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- Volume 9, Issue, 2008
Journal of Historical Pragmatics - Volume 9, Issue 1, 2008
Volume 9, Issue 1, 2008
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“You belly-guilty bag”: Insulting epithets in Old English
Author(s): Don Chapmanpp.: 1–19 (19)More LessThis article examines the epithets used as insults in Old English, building on Jucker and Taavitsainen (2000). Such epithets were found by examining all uses of the second person pronouns þu and þin in the Dictionary of Old English corpus. Epithets that accompany these pronouns occur in four main contexts, namely saints’ lives, complaints between body and soul, addresses to devils, and addresses to sinners. Nearly all insulting epithets in Old English are highly conventional, both in their use of well-established words from the Old English lexicon and in their reuse of typical epithets, from context to context. Such conventional epithets are typical of insults in other languages and are well motivated by the purpose of insults to demean the target. Yet there remain a handful of epithets that show much originality and creativity. These are mainly used in addresses to devils and complaints between the body and soul, most likely as a means of lampooning and ridiculing the devils and the body before a Christian audience.
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Linguistic nationalism in nineteenth-century Hungary: Reconstructing a linguistic ideology
Author(s): Péter Maitzpp.: 20–47 (28)More LessLinguistic nationalism was a decisive linguistic ideology all through the nineteenth century. Consequently, by its very nature, it determined thinking about language throughout the entire period, and thus, linguistic behavior, as well. Based on metalinguistic data, this paper attempts to reconstruct the form of existence of this linguistic ideology in Hungary in the period of the Austro-Hungarian Monarchy (1867–1918). The author’s aim is not to explore and contrast the various prominent and less prominent individual views of the period but rather to reconstruct and explain the general, collective system of ideas and values that underlies their apparent multiplicity and which is more or less constant throughout the period at hand. The paper hence wishes to contribute to a significant and neglected domain of historical sociolinguistics, the recognition of the history of linguistic awareness.
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Coping with Stalinist panegyrics: A semantic and pragmatic analysis of a Czech text
Author(s): Karen Gammelgaardpp.: 48–70 (23)More LessThis paper discusses a significant text genre in totalitarian societies: panegyrics of the leader. In countries under Stalinist rule, the output of panegyric texts reached immeasurable proportions. Probably due to their uniformity, few attempts have been made to analyse the single panegyric text. Attempting to identify the specific features of a given text, this paper analyses a set of particular features related to intra-textual semantic connexity, intertextuality and intentionality in a Czech sample from 1953. How the analysed sample disturbs Grice’s communicative maxims will be demonstrated. Structuration theory is used to explain why the panegyrics was produced. It is concluded that Stalinist panegyrics dangerously constricts the possibilities for social actions and for gaining knowledge. Additionally, the case demonstrates the need for a genuinely historical and pragmatic communicative theory, and proves the necessity of keeping the concepts of genre and text type apart.
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From proper name to primary interjection: The case of gee!
Author(s): Elke Gehweilerpp.: 71–88 (18)More LessThis paper is concerned with interjections that have evolved from nouns. Looking at a subclass of interjections, so-called expletives like gee!, jeeze!, gosh!, crikey!, it will be shown how primary interjections regularly evolve from religious names (here Jesus, God, Christ) via secondary interjections (Jesus!, God!, Christ!). Four stages can be distinguished: I proper name Jesus II secondary interjection Jesus! III phonological modification of Jesus! IV primary interjection gee!The “standard” model for subjectification in grammaticalization, Traugott and Dasher’s Invited Inferencing Theory of Semantic Change (2002), which focuses on the speaker as initiator of change, suffices to explain the gradual process through which the secondary interjection Jesus! has evolved through the repeated use of Jesus in invocations, oaths and prayers. Moreover it is claimed that the syntactic position of Jesus in these uses — sentence-initial and separated from the rest of the sentence — played a crucial role in the emergence of the interjection. Invited inferencing, however, fails to explain the emergence of gee!. It will be shown with corpus data that gee! emerged rather abruptly. The meaning of gee! is different from the meaning of Jesus! from its very beginning, and — in contrast to the process through which the secondary interjection Jesus! emerged — there are no transitional stages attested where both the meaning of Jesus! and the meaning of gee! can be inferred. It will be argued that this change was hearer-based and that semantic stability and relationships between words are determined by aspects of phonological transparency. As a result of the clipping of Jesus! (speakers did not want to “take the name of the Lord in vain”), which yielded gee!, the semantic base of gee! became phonologically obscured. Accordingly the hearer had to infer the meaning of gee! from the context of its occurrence alone — consequently gee! differed in meaning from Jesus! straightaway. The OED will be used as a corpus for the diachronic study (cf. Fischer 1992 and Hoffmann 2004 for a discussion of how the OED can be used as a historical corpus). The synchronic use of the forms discussed will be illustrated with examples from the British National Corpus and from the GoogleGroups newsgroups (cf. Bergh 2005 for a discussion of whether and how the Internet can be used as corpus).
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From a spatial to a subjective framework: The semantic and pragmatic change of ni-marked NPs in Japanese discourse
Author(s): Misumi Sadlerpp.: 94–139 (46)More LessThe current study examines pre-modern and modern Japanese texts from the seventh ~ twentieth century, and documents the semantic and pragmatic change of ni-marked NPs, which include “dative subjects” and NPs which appear to refer to human referents. The data demonstrates that what are called “dative subjects” in modern Japanese are diachronically and synchronically related to the most prototypical meaning/usage of ni-marked NPs as a spatial framework. The original function underwent changes from more propositional to more subjective usages — from its most basic usage, indicating stative locations, to its metonymic usage, marking locations where individuals worthy of respect reside so as to avoid their explicit mention, and finally to its extended usage, indicating human referents. This extended usage further developed into a subjective framework for propositions in contemporary Japanese novels written in the first person perspective. This shift from propositional to expressive/subjective usages is not binary, but rather continual, and the transition from one usage to another involves each new usage coexisting with the prior ones.
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Linguistic politeness in Anglo-Saxon England? A study of Old English address terms
Author(s): Thomas Kohnenpp.: 140–158 (19)More LessThis paper investigates Anglo-Saxon address terms against the background of politeness and face work. Using the Dictionary of Old English Corpus, it examines the most prominent Old English terms of nominal address associated with polite or courteous behaviour, their distribution, the typical communicative settings in which they are used and their basic pragmatic meaning. The results suggest that, at least in this field, politeness as face work may not have played a major role in Anglo-Saxon England. Rather, the use of the address terms may reflect accommodation to the overriding importance of mutual obligation and kin loyalty on the one hand, and obedience to the basic Christian ideals of humilitas and caritas on the other.
Volumes & issues
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Volume 26 (2025)
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Volume 25 (2024)
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Volume 24 (2023)
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Volume 23 (2022)
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Volume 22 (2021)
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Volume 21 (2020)
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Volume 20 (2019)
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Volume 19 (2018)
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Volume 18 (2017)
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Volume 17 (2016)
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Volume 16 (2015)
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Volume 15 (2014)
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Volume 14 (2013)
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Volume 13 (2012)
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Volume 12 (2011)
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Volume 11 (2010)
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Volume 10 (2009)
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Volume 9 (2008)
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Volume 8 (2007)
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Volume 7 (2006)
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Volume 6 (2005)
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Volume 5 (2004)
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Volume 4 (2003)
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Volume 3 (2002)
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Volume 2 (2001)
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Volume 1 (2000)
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