This paper discusses the methodology of conceptual history, a branch of the study of the history of political thought which focuses on the changing meanings of political concepts over the course of time. It is suggested here that methodological disputes among historians of political thought frequently arise out of differing theories of language and meaning and that historians should be more open-minded to the idea of combining various research strategies in their work. Conceptual history, for instance, can be viewed as the combination of historical versions of semantics and pragmatics. While the study of the macro-level semantic changes in the language of politics can reveal interesting long-term trends and innovative uses of language, a contextual analysis of speech acts is also needed when the rhetorical aspects of conceptual change are traced. This interaction of semantic and pragmatic analysis in conceptual history is illustrated by examples originating from eighteenth-century political preaching.
2020. Towards Conceptual History of Management: The Language of the 1950s Textbooks in Finland. Problemy Zarządzania - Management Issues 2/2020:88 ► pp. 34 ff.
Ahonen, Pertti & Juha Koljonen
2018. Transitory and Resilient Salient Issues in Party Manifestos, Finland, 1880s to 2010s. In Social Informatics [Lecture Notes in Computer Science, 11185], ► pp. 23 ff.
2010. An Awkward Companion: Disability and the Semantic Landscape of English Lame. Journal of English Linguistics 38:1 ► pp. 25 ff.
Åtland, Kristian
2008. Hva er sikkerhet? En drøfting av sikkerhetsbegrepets innhold og utvikling fra Antikken til det 21. århundre. Norsk statsvitenskapelig tidsskrift 24:1-2 ► pp. 108 ff.
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