Part of
Unlocking the History of English: Pragmatics, prescriptivism and text typesEdited by Luisella Caon, Moragh S. Gordon and Thijs Porck
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 364] 2024
► pp. 198–224
Edited by Luisella Caon, Moragh S. Gordon and Thijs Porck
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 364] 2024
► pp. 198–224
Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions to the Foundling Hospital
A comparison and the influence of letter-writing manuals
The present study compares filled-in petition forms with hand-drafted petitions addressed to the Foundling Hospital between 1759 and 1815. The focus of the analysis is on the similarities and/or differences between the two types and how they compare to the petition models presented in the letter-writing manuals of the time. The results show that the hand-drafted petitions display more variation in general than the filled-in petition forms, although not as much as expected. The findings suggest that the writers of these petitions were aware of the conventions established at the time even when they had to draft a petition themselves and that their writing did not differ much from the writing of other letter writers of the time.
Keywords: filled-in petition forms, hand-drafted petitions, Foundling Hospital, letter-writing manuals, Late Modern England
Article outline
- 1.Introduction
- 2.The context of the petitions
- 2.1The Foundling Hospital in eighteenth-century London
- 2.2The petitioners
- 3.Petitions in letter-writing manuals in eighteenth-century Britain
- 4.Spelling in letter writing in Late Modern England
- 5.The present study
- 5.1Data and method
- 5.2Analysis
- 5.2.1Formal aspects: Addresses, introductions and conclusions
- 5.2.1.1Filled-in petitions
- 5.2.1.2Hand-drafted petitions
- 5.2.1.3Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions compared
- 5.2.1.4Model petitions in manuals and real petitions compared
- 5.2.2Spelling in the filled-in petition forms and the hand-drafted petitions
- 5.2.2.1Spelling in the filled-in petition forms
- 5.2.2.2Spelling in the hand-drafted petitions
- 5.2.2.3Spelling in filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions compared
- 5.2.2.4Spelling in model petitions and in real petitions compared
- 5.2.1Formal aspects: Addresses, introductions and conclusions
- 6.Concluding remarks
-
Acknowledgements -
Notes -
References
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