches you”: A corpus-based study of shall/will variation in Irish English correspondence
Kevin McCafferty and Carolina P. Amador Moreno
179–204
Letters in mechanically-schooled language: Theories and ideologies
Tony Fairman
205–228
Teaching grammar and composition through letter writing in seventeenth- and eighteenth-century England
Linda C. Mitchell
229–250
Index
251–254

Quotes

“Dossena's long-standing expertise in the field has enabled her to present this striking volume which thoroughly explores the tension between early standardization, ideology and everyday best writing practices as they transpired in ego-documents from the 17th through the 19th century. This collection of articles contains cutting-edge research on Late Modern English letter writing, complemented with the very best work from spearheading teams from other language communities. Any scholar working on 'literacy from below', ego-documents or historical correspondence will have to include the present volume as a key reference.”
Prof. Dr. Wim Vandenbussche, Vrije Universiteit Brussel
Letter Writing in Late Modern Europe is a landmark publication that crosses cultural and language boundaries in 18th- and 19th-century Europe. At the intersection of historical pragmatics and sociolinguistics, the volume captures the diversity of epistolary communication in all walks of life, ranging from private letters to commercial and diplomatic correspondence. The windows that it opens on changing cultural practices and language history are truly fascinating.”
Terttu Nevalainen, University of Helsinki

Subjects

Benjamins Subject classification

BIC Subject

CFG: Semantics, Pragmatics, Discourse Analysis

BISAC Subject

LAN009000: LANGUAGE ARTS & DISCIPLINES / Linguistics
U.S. Library of Congress Control Number:  2012000159
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