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Part of
Corpus Pragmatic Studies on the History of Medical Discourse
Edited by Turo Hiltunen and Irma Taavitsainen
[Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 330] 2022
► pp. 23–48

Chapter 2
“A geography of names”

A genre analysis of nationality-driven names for venereal disease in seventeenth-century England

| University of Lancaster
| University of Lancaster

We investigate discourses surrounding venereal disease in a wide body of seventeenth-century texts in the one-billion-word Early English Books Online (EEBO) corpus. By combining quantitative methods with close reading of texts within EEBO, we explore whether perceptions of sufferers and responses to the illness itself shifted as the century progressed. In order to uncover the kinds of written works in which references to venereal disease appear, we undertake a genre analysis with the help of genre categories added to the corpus. The analysis shows that at the beginning of the century, references to these diseases were most likely to appear within historical works, while the end of the century witnesses an increase in references to venereal disease in scientific and medical texts.

Keywords: genre, onomastics, terminology, venereal disease, nationality, Early English Books Online (EEBO)
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Disease and place
  • 2.Material and methods
    • 2.1Corpus
    • 2.2Genre
  • 3.Results
    • 3.1What words were used to refer to venereal disease?
    • 3.2Genre distribution
  • 4.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
Published online: 1 July 2022
DOI logo
https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.330.02mce
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