1887
image of “If this be Irish gratitude, I could wish myself a Frenchman”
USD
Buy:$35.00 + Taxes

Abstract

Abstract

This article provides an initial approach to historical (im)politeness strategies in the context of letter writing. It uses a sub-corpus of which contains letters written by Irish immigrants that relocated to the US and their intimates. The article focusses on reproaches (Albelda Marco 2023; Tulimirović 2023) and it applies Archer’s (2017) model to all instances of this speech act extracted from the data. This results in two different sub-corpora, one containing what is here defined as “Face Enhancing Reproaches” () and “Face Aggravating Reproaches” (). These two sub-corpora are contrasted through the Sketch Engine software and the most predominant lemmas in ( and ) are analysed and discussed in relation to their function for (im)politeness purposes. This article sheds light on the face-enhancing value of these linguistic items to encode this speech act within the specific context in question.

Loading

Article metrics loading...

/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.24011.sot
2025-04-14
2025-04-17
Loading full text...

Full text loading...

References

  1. coriecor Visualized
    coriecor Visualized. Irish English in Writing across Time (A Longitudinal Historical Perspective). Accessed3 March 2025, athttps://corviz.h.uib.no/index.php
    [Google Scholar]
  2. Aijmer, Karin
    2015Corpus Pragmatics: A Handbook. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  3. Albelda Marco, Marta
    2023 “Rhetorical Questions as Reproaching Devices”. Journal of Language Aggression and Conflict (): –. 10.1075/jlac.00077.alb
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jlac.00077.alb [Google Scholar]
  4. Amador-Moreno, Carolina P.
    2019Orality in Written Texts. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781315754321
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315754321 [Google Scholar]
  5. 2022 “Contact, Variation and Change: Mapping the History of Irish English through CORIECOR”. Nexus (): –.
    [Google Scholar]
  6. Amador-Moreno, Carolina P. and Nancy E. Ávila-Ledesma
    2016 ““The More Please [Places] I See, the More I Think of Home”: On Gendered Discourse of Irishness and Migration Experiences”. InJesús Romero-Trillo (ed.), Yearbook of Corpus Linguistics and Pragmatics 2016, –. Switzerland: Springer International Publishing.
    [Google Scholar]
  7. 2020 “Migration Experiences and Identity Construction in Nineteenth-Century Irish Emigrant Letters”. InCarolina P. Amador-Moreno and Raymond Hickey (eds), Identity and Perspective in Irish English, –. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1515/9781501507687‑013
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9781501507687-013 [Google Scholar]
  8. Amador-Moreno, Carolina P., Nancy E. Ávila-Ledesma and Karen P. Corrigan
    2021 “‘You Are Some Foreigner — You Are Not Even from This Country’: Comparative Perspectives on Historical and Contemporary Diasporas in an Irish Context”. InStephen Lucek and Carolina P. Amador-Moreno (eds), Expanding the Landscapes of Irish English Research: Papers in Honour of Jeffrey Kallen, –. London and New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781003025078‑2
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003025078-2 [Google Scholar]
  9. Archer, Dawn
    2017 “(Im)politeness in Legal Settings”. InJonathan Culpeper, Michael Haugh and Daniel Z. Kádár (eds), The Palgrave Handbook of Linguistic (Im)Politeness, –. London: Palgrave MacMillan. 10.1057/978‑1‑137‑37508‑7_27
    https://doi.org/10.1057/978-1-137-37508-7_27 [Google Scholar]
  10. Arnovick, Leslie K.
    1999Diachronic Pragmatics: Seven Case Studies in English Illocutionary Development. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.68
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.68 [Google Scholar]
  11. Austin, John Langshaw
    1962How to Do Things with Words. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  12. Barron, Anne
    2022 “Responses to Thanks in Ireland, England and Canada: A Variational Pragmatic Perspective”. Corpus Pragmatics (): –. 10.1007/s41701‑022‑00120‑z
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s41701-022-00120-z [Google Scholar]
  13. Blum-Kulka, Shoshana and Elite Ohlstain
    1984 “Requests and Apologies: A Cross-Cultural Study of Speech Act Realization Patterns (CCSARP)”. Applied Linguistics (): –. 10.1093/applin/5.3.196
    https://doi.org/10.1093/applin/5.3.196 [Google Scholar]
  14. Brown, Roger and Albert Gilman
    1960 “The Pronouns of Power and Solidarity”. InThomas A. Sebeok (ed.), Style in Language, –. Cambridge: MIT Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  15. Brown, Penelope and Stephen C. Levinson
    1987 (1978)Politeness: Some Universals in Language Use. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9780511813085
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9780511813085 [Google Scholar]
  16. Buyle, Anouk and Hendrik De Smet
    2018 “Meaning in a Changing Paradigm: The Semantics of You and the Pragmatics of Thou”. Language Sciences: –. 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.12.004
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.langsci.2017.12.004 [Google Scholar]
  17. Clancy, Brian
    2005 “’You’re Fat You’ll Eat Them All’: Politeness Strategies in Family Discourse”. InAnne Barron and Klaus P. Schneider (eds), The Pragmatics of Irish English, –. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1515/9783110898934.177
    https://doi.org/10.1515/9783110898934.177 [Google Scholar]
  18. 2015Investigating Intimate Discourse: Exploring the Spoken Interaction of Families, Couples and Friends. London: Routledge. 10.4324/9781315672113
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781315672113 [Google Scholar]
  19. Culpeper, Jonathan and Jane Demmen
    2019 “Nineteenth-Century English Politeness: Negative Politeness, Conventional Indirect Requests and the Rise of the Individual Self”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics (): –. 10.1075/jhp.12.1‑2.03cul
    https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.12.1-2.03cul [Google Scholar]
  20. Culpeper, Jonathan and Michael Haugh
    2011 “(Im)Politeness and Sociopragmatics”. InKarin Aijmer and Gisle Andersen (eds), Sociopragmatics, –. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. 10.1075/bct.31
    https://doi.org/10.1075/bct.31 [Google Scholar]
  21. Elsweiler, Christine and Patricia Ronan
    2023 “‘From I Am, with Sincere Regard, Your Most Obedient Servant to Yours Sincerely’: The Simplification of Leavetaking Formulae in 18th-century Scottish and Irish English Letters”. ICAME Journal: –. 10.2478/icame‑2023‑0001
    https://doi.org/10.2478/icame-2023-0001 [Google Scholar]
  22. Grimshaw, Allen D.
    (ed.) 1990Conflict Talk: Sociolinguistic Investigations of Arguments in Conversations. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  23. Haugh, Michael and Jonathan Culpeper
    2018 “Integrative Pragmatics and (Im)Politeness Theory”. InCornelia Ilie and Neil. R. Norrick (eds), Pragmatics and its Interfaces, –. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.294.10hau
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.294.10hau [Google Scholar]
  24. Hickey, Raymond
    2020Keeping in Touch: Familiar Letters across the English-Speaking World. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/ahs.10
    https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.10 [Google Scholar]
  25. 2024The Oxford Handbook of Irish English. Oxford: Oxford University Press.
    [Google Scholar]
  26. Jucker, Andreas H. and Irma Taavitsainen
    2008Speech Acts in the History of English. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.176
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.176 [Google Scholar]
  27. 2014 “Complimenting in the History of American English: A Metacommunicative Expression Analysis”. InIrma Taavitsainen, Andreas Jucker and Jukka Tuominen (eds), Diachronic Corpus Pragmatics, –. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.243.16juc
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.243.16juc [Google Scholar]
  28. Kádar, Daniel Z.
    2019 “Relational Ritual Politeness and Self-Display in Historical Chinese Letters”. Acta Orientalia Academiae Scientiarum Hung (): –. 10.1556/062.2019.72.2.4
    https://doi.org/10.1556/062.2019.72.2.4 [Google Scholar]
  29. Kallen, Jeffrey L.
    2005 “Impoliteness in Ireland: ‘In Ireland, It’s Done Without Being Said’”. InLeo Hickey and Miranda Stewart (eds), Politeness in Europe, –. Bristol, UK: Multilingual Matters. 10.21832/9781853597398‑011
    https://doi.org/10.21832/9781853597398-011 [Google Scholar]
  30. Kilgarriff, Adam, Vít Baisa, Jan Bušta, Miloš Jakubíček, Vojtěch Kovář, Jan Michelfeit, Pavel Rychlý and Vít Suchomel
    2014 “The Sketch Engine: Ten Years On”. Lexicography: –. 10.1007/s40607‑014‑0009‑9
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s40607-014-0009-9 [Google Scholar]
  31. Kohnen, Thomas
    2008 “Tracing Directives through Text and Time: Towards a Methodology of a Corpus-based Diachronic Speech-Act Analysis”. InAndreas Jucker and Irma Taavitsainen (eds), Speech Acts in the History of English, –. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.176.16koh
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.176.16koh [Google Scholar]
  32. Nevala, Minna
    2018 “‘Ungenteel’ and ‘Rude’? On the Use of Thou in the Eighteenth Century”. InTerttu Nevalainen, Minna Palander-Collin and Tanja Säily (eds), Patterns of Change in 18th-Century English: A Sociolinguistic Approach, –. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/ahs.8.06nev
    https://doi.org/10.1075/ahs.8.06nev [Google Scholar]
  33. Ridealgh, Kim and Luis Unceta Gómez
    2020 “Potestas and the Language of Power: Conceptualising an Approach to Power and Discernment Politeness in Ancient Languages”. Journal of Pragmatics: –. 10.1016/j.pragma.2020.09.011
    https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2020.09.011 [Google Scholar]
  34. Rühlemann, Christoph
    2019Corpus Linguistics for Pragmatics. Abingdon, UK: Routledge.
    [Google Scholar]
  35. Searle, John R.
    1969Speech Acts: An Essay in the Philosophy of Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 10.1017/CBO9781139173438
    https://doi.org/10.1017/CBO9781139173438 [Google Scholar]
  36. Sotoca-Fernández, David
    2024 “‘But Never Do Be Long without Writing Us, for Altho’ Many Miles Divide Us We Have Your Welfare at Heart’: An Analysis of Requests in Intimate Discourse in Irish Emigrants’ Letters (1700–1940)”. Corpus Pragmatics: –. 10.1007/s41701‑024‑00170‑5
    https://doi.org/10.1007/s41701-024-00170-5 [Google Scholar]
  37. Sotoca-Fernández, David and Nancy E. Ávila-Ledesma
    2023 “‘I Hope that a Correspondence may Still be Kept up between Us”: Exploring Conversational Dynamics through the Lens of (Im)Politeness Studies in CORIECOR’. InCarolina P. Amador-Moreno, Dagmar Haumann and Arne Peters (eds), Digitally-Assisted Historical English Linguistics, –. New York: Routledge. 10.4324/9781003360285‑4
    https://doi.org/10.4324/9781003360285-4 [Google Scholar]
  38. Spencer-Oatey, Helen
    2008 “Face, (Im)Politeness and Rapport”. InHelen Spencer-Oatey (ed.), Culturally Speaking: Culture, Communication and Politeness Theory, –. (Second edition.) London: Continuum.
    [Google Scholar]
  39. Taavitsainen, Irma and Andreas Jucker
    (eds) 2003Diachronic Perspectives on Address Term Systems. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. 10.1075/pbns.107
    https://doi.org/10.1075/pbns.107 [Google Scholar]
  40. Terkourafi, Marina
    2005 “Beyond the Micro-Level in Politeness Research”. Journal of Politeness Research (): –. 10.1515/jplr.2005.1.2.237
    https://doi.org/10.1515/jplr.2005.1.2.237 [Google Scholar]
  41. Tulimirović, Bojana
    2023 “Reproach as a Core Value: The Analysis of the Communicative Potential of the Routine Formulae ‘qué broma es esta’ and ‘de qué vas’”. Pragmalingüística: –. 10.25267/Pragmalinguistica.2023.i31.24
    https://doi.org/10.25267/Pragmalinguistica.2023.i31.24 [Google Scholar]
/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.24011.sot
Loading
/content/journals/10.1075/jhp.24011.sot
Loading

Data & Media loading...

  • Article Type: Research Article
Keywords: historical pragmatics ; corpus linguistics ; speech acts ; (im)politeness ; reproaches
This is a required field
Please enter a valid email address
Approval was successful
Invalid data
An Error Occurred
Approval was partially successful, following selected items could not be processed due to error