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Part of
Keeping in Touch: Emigrant letters across the English-speaking world
Edited by Raymond Hickey
[Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics 10] 2019
► pp. 1–24

Chapter 1
Mining emigrant correspondence for linguistic insights

The examination of emigrant letters shows that a judicious exploitation of this material can yield a variety of insights regarding the linguistic structure of varieties at the time of letter writing, despite a number of caveats which must be borne in mind. The diagnostic value of vernacular correspondence would appear to be considerable in that it assists scholars in completing a picture of variety development over the past few centuries. A wide spectrum of letters helps to establish the profile of vernacular English as it was transported to different overseas locations in the later colonial period.

Keywords: emigrant letters, insights and caveats, availability of personal correspondence, vernacular features
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Contextualising emigrant letters
    • 2.1The sender and writer
    • 2.2Why emigrant letters are different
    • 2.3Emigrant letters, memory and personal identity
  • 3.The nature of emigrant correspondence
    • 3.1Contact with home
    • 3.2Taxonomy of letter recipients
  • 4.Caveats regarding emigrant letters
  • 5.Testing hypotheses about the development of varieties
  • 6.Available emigrant letters
  • 7.The linguistic analysis of emigrant correspondence
    • 7.1Spelling and punctuation
    • 7.2Annie’s story
      • 7.2.1Authorship and education
      • 7.2.2Emigrant letters and the postal service
    • 7.3Annie Carroll as letter writer
      • 7.3.1Indications of Irish pronunciations
      • 7.3.2Linguistic features of correspondence
  • 8.Structure of volume
    • 8.1The language of emigrant correspondence
    • 8.2The language of the Irish emigrant experience
    • 8.3Vernacular correspondence: Widening the scope
  • 9.Conclusion
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 28 November 2019
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.10.01hic
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