This chapter introduces the field of speech representation research. It gives a brief overview of scholarship on speech representation and some crucial concepts in this research field. It identifies three broad core areas that have received substantial attention in previous research—mechanics of speech representation, modes of speech representation, and the sociopragmatics of speech representation—and reviews some of the studies on present-day as well as historical materials within those areas. The authors outline the chapters of this volume, highlighting their contributions to current research. Finally, the chapter suggests a possible program for future research, identifying key topics and general contexts that deserve further attention.

This article explores the modulation of seven verbs that mark source of information in English: believe, hear, know, remember, see, seem, and think. Drawing data from two collections of Early Modern English legal records, the study shows that modulation is of five main types: negation, degree modification, evidential combination, frequency, and justification. The analysis reveals that the modulation fulfills communicative, stance needs related to the language users' roles as witnesses or participants in a court case. Some uses are localized, responding to situational needs (such as negating a particular piece of information and the evidential foundation of that information), while others involve moves that were likely expected and conventional in testimony (such as expressing sincere conviction). Overall, the study highlights the importance of evidentials as stance resources in historical periods and the need for further attention to such interactional stance means in the description of the history of English.

The article studies the strategies that late-medieval scribes used to present alchemical texts to their audience. Investigating two late fifteenth-century alchemical codices - Trinity College, Cambridge, MSS O.5.31 and R.14.37, both almost exclusively written in English - we demonstrate that the copyists took considerable pains to present reader-friendly texts. They provided neatly separated textual units, furnishing them with headings, manicules (pointing hands), and even a table of contents. This organisation is supported by the use of various ink colours, letter sizes, and framing devices. The appearance suggests significant pre-planning, perhaps even in a commercial context. We argue that these manuscripts highlight how readers engaged with alchemical texts and, by extension, that they reveal the importance afforded to texts and the vernacular as a vehicle for disseminating alchemical knowledge. In other words, it is not only the number of surviving manuscripts and their alchemical contents that are good indicators of late-medieval valuations of alchemy. Our study underscores how the visual materiality of extant textual artefacts also constitutes crucial evidence for our understanding of how practitioners used alchemical texts. It also exposes the place of alchemical texts in the text production industry of the time and illustrates the status of fifteenth-century alchemy more widely.

This article deals with the mechanisms that language users employ in historical periods to represent spoken language in writing. I focus on a set of features known as speech descriptors , which allow users to combine representation and evaluation of the speech (and, possibly, of the speaker ), such as most disgusting in ‘he used most disgusting language’. The study shows that such speech descriptors in combination with the lemma language are used for a number of sociopragmatic purposes in the Old Bailey Corpus which includes legal materials, especially testimony, from 1720 to 1913. The descriptors can be used to avoid having to repeat a more specific, and possibly offensive and socially or morally inappropriate utterance; they can be used to put the spotlight on the evaluation and impact of the wording rather than the original speech itself; and they can help users mitigate, deflect, or disprove an accusation or guilt. Overall, the article demonstrates that studying the speech of the past must necessarily involve investigating the complex choices made by language users in terms of what to represent, what means to use to represent the speech, and how they evaluate the speech (and speaker).

This chapter reviews what we know about scribal practices of orthography (focusing on spelling), how their orthographies have been studied and interpreted, and where avenues of future research lie. It covers fundamental aspects of studying scribes, showing the multidisciplinary interest in scribes and providing a broad background for thinking about scribal variation in orthography. It discusses issues such as the term and concept of a scribe, the contexts in which scribes worked, and how the role of the scribe has changed over time. The chapter focuses on research concerning scribal orthographies within three broad contexts: studies focusing on phonology and phonetics but using scribal orthography as the source of information; research that concentrates on the intersection of phonology/phonetics and orthography; and studies that are interested in orthography as an exclusively or primarily written phenomenon. It also addresses the issue of orthographic standardization specifically, as scribes have been seen as central in this process, and touches on the various frameworks and approaches adopted for the study and interpretation of spelling regularization and standardization. Finally, the chapter points to some of the avenues open for new discoveries in the future.

In the Early Modern English period (roughly 1500s–1700s), the use of the letters and went through a change from a positionally constrained system (i.e., initial , medial ) to a system based on phonetic value, with marking vowels and consonants. The exact dynamics of this transition have received little attention, however, and the standard account is exclusively based on printed sources. Using a data set of 3,801 examples from 107 handwritten legal documents from the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 and 1693, this study indicates that the current narrative is oversimplified and that behind the transition from one system to another lies a complex process of experimentation and variation. The study charts the and usage in the handwriting of nineteen recorders who subscribe to various “mixed” systems that conform neither to the positional nor the phonetic system. In addition to the positional and phonetic constraints, a range of other linguistic and extralinguistic factors appears to have influenced the recorders’ alternation between and , from lexical item and graphotactics to textual history.

Anchored in historical pragmatics, historical sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics, this book weaves together a powerful narrative of the significance of stance marking in the history of English. Focusing on the community of practice that developed during the witch trials in Salem (Massachusetts) in 1692–1693, it showcases how witnesses and the recorders of their ca. 450 depositions deployed linguistic features to signal the evaluation of experiences with alleged witchcraft, the intensification of those experiences, and the sources of the witnesses’ knowledge. The resulting stance profiles for groups of depositions, witnesses, and recorders highlight varying strategies of claiming, supporting, and boosting the importance of the evidence and the role of the witnesses within the community of practice. With its innovative focus on sociopragmatic variation in a historical community, the book demonstrates the essential contribution of synchronic-historical research to the analysis, description, and theorization of stance and historical English more broadly.

In the Early Modern English period (roughly 1500s-1700s), the use of the letters 'u' and 'v' went through a change from a positionally constrained system (i.e., initial 'v', medial 'u') to a system based on phonetic value, with 'u' marking vowels and 'v' consonants. The exact dynamics of this transition have received little attention, however, and the standard account is exclusively based on printed sources. Using a data set of 3,801 examples from 107 handwritten legal documents from the witch trials in Salem, Massachusetts, in 1692 and 1693, this study indicates that the current narrative is oversimplified and that behind the transition from one system to another lies a complex process of experimentation and variation. The study charts the 'u' and 'v' usage in the handwriting of nineteen recorders who subscribe to various "mixed" systems that conform neither to the positional nor the phonetic system. In addition to the positional and phonetic constraints, a range of other linguistic and extralinguistic factors appears to have influenced the recorders' alternation between 'u' and 'v', from lexical item and graphotactics to textual history.

This chapter deals with the combination of speech reporting verbs and “speech descriptors” in Late Modern English fictional texts, as in “ ‘Poor Aldous!’ said Lady Winterbourne, thoughtfully (CLMET3.0, Marcella, Period 3: 1894).” I demonstrate that, overall, the use of speech descriptors increases over time with most verbs and that most verbs combine with a broad range of descriptor types (especially in the form of adverb phrases). At the same time, complex interactions are evident among individual texts and verbs, where the verb SAY stands out, as does one text, Marcella. I suggest that some of the variability among the texts and verbs is due to the interaction between speech reporting and stylistic strategies of characterisation and theme development.

This chapter investigates the form, frequency, and function of speech reporting expressions in Early Modern English, such as quod she in “I perceiue now [$ (quod she) $] how mishap doth follow me” (CED, D1FGASCO, 1573). We focus on the use in the prose fiction texts in Periods 1 and 3 in A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 (CED). The study points to developments over time, in the distribution of individual verbs as well as groups of verbs with similar functions. Variation is also evident in the word order of the speech reporting expression in relation to the represented speech and in the internal order of the speech reporting expressions (subject+verb or verb+subject).

Previous articleNext article No AccessReviewsAlpo Honkapohja, Alchemy, Medicine, and Commercial Book Production: A Codicological and Linguistic Study of the Voigts-Sloane Manuscript Group. (Texts and Transitions 9.) Turnhout: Brepols, 2017. Pp. xv, 248; 3 color plates, many black-and-white figures, and 20 tables. €80. ISBN: 978-2-503-56647-4.Peter J. GrundPeter J. GrundUniversity of Kansas Search for more articles by this author PDFPDF PLUSFull Text Add to favoritesDownload CitationTrack CitationsPermissionsReprints Share onFacebookTwitterLinkedInRedditEmail SectionsMoreDetailsFiguresReferencesCited by Speculum Volume 95, Number 1January 2020 The journal of the Medieval Academy of America Article DOIhttps://doi.org/10.1086/706557 Views: 34Total views on this site Copyright 2020 by the Medieval Academy of America. All rights reserved. For permission to reuse, please contact [email protected]PDF download Crossref reports no articles citing this article.

Abstract This article explores the form, frequency, and function of “speech descriptors” (such as softly in “It matters little,” she said, softly; CLMET3.0, A Christmas Carol, Period 2: 1839) in Late Modern English. Drawing on the narrative fiction category in the CLMET3.0 corpus, I show the rise of speech descriptors across the period, their linguistic characteristics, and their various pragmatic functions. Most descriptors are evaluative in that they indicate the narrator’s or author’s assessment of how the speech was delivered. Often, the usage is connected with characterization, demonstrating the evaluation of the original speaker in addition to the speech. I also stress the importance of approaching speech descriptors using variationist principles rather than word normalization.

This chapter explores speech representation structures in Early Modern English that exhibit a mixture of direct speech and indirect speech. Drawing data from an Electronic Text Edition of Depositions 1560–1760 (ETED), we chart the frequency and characteristics of different types of speech representation that overlap between direct and indirect speech (such as the mixture of third-person and first-person reference, and the use of reporting expression + that + direct speech representation). We show that accounting for such uses as “slipping,” free indirect speech, and/or signs of a system under development is less convincing. Instead, we argue that the mixture should be seen as exploitation of speech representation resources for various sociopragmatic and communicative purposes, such as disambiguating voices and shifting responsibilities for the speech report. The chapter thus contributes to the broader goal of enhancing our understanding of the sociopragmatics of speech representation in the history of English.

This chapter provides a description of the witch trials centered in Salem Village, MA, in 1692–1693 and overviews the main strands of interpretation of the causes of the witch craze. The focus of the chapter is on the primary sources of our knowledge of the trials, including the trial records as well as the contemporaneous eyewitness accounts and commentaries. The chapter argues that while these writings have been studied closely by historians, they have yet to receive careful attention from literary, rhetorical, and text-historical perspectives.

This article is concerned with “speech descriptors”, markers that describe or evaluate the nature of represented speech, such as very modestly in “The Gentlewoman very modestly bade him welcome” (CED, D2FKIT). The form, frequency and function of such features are charted in Early Modern English prose fiction, drawn from A Corpus of English Dialogues 1560–1760 , and the results are compared to those of Grund (2017a) , which considers speech descriptors in contemporaneous witness depositions. The comparison reveals generic differences and points to the importance of studying speech descriptors for our understanding of the dynamics of speech representation in the history of English.

This article explores the form and function of “speech descriptors”. These features describe in some way what a speech event that is being represented was like, such as loudly in She said loudly that she was unhappy . Based on data from Early Modern English witness depositions, the study reveals that a number of aspects of represented speech can be described by speech descriptors and that such descriptors come in a number of linguistic forms. Prepositional phrases, adverbs, and adjective constructions are the most common forms, and speech descriptors can signal aspects of evaluation (e.g., angrily ), clarification (e.g., meaning ), and formulation hedging (e.g., or words to that effect ), among other features. The article underscores the importance of further attention to these descriptors in order to gain a full understanding of the dynamics of speech representation in historical periods.

This paper explores the representation of speech in Early Modern English witness depositions. We demonstrate that Semino and Short's (2004) framework of description, which has for the most part been used in explorations of present-day texts, is generally applicable to our historical data. Our study shows that factors such as the importance of the evidence cited and the clarity of the deposition narrative were crucial considerations in representing speech in different contexts.