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Article published In:
Historical Pragmatics today: Articles in honour of Andreas H. Jucker
Edited by Irma Taavitsainen and Jonathan Culpeper
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 22:2] 2021
► pp. 263–281

Lexical choices in Early Modern English devotional prose

| University of Glasgow
Religious controversy in English has always been marked by ideologically charged lexicons. Developments in the analysis of machine-readable corpora have enabled more robust conclusions to be drawn about the nature of these vocabularies, relating particular usages to particular confessional orientations. In this paper, part of a long-term research project on the history of English religious vocabulary, an attempt is made to identify “keywords” characteristic of presbyterian, puritan and high Anglican communities of practice within the Church of England. In addition, the paper addresses some methodological and theoretical issues involved in such research, relating to the practice of historical pragmatics.
Keywords: communities of practice, lexicon, religion, seventeenth-century
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction: On uncomfortable words
  • 2.The three corpora
  • 3.Textual analysis
    • Comfort
    • Heart
    • Word
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 13 October 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00056.smi
References (31)
References
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Oxford Dictionary of National Biography (odnb). See: [URL]. Entries for: George Abbot (Kenneth Fincham); Lancelot Andrewes (P. E. McCullough); William Barlow (C. S. Knighton); Nicholas Bourne (S. A. Baron); Robert Boyle (Michael Hunter); Thomas Cartwright (Patrick Collinson); John Dod (J. Fielding); John Davenport (Francis J. Bremer); John Donne (David Colclough); William Fiennes, Viscount of Saye and Sele (David L. Smith); William Hooke (Susan Hardman Moore); William Laud (Anthony Milton); John Preston (Jonathan D. Moore); John Rogers (Richard L. Greaves); Thomas Shepard (Michael Jinkins); Richard Sibbes (Mark E. Dever); Walter Travers (Alan Ford); Thomas Wentworth, Earl of Strafford (Ronald G. Asch).
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