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John Benjamins Publishing Company
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Pragmatics & Beyond New Series
312
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Manners, Norms and Transgressions in the History of English
Literary and linguistic approaches
01
pbns.312
01
https://benjamins.com
02
https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.312
1
B01
Andreas H. Jucker
Jucker, Andreas H.
Andreas H.
Jucker
University of Zurich
2
B01
Irma Taavitsainen
Taavitsainen, Irma
Irma
Taavitsainen
University of Helsinki
01
eng
306
viii
298
LAN009030
v.2006
CFG
2
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.DISC
Discourse studies
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.ENG
English linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.HL
Historical linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.PRAG
Pragmatics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIT.ENGL
English literature & literary studies
06
01
This volume traces the multifaceted concept of manners in the history of English from the late medieval through the early and late modern periods right up to the present day. It focuses in particular on transgressions of manners and norms of behaviour as an analytical tool to shed light on the discourse of polite conduct and styles of writing. The papers collected in this volume adopt both literary and linguistic perspectives. The fictional sources range from medieval romances and Shakespearean plays to eighteenth-century drama, Lewis Carroll’s Alice books and present-day television comedy drama. The non-fictional data includes conduct books, medical debates and petitions written by lower class women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The contributions focus in particular on the following questions: What are the social and political ideologies behind rules of etiquette and norms of interaction, and what can we learn from blunders and other transgressions?
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viii
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To be specified
1
01
Preface
10
01
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pbns.312.01taa
1
23
23
Chapter
2
01
Manners, norms and transgressions
Introduction
1
A01
Irma Taavitsainen
Taavitsainen, Irma
Irma
Taavitsainen
University of Helsinki
2
A01
Andreas H. Jucker
Jucker, Andreas H.
Andreas H.
Jucker
University of Zurich
20
diachrony
20
history of politeness
20
language history
20
manners
20
norms
20
politeness
20
transgressions
01
In this volume we focus on different types of manners, norms and their transgressions. One kind of transgression can be called “blunders” and deals with violations of accepted behaviour, conduct or manners. A second kind draws more attention to language use in interpersonal communication with violations of pragmatic principles or breaking the norms of appropriate writing styles. In this introduction, we first outline the change in the appropriation of manners in different periods discussed in this book. We then proceed to the theoretical background and suggest an overall line of diachronic changes. Our approach falls at the interface between language and literature, which is discussed before the chapter summaries.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.02sil
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49
25
Chapter
3
01
<i>Ipomedon</i> and the elusive nature of blunders in the courtly literature of medieval England
1
A01
Tatjana Silec-Plessis
Silec-Plessis, Tatjana
Tatjana
Silec-Plessis
Sorbonne Université
20
Anglo-Norman literature
20
Ipomadon
20
Ipomedon
20
medieval ethics
20
medieval literary theory
20
Middle English literature
20
pragmatics
20
translation
01
When the word <i>blonder</i>, which comes from Old Norse, appeared in the English language in the late fourteenth century, it had a stronger and more negative meaning than its Present-Day reflex: rather than an embarrassing faux-pas, blunders always had potentially serious repercussions, not only for their perpetrators, but also for the society they lived in. This is exemplified in an Anglo-Norman romance called <i>Ipomedon</i>, in which the hero and the heroine’s youthful gaffes have grave consequences. This poem was later adapted for English-speaking audiences with the characters’ errors of judgment slightly modified. The changes made by the English compilers are analysed in this paper as they shed light on the evolution of politeness strategies (understood then as courtly behaviours) throughout the Middle Ages in England. They also show how difficult it was during that period to even consider the possibility of any transgression being a minor one.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.03per
51
74
24
Chapter
4
01
Unrestrained acting and norms of behaviour
Excess and instruction in <i>The Legend of Good Women</i>
1
A01
Laura Pereira Domínguez
Pereira Domínguez, Laura
Laura
Pereira Domínguez
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
20
bodily movement
20
conduct
20
Geoffrey Chaucer
20
Medieval literature
20
performance
20
The Legend of Good Women
20
virtue
01
This paper analyses two stories of <i>The Legend of Good Women</i>, by Geoffrey Chaucer, as examples of the reception of Ovidian tradition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Europe. The main characters of these fictions embody desired virtues for women, but a closer scrutiny reveals that these supposedly exemplary characters transgress the limits of the morality of the period through actions and gestures that would not be acceptable for real women. These descriptions of ethically unrestrained bodily movement cannot be read as literal norms of conduct. Rather, these actions are used as a means to achieve the emotional experience. This paper examines how these actions are depicted and what their relation is to the overall meaning of the narrative.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.04kiz
75
99
25
Chapter
5
01
Blunders and (un)intentional offence in Shakespeare
1
A01
Urszula Kizelbach
Kizelbach, Urszula
Urszula
Kizelbach
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
20
banter
20
blunder
20
comedy
20
embarrassability
20
face-threatening acts
20
humour
20
impoliteness
20
intentionality
20
William Shakespeare
01
Neither literary nor linguistic investigations seem to offer a clear pragmatic description of blunder. Blunders in social communication are popularly associated with gaffes, which are incidental offences that could have been avoided if the speaker had foreseen their offensive or perplexing consequences. It has been claimed (Wierzbicka 2003) that errors and blunders are mostly committed when speakers venture into “unsafe territory” (2003: 283), which makes it easier to make a serious mistake or to embarrass the interlocutor by not taking enough care or not thinking enough. Blunders in Early Modern literature, however, have never been pragmatically analysed even though they form a distinctive linguistic feature of some Shakespearean characters’ speech. This chapter analyses the linguistic behaviour of two comedy characters from Shakespeare’s plays, Mistress Quickly and Falstaff, with special emphasis on the effects of their blunders and how blunders affect both the speaker and the hearer. The aim of the chapter is twofold. First, I try to provide a pragmatic definition of blunder in relation to speech act theory and intentionality and explain how blunders are pragmatically different from gaffes. Next, I describe the perlocutionary effects of blunders based on the examples of Shakespeare characters’ speech and demonstrate how blunders can be employed as a means of literary characterisation.
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JB code
pbns.312.05juc
101
120
20
Chapter
6
01
The discourse of manners and politeness in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama
The
discourse of manners and politeness in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama
1
A01
Andreas H. Jucker
Jucker, Andreas H.
Andreas H.
Jucker
University of Zurich
20
Aphra Behn
20
eighteenth-century drama
20
manners
20
Oliver Goldsmith
20
politeness
20
Restoration drama
20
Richard Steele
01
The eighteenth century is often referred to as the age of politeness, and the term <i>politeness</i> has been argued to be a key term in a variety of settings at this time. This paper sets out to investigate the discourse of politeness and, more generally, the discourse of manners during this period and the period leading up to it (1660 to 1790). It focuses on the vocabulary used in talking about manners and politeness and on the way this vocabulary is used in actual interactions. In a first step, it investigates several large corpora and what they can tell us about the development of the vocabulary of manners and politeness before it zooms in, in a second step, on a more detailed investigation of three comedies of the period: Aphra Behn’s <i>The Town-Fop: or Sir Timothy Tawdrey</i> (1676), Sir Richard Steele’s <i>The Conscious Lovers</i> (1722), and Oliver Goldsmith’s <i>She Stoops to Conquer, or The Mistakes of a Night</i> (1773). A close reading and a careful analysis of the discourse of manners and politeness, and crucially the discourse of violations of manners and politeness, in these three plays reveals a significant shift from a preoccupation with honour and reputation in the Restoration period to the politeness of a good character in the early eighteenth century and finally to a concern for polished and somewhat superficial manners in the late eighteenth century. The three comedies thus mirror in a detailed and nuanced way what the development of the vocabulary of manners and politeness suggests in a broad-brush perspective on a much larger scale.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.06kuk
121
140
20
Chapter
7
01
“This Demon Anger”
Politeness, conversation and control in eighteenth-century conduct books for young women1
1
A01
Erzsi Kukorelly
Kukorelly, Erzsi
Erzsi
Kukorelly
University of Geneva
20
anger
20
conduct books
20
conduct of life
20
eighteenth century
20
politeness
20
young women
01
This chapter examines the representation and correction of anger in conduct books written for young women in eighteenth-century Britain. An introductory section places the admonition against anger in the context of John Locke’s and Lord Shaftesbury’s discussions of, respectively, rational conduct and polite sociability. Then, I succinctly identify ideal womanly conduct as emanating from three main sources: self-control in body and mind, obedience coupled with rationality, and a consciousness of the world that produces self-consciousness and an attendant desire to conform to social rules. Anger is then shown to break with all three of these: an angry woman no longer controls her body and her mind; she is both disobedient and irrational; and she disregards the constant and critical gaze of society, thus risking loss of reputation. Ultimately, anger hinders young women in what was their main objective, attracting the best possible husband.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.07taa
141
163
23
Chapter
8
01
A medical debate of “heated pamphleteering” in the early eighteenth century
A
medical debate of “heated pamphleteering” in the early eighteenth century
1
A01
Irma Taavitsainen
Taavitsainen, Irma
Irma
Taavitsainen
University of Helsinki
20
argumentation
20
discourse analysis
20
inoculation controversy
20
insults
20
polite society
20
sarcasm
20
styles of writing
20
verbal aggression
01
This chapter probes into the controversy of smallpox inoculation that followed soon after the novel method was introduced into England and culminated in the second decade of the eighteenth century. Polemical argumentation displays verbal aggression, and irony and sarcasm take the upper hand in interpersonal language use that bursts into personal insults in a pamphlet that serves as data for the empirical part. The method of analysis is qualitative discourse analysis in a multi-layered contextual frame in accordance with the historical pragmatic approach. The analysis shows how transgressions of the prevailing norms are exploited and presents a far cry from the recommended Royal Society style of writing science as well as from the more rhetorical way of argumentation favoured in contemporary polite society; even an old pattern of scholastic argumentation is revived to poke fun at the target.
10
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165
182
18
Chapter
9
01
Transgressions as a socialisation strategy in Samuel Richardson’s <i>The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum</i> (1734)
1
A01
Polina Shvanyukova
Shvanyukova, Polina
Polina
Shvanyukova
University of Bergamo
20
apprentices
20
conduct manuals
20
didactic advice literature
20
eighteenth century
20
instructional writing
20
manners and norms
20
rhetorical strategies
20
transgressions
01
Conduct manuals disseminating norms of behaviour were popular in Early and Late Modern England. In this contribution I offer a close reading of an influential eighteenth-century conduct manual for newly apprenticed boys, Samuel Richardson’s <i>The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum</i> (Richardson 2012[1734]). In my analysis of its contents I aim to identify the specific set of norms of conduct young apprentices were impelled to comply with, in an attempt to shed light on the ways in which representations of acts of transgressive behaviour in didactic advice literature were instrumental in the process of indoctrinating social novices about the norms of the dominant world order. I then examine the distinctive traits of the author’s instructive language, that is to say, the specific linguistic strategies Richardson employs in order to deliver his instructions in the most efficient, unequivocal and accessible way. Finally, I argue that in Richardson’s in-depth treatment of transgressive acts we find evidence of the existence of a coherent code of anti-normative behaviour.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.09nur
183
212
30
Chapter
10
01
Variations from letter-writing manuals
<i>Humble petitions</i> signed by women in Late Modern London
1
A01
Nuria Calvo Cortés
Calvo Cortés, Nuria
Nuria
Calvo Cortés
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
20
Bank of England
20
Foundling Hospital
20
instruction manuals
20
Late Modern English
20
letter-writing
20
petitions
01
The present study analyses two sets of 25 petitions each. They were signed by different women who possibly belonged to lower social ranks, and they were addressed to the governors of the Foundling Hospital and the Bank of England. These were most probably men who occupied high positions in society. The study focuses on the comparison between the information present in the manuals and the petitions selected for this study. The petitioners had different needs and their circumstances also varied. This is reflected in the results, which show differences, and also similarities, between the two sets of petitions. Furthermore, most display some features found in the manuals, but not all of them follow the rules or recommendations faithfully. The writers, who cannot always be identified and may not have been the same as the signees, seem to have been aware of the existence of letter-writing manuals, but they may not have had first-hand contact with them.
10
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pbns.312.10erm
213
246
34
Chapter
11
01
Impoliteness in Blunderland
Carroll’s Alice books and the manners in which manners fail
1
A01
Isabel Ermida
Ermida, Isabel
Isabel
Ermida
Universidade do Minho
20
ambiguity
20
face
20
humour
20
impoliteness
20
incongruity
20
infelicity
20
manners
20
nonsense
20
speech act
20
wordplay
01
Lewis Carroll’s <i>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</i> (1865) and <i>Through the Looking-Glass</i> (1871), two linguistic treatises in disguise, create ingenious fantasy worlds where the rules of language and the conventions of communication are turned upside down. What is (semantically) illogical or (pragmatically) inappropriate confounds Alice, who struggles to make sense of nonsense and to keep the order of a polite, rational world in place. In her dialogues with anthropomorphic animals and objects, ambiguity and fallacy coexist with interactive manipulation, while her communicative expectations crumble and comic misunderstandings arise. <br />This article looks into the construction of linguistic and pragmatic transgressions in Carroll’s acclaimed books with a view to unveiling their contribution to impoliteness. On the one hand, the paper analyses the structural mechanisms of wordplay vis-à-vis phonetic, morpho-syntactic and lexical ambiguity. On the other, it examines the pragmatic strategies whereby speech-act infelicities, conversational maxim violations, and bald-on-record clashes contribute to reversing the established conventions of (polite) social interaction. The premise guiding the analysis is that the pervasive existence of double meaning and incongruity in the Alice books underlies not only linguistic phenomena such as punning, neologism, and relexicalisation, but also interactive patterns, in which the expected norms of courteous conduct in social exchanges do not obtain. The antithetical and script-oppositional (hence, humorous) nature of this process defrauds outsider Alice – the victim, but at times the happy recipient, of the uncooperative challenges of this inverted, refracted, teasingly nonsensical world.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.11buc
247
269
23
Chapter
12
01
“Collect a thousand loyalty points and you get a free coffin”
Creative impoliteness in the TV comedy drama <i>Doc Martin</i>
1
A01
Steve Buckledee
Buckledee, Steve
Steve
Buckledee
University of Cagliari
20
asymmetrical power relationships
20
conversational implicature
20
entertaining impoliteness
20
implicational impoliteness
20
intentionality
20
quality face
20
relational face
20
social identity face
01
The British comedy drama <i>Doc Martin</i> is set in the fictional fishing village of Portwenn in Cornwall, where the community’s only medical practitioner, Dr Martin Ellingham, is known to be brilliant as regards the clinical aspects of his profession but totally devoid of even the most basic interpersonal skills. He is habitually gruff, ill-tempered and extremely rude to patients, and indeed to the entire population of Portwenn. <br />This paper draws upon Brown and Levinson’s (1987) pioneering study of face-threatening acts and politeness, but also Spencer-Oatey’s more recent work (2007, 2008) on quality face, social identity face and relational face. The concept of creative impoliteness owes much to Culpeper’s view (1996, 2005, 2011) of impoliteness as a phenomenon related to situated behaviours that conflict with interlocutors’ expectations, wishes and notions of what ought to be said or done during interaction. The aim is to demonstrate how Dr Ellingham’s rudeness does not consist of unoriginal insults or standard terms of offence – if it did, viewers would quickly switch off – but involves highly creative use of language and thus serves as the main source of humour in the TV series. In <i>Doc Martin</i> imaginative script writers and a skilled actor create a character who in real life would be insupportable, but on the TV screen is a comic monster.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.12pel
271
293
23
Chapter
13
01
“Meaning you have been known to act rashly”
How Molly Weasley negotiates her identity as a moral authority in conflicts in the <i>Harry Potter</i> series
1
A01
Jana Pelclová
Pelclová, Jana
Jana
Pelclová
Masaryk University
20
conventionalised impoliteness
20
Harry Potter
20
implicational impoliteness
20
impoliteness
20
manners
20
Molly Weasley
20
moral authority
01
Molly Weasley, a mother character in J. K. Rowling’s <i>Harry Potter</i> series, represents a moral authority whose system of moral values and principles that governs her family is also recognised and highly appreciated by other characters in the books and by the readers. However, even Molly Weasley becomes engaged in conflictual situations in which she transgresses her morality and chooses impoliteness to control her interlocutor’s inappropriate behaviour. Such situations enable her to negotiate her identity as a moral authority and to be perceived as a complex character. Drawing upon Culpeper’s (2011) theoretical framework of impoliteness, the objective of the paper is to study how Molly Weasley employs conventionalised and implicational impoliteness in her direct speeches, which functions her impolite formulas have, and how both the triggers and functions are determined by her relation with her interlocutor.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.nam
295
296
2
Miscellaneous
14
01
Name index
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.sub
297
298
2
Miscellaneous
15
01
Subject index
02
JBENJAMINS
John Benjamins Publishing Company
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John Benjamins Publishing Company
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20200811
2020
John Benjamins B.V.
02
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146026674
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JB
John Benjamins Publishing Company
01
JB code
P&bns 312 Hb
15
9789027207463
13
2020020138
BB
01
P&bns
02
0922-842X
Pragmatics & Beyond New Series
312
01
Manners, Norms and Transgressions in the History of English
Literary and linguistic approaches
01
pbns.312
01
https://benjamins.com
02
https://benjamins.com/catalog/pbns.312
1
B01
Andreas H. Jucker
Jucker, Andreas H.
Andreas H.
Jucker
University of Zurich
2
B01
Irma Taavitsainen
Taavitsainen, Irma
Irma
Taavitsainen
University of Helsinki
01
eng
306
viii
298
LAN009030
v.2006
CFG
2
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.DISC
Discourse studies
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.ENG
English linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.HL
Historical linguistics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIN.PRAG
Pragmatics
24
JB Subject Scheme
LIT.ENGL
English literature & literary studies
06
01
This volume traces the multifaceted concept of manners in the history of English from the late medieval through the early and late modern periods right up to the present day. It focuses in particular on transgressions of manners and norms of behaviour as an analytical tool to shed light on the discourse of polite conduct and styles of writing. The papers collected in this volume adopt both literary and linguistic perspectives. The fictional sources range from medieval romances and Shakespearean plays to eighteenth-century drama, Lewis Carroll’s Alice books and present-day television comedy drama. The non-fictional data includes conduct books, medical debates and petitions written by lower class women in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries. The contributions focus in particular on the following questions: What are the social and political ideologies behind rules of etiquette and norms of interaction, and what can we learn from blunders and other transgressions?
04
09
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vii
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To be specified
1
01
Preface
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.01taa
1
23
23
Chapter
2
01
Manners, norms and transgressions
Introduction
1
A01
Irma Taavitsainen
Taavitsainen, Irma
Irma
Taavitsainen
University of Helsinki
2
A01
Andreas H. Jucker
Jucker, Andreas H.
Andreas H.
Jucker
University of Zurich
20
diachrony
20
history of politeness
20
language history
20
manners
20
norms
20
politeness
20
transgressions
01
In this volume we focus on different types of manners, norms and their transgressions. One kind of transgression can be called “blunders” and deals with violations of accepted behaviour, conduct or manners. A second kind draws more attention to language use in interpersonal communication with violations of pragmatic principles or breaking the norms of appropriate writing styles. In this introduction, we first outline the change in the appropriation of manners in different periods discussed in this book. We then proceed to the theoretical background and suggest an overall line of diachronic changes. Our approach falls at the interface between language and literature, which is discussed before the chapter summaries.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.02sil
25
49
25
Chapter
3
01
<i>Ipomedon</i> and the elusive nature of blunders in the courtly literature of medieval England
1
A01
Tatjana Silec-Plessis
Silec-Plessis, Tatjana
Tatjana
Silec-Plessis
Sorbonne Université
20
Anglo-Norman literature
20
Ipomadon
20
Ipomedon
20
medieval ethics
20
medieval literary theory
20
Middle English literature
20
pragmatics
20
translation
01
When the word <i>blonder</i>, which comes from Old Norse, appeared in the English language in the late fourteenth century, it had a stronger and more negative meaning than its Present-Day reflex: rather than an embarrassing faux-pas, blunders always had potentially serious repercussions, not only for their perpetrators, but also for the society they lived in. This is exemplified in an Anglo-Norman romance called <i>Ipomedon</i>, in which the hero and the heroine’s youthful gaffes have grave consequences. This poem was later adapted for English-speaking audiences with the characters’ errors of judgment slightly modified. The changes made by the English compilers are analysed in this paper as they shed light on the evolution of politeness strategies (understood then as courtly behaviours) throughout the Middle Ages in England. They also show how difficult it was during that period to even consider the possibility of any transgression being a minor one.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.03per
51
74
24
Chapter
4
01
Unrestrained acting and norms of behaviour
Excess and instruction in <i>The Legend of Good Women</i>
1
A01
Laura Pereira Domínguez
Pereira Domínguez, Laura
Laura
Pereira Domínguez
Universidad de Santiago de Compostela
20
bodily movement
20
conduct
20
Geoffrey Chaucer
20
Medieval literature
20
performance
20
The Legend of Good Women
20
virtue
01
This paper analyses two stories of <i>The Legend of Good Women</i>, by Geoffrey Chaucer, as examples of the reception of Ovidian tradition in the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries in Europe. The main characters of these fictions embody desired virtues for women, but a closer scrutiny reveals that these supposedly exemplary characters transgress the limits of the morality of the period through actions and gestures that would not be acceptable for real women. These descriptions of ethically unrestrained bodily movement cannot be read as literal norms of conduct. Rather, these actions are used as a means to achieve the emotional experience. This paper examines how these actions are depicted and what their relation is to the overall meaning of the narrative.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.04kiz
75
99
25
Chapter
5
01
Blunders and (un)intentional offence in Shakespeare
1
A01
Urszula Kizelbach
Kizelbach, Urszula
Urszula
Kizelbach
Adam Mickiewicz University in Poznań
20
banter
20
blunder
20
comedy
20
embarrassability
20
face-threatening acts
20
humour
20
impoliteness
20
intentionality
20
William Shakespeare
01
Neither literary nor linguistic investigations seem to offer a clear pragmatic description of blunder. Blunders in social communication are popularly associated with gaffes, which are incidental offences that could have been avoided if the speaker had foreseen their offensive or perplexing consequences. It has been claimed (Wierzbicka 2003) that errors and blunders are mostly committed when speakers venture into “unsafe territory” (2003: 283), which makes it easier to make a serious mistake or to embarrass the interlocutor by not taking enough care or not thinking enough. Blunders in Early Modern literature, however, have never been pragmatically analysed even though they form a distinctive linguistic feature of some Shakespearean characters’ speech. This chapter analyses the linguistic behaviour of two comedy characters from Shakespeare’s plays, Mistress Quickly and Falstaff, with special emphasis on the effects of their blunders and how blunders affect both the speaker and the hearer. The aim of the chapter is twofold. First, I try to provide a pragmatic definition of blunder in relation to speech act theory and intentionality and explain how blunders are pragmatically different from gaffes. Next, I describe the perlocutionary effects of blunders based on the examples of Shakespeare characters’ speech and demonstrate how blunders can be employed as a means of literary characterisation.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.05juc
101
120
20
Chapter
6
01
The discourse of manners and politeness in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama
The
discourse of manners and politeness in Restoration and eighteenth-century drama
1
A01
Andreas H. Jucker
Jucker, Andreas H.
Andreas H.
Jucker
University of Zurich
20
Aphra Behn
20
eighteenth-century drama
20
manners
20
Oliver Goldsmith
20
politeness
20
Restoration drama
20
Richard Steele
01
The eighteenth century is often referred to as the age of politeness, and the term <i>politeness</i> has been argued to be a key term in a variety of settings at this time. This paper sets out to investigate the discourse of politeness and, more generally, the discourse of manners during this period and the period leading up to it (1660 to 1790). It focuses on the vocabulary used in talking about manners and politeness and on the way this vocabulary is used in actual interactions. In a first step, it investigates several large corpora and what they can tell us about the development of the vocabulary of manners and politeness before it zooms in, in a second step, on a more detailed investigation of three comedies of the period: Aphra Behn’s <i>The Town-Fop: or Sir Timothy Tawdrey</i> (1676), Sir Richard Steele’s <i>The Conscious Lovers</i> (1722), and Oliver Goldsmith’s <i>She Stoops to Conquer, or The Mistakes of a Night</i> (1773). A close reading and a careful analysis of the discourse of manners and politeness, and crucially the discourse of violations of manners and politeness, in these three plays reveals a significant shift from a preoccupation with honour and reputation in the Restoration period to the politeness of a good character in the early eighteenth century and finally to a concern for polished and somewhat superficial manners in the late eighteenth century. The three comedies thus mirror in a detailed and nuanced way what the development of the vocabulary of manners and politeness suggests in a broad-brush perspective on a much larger scale.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.06kuk
121
140
20
Chapter
7
01
“This Demon Anger”
Politeness, conversation and control in eighteenth-century conduct books for young women1
1
A01
Erzsi Kukorelly
Kukorelly, Erzsi
Erzsi
Kukorelly
University of Geneva
20
anger
20
conduct books
20
conduct of life
20
eighteenth century
20
politeness
20
young women
01
This chapter examines the representation and correction of anger in conduct books written for young women in eighteenth-century Britain. An introductory section places the admonition against anger in the context of John Locke’s and Lord Shaftesbury’s discussions of, respectively, rational conduct and polite sociability. Then, I succinctly identify ideal womanly conduct as emanating from three main sources: self-control in body and mind, obedience coupled with rationality, and a consciousness of the world that produces self-consciousness and an attendant desire to conform to social rules. Anger is then shown to break with all three of these: an angry woman no longer controls her body and her mind; she is both disobedient and irrational; and she disregards the constant and critical gaze of society, thus risking loss of reputation. Ultimately, anger hinders young women in what was their main objective, attracting the best possible husband.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.07taa
141
163
23
Chapter
8
01
A medical debate of “heated pamphleteering” in the early eighteenth century
A
medical debate of “heated pamphleteering” in the early eighteenth century
1
A01
Irma Taavitsainen
Taavitsainen, Irma
Irma
Taavitsainen
University of Helsinki
20
argumentation
20
discourse analysis
20
inoculation controversy
20
insults
20
polite society
20
sarcasm
20
styles of writing
20
verbal aggression
01
This chapter probes into the controversy of smallpox inoculation that followed soon after the novel method was introduced into England and culminated in the second decade of the eighteenth century. Polemical argumentation displays verbal aggression, and irony and sarcasm take the upper hand in interpersonal language use that bursts into personal insults in a pamphlet that serves as data for the empirical part. The method of analysis is qualitative discourse analysis in a multi-layered contextual frame in accordance with the historical pragmatic approach. The analysis shows how transgressions of the prevailing norms are exploited and presents a far cry from the recommended Royal Society style of writing science as well as from the more rhetorical way of argumentation favoured in contemporary polite society; even an old pattern of scholastic argumentation is revived to poke fun at the target.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.08shv
165
182
18
Chapter
9
01
Transgressions as a socialisation strategy in Samuel Richardson’s <i>The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum</i> (1734)
1
A01
Polina Shvanyukova
Shvanyukova, Polina
Polina
Shvanyukova
University of Bergamo
20
apprentices
20
conduct manuals
20
didactic advice literature
20
eighteenth century
20
instructional writing
20
manners and norms
20
rhetorical strategies
20
transgressions
01
Conduct manuals disseminating norms of behaviour were popular in Early and Late Modern England. In this contribution I offer a close reading of an influential eighteenth-century conduct manual for newly apprenticed boys, Samuel Richardson’s <i>The Apprentice’s Vade Mecum</i> (Richardson 2012[1734]). In my analysis of its contents I aim to identify the specific set of norms of conduct young apprentices were impelled to comply with, in an attempt to shed light on the ways in which representations of acts of transgressive behaviour in didactic advice literature were instrumental in the process of indoctrinating social novices about the norms of the dominant world order. I then examine the distinctive traits of the author’s instructive language, that is to say, the specific linguistic strategies Richardson employs in order to deliver his instructions in the most efficient, unequivocal and accessible way. Finally, I argue that in Richardson’s in-depth treatment of transgressive acts we find evidence of the existence of a coherent code of anti-normative behaviour.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.09nur
183
212
30
Chapter
10
01
Variations from letter-writing manuals
<i>Humble petitions</i> signed by women in Late Modern London
1
A01
Nuria Calvo Cortés
Calvo Cortés, Nuria
Nuria
Calvo Cortés
Universidad Complutense de Madrid
20
Bank of England
20
Foundling Hospital
20
instruction manuals
20
Late Modern English
20
letter-writing
20
petitions
01
The present study analyses two sets of 25 petitions each. They were signed by different women who possibly belonged to lower social ranks, and they were addressed to the governors of the Foundling Hospital and the Bank of England. These were most probably men who occupied high positions in society. The study focuses on the comparison between the information present in the manuals and the petitions selected for this study. The petitioners had different needs and their circumstances also varied. This is reflected in the results, which show differences, and also similarities, between the two sets of petitions. Furthermore, most display some features found in the manuals, but not all of them follow the rules or recommendations faithfully. The writers, who cannot always be identified and may not have been the same as the signees, seem to have been aware of the existence of letter-writing manuals, but they may not have had first-hand contact with them.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.10erm
213
246
34
Chapter
11
01
Impoliteness in Blunderland
Carroll’s Alice books and the manners in which manners fail
1
A01
Isabel Ermida
Ermida, Isabel
Isabel
Ermida
Universidade do Minho
20
ambiguity
20
face
20
humour
20
impoliteness
20
incongruity
20
infelicity
20
manners
20
nonsense
20
speech act
20
wordplay
01
Lewis Carroll’s <i>Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland</i> (1865) and <i>Through the Looking-Glass</i> (1871), two linguistic treatises in disguise, create ingenious fantasy worlds where the rules of language and the conventions of communication are turned upside down. What is (semantically) illogical or (pragmatically) inappropriate confounds Alice, who struggles to make sense of nonsense and to keep the order of a polite, rational world in place. In her dialogues with anthropomorphic animals and objects, ambiguity and fallacy coexist with interactive manipulation, while her communicative expectations crumble and comic misunderstandings arise. <br />This article looks into the construction of linguistic and pragmatic transgressions in Carroll’s acclaimed books with a view to unveiling their contribution to impoliteness. On the one hand, the paper analyses the structural mechanisms of wordplay vis-à-vis phonetic, morpho-syntactic and lexical ambiguity. On the other, it examines the pragmatic strategies whereby speech-act infelicities, conversational maxim violations, and bald-on-record clashes contribute to reversing the established conventions of (polite) social interaction. The premise guiding the analysis is that the pervasive existence of double meaning and incongruity in the Alice books underlies not only linguistic phenomena such as punning, neologism, and relexicalisation, but also interactive patterns, in which the expected norms of courteous conduct in social exchanges do not obtain. The antithetical and script-oppositional (hence, humorous) nature of this process defrauds outsider Alice – the victim, but at times the happy recipient, of the uncooperative challenges of this inverted, refracted, teasingly nonsensical world.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.11buc
247
269
23
Chapter
12
01
“Collect a thousand loyalty points and you get a free coffin”
Creative impoliteness in the TV comedy drama <i>Doc Martin</i>
1
A01
Steve Buckledee
Buckledee, Steve
Steve
Buckledee
University of Cagliari
20
asymmetrical power relationships
20
conversational implicature
20
entertaining impoliteness
20
implicational impoliteness
20
intentionality
20
quality face
20
relational face
20
social identity face
01
The British comedy drama <i>Doc Martin</i> is set in the fictional fishing village of Portwenn in Cornwall, where the community’s only medical practitioner, Dr Martin Ellingham, is known to be brilliant as regards the clinical aspects of his profession but totally devoid of even the most basic interpersonal skills. He is habitually gruff, ill-tempered and extremely rude to patients, and indeed to the entire population of Portwenn. <br />This paper draws upon Brown and Levinson’s (1987) pioneering study of face-threatening acts and politeness, but also Spencer-Oatey’s more recent work (2007, 2008) on quality face, social identity face and relational face. The concept of creative impoliteness owes much to Culpeper’s view (1996, 2005, 2011) of impoliteness as a phenomenon related to situated behaviours that conflict with interlocutors’ expectations, wishes and notions of what ought to be said or done during interaction. The aim is to demonstrate how Dr Ellingham’s rudeness does not consist of unoriginal insults or standard terms of offence – if it did, viewers would quickly switch off – but involves highly creative use of language and thus serves as the main source of humour in the TV series. In <i>Doc Martin</i> imaginative script writers and a skilled actor create a character who in real life would be insupportable, but on the TV screen is a comic monster.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.12pel
271
293
23
Chapter
13
01
“Meaning you have been known to act rashly”
How Molly Weasley negotiates her identity as a moral authority in conflicts in the <i>Harry Potter</i> series
1
A01
Jana Pelclová
Pelclová, Jana
Jana
Pelclová
Masaryk University
20
conventionalised impoliteness
20
Harry Potter
20
implicational impoliteness
20
impoliteness
20
manners
20
Molly Weasley
20
moral authority
01
Molly Weasley, a mother character in J. K. Rowling’s <i>Harry Potter</i> series, represents a moral authority whose system of moral values and principles that governs her family is also recognised and highly appreciated by other characters in the books and by the readers. However, even Molly Weasley becomes engaged in conflictual situations in which she transgresses her morality and chooses impoliteness to control her interlocutor’s inappropriate behaviour. Such situations enable her to negotiate her identity as a moral authority and to be perceived as a complex character. Drawing upon Culpeper’s (2011) theoretical framework of impoliteness, the objective of the paper is to study how Molly Weasley employs conventionalised and implicational impoliteness in her direct speeches, which functions her impolite formulas have, and how both the triggers and functions are determined by her relation with her interlocutor.
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.nam
295
296
2
Miscellaneous
14
01
Name index
10
01
JB code
pbns.312.sub
297
298
2
Miscellaneous
15
01
Subject index
02
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