Letter Writing and Language Change

Anita Auer, Daniel Schreier, Richard J. Watts

• Publisher: Cambridge University Press
• Year: 2015
• Print ISBN: 9781107018648
• eBook ISBN: 9781139989725
• Topic: Languages & Linguistics
• Subtopic: Historical & Comparative Linguistics
• Index: Languages & Linguistics

Letter Writing and Language Change outlines the historical sociolinguistic value of letter analysis, both in theory and practice. The chapters in this volume make use of insights from all three 'Waves of Variation Studies', and many of them, either implicitly or explicitly, look at specific aspects of the language of the letter writers in an effort to discover how those writers position themselves and how they attempt, consciously or unconsciously, to construct social identities. The letters are largely from people in the lower strata of social structure, either to addressees of the same social status or of a higher status. In this sense the question of the use of 'standard' and/or 'nonstandard' varieties of English is in the forefront of the contributors' interest. Ultimately, the studies challenge the assumption that there is only one 'legitimate' and homogenous form of English or of any other language.

Table of contents

• Cover
• Half title
• Series
• Title
• Copyright
• Contents
• List of figures
• List of tables
• List of contributors
• Preface and acknowledgements
• 1 Setting the scene: letters, standards and historical sociolinguistics
• 2 Assessing variability and change in early English letters
• 3 Private letters as a source for an alternative history of Middle New High German
• 4 Language in print and handwriting
• 5 Heterogeneity vs. homogeneity
• 6 Emerging standards in the colonies: variation and the Canadian letter writer
• 7 Linguistic fingerprints of authors and scribes
• 8 Stylistic variation
• 9 English aristocratic letters
• 10 Early nineteenth-century pauper letters
• 11 A non-standard standard? Exploring the evidence from nineteenth-century vernacular letters and diaries
• 12 Archaism and dialect in Irish emigrant letters
• 13 Assessing heterogeneity
• 14 Hypercorrection and the persistence of local dialect features in writing
• 15 Epilogue: Where next?
• References
• Person index
• Subject index