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The investigation of the pragmatic marker now in trial proceedings from 1560 to 1800 shows a genre-specific usage profile with regard to its uses and functions. Courtroom “professionals” (lawyers, judges and other officials) use now significantly more frequently than lay speakers (witnesses, victims and defendants). The former use it to segment and highlight stages in the argumentation, as well as to control and to disalign with others’ interactive behaviour. Self-defending litigants share these functional preferences to some extent, while all other lay persons use now for structuring their answers and dominantly in direct-speech contexts. Now in professional legal speech thus functions as a strategic metapragmatic framing strategy.

Even though intensifiers have received a good deal of attention over the past few decades, downtoners, comprising diminishers and minimizers, have remained by and large a neglected category (but cf. Brinton, this issue). Among downtoners, the adverb little or a little stands out as the most frequent item. It is multifunctional and serves as a diminishing and minimizing intensifier and also in non-degree uses as a quantifier, frequentative, and durative. Therefore, the present paper is devoted to the structural and functional profile of ( a) little in Late Modern English speech-related data. The data source is the socio-pragmatically annotated Old Bailey Corpus (OBC, version 2.0), which allows, among other things, the investigation of the usage of the item among different speaker groups. Our research charts the semantic and formal uses of adverbial little. Downtoner uses outnumber non-degree uses in the data, and diminishing uses are more common than minimizing uses. The formal realization is predominantly a little, with very rare determinerless or modified instances, such as very little. Little modifies a wide range of “targets,” but most frequently adjectives and prepositional phrases, focusing on human states and circumstantial detail. With regard to variation and change, adverbial little declines in use over the 200 years and is used more commonly by speakers from the lower social ranks and by the lay, non-professional participants in the courtroom.

This chapter explores the use of discourse representation in Early Modern English history writing. The eleven texts investigated exhibit different proportions of speech and writing representation as well as a summarising style, which cuts across the speech and writing distinction. Speech representation of dialogues, (long) orations, and small chunks is amply attested and most dominant in “traditional” and “humanist” works. Writing representation is overall fairly common, particularly so in “antiquarian” and “partisan” histories; this is also revealed in the greater range of introductory verbs for writing. The summarising style is even more frequent in antiquarian and chronicle writing, which is often not introduced text-internally but via marginalia. Such paratextual as well as punctuation and layout features yield a highly diverse picture of representation practices across the texts. Together with the summarising style and the increasing importance of writing representation, the use of small inserted quotes in narrative or other discourse representation, the addition of precise references for evidential purposes, and the non-integral style of some referencing (i.e., separated from the running text) give seven of the texts a rather “modern” generic look.

This introductory paper sets the scene for the present double special issue on degree phenomena. Besides introducing the individual contributions, it positions degree in the overlapping fields of intensity, focus and emphasis. It outlines the wide-ranging means of expressing degree, their possible categorizations, as well as the manyfold uses of intensification with respect to involvement, politeness, evaluation, emotive expression and persuasion. It also decribes the many angles from which degree features have been studied as extending across, e.g., (historical) sociolinguistics, (historical) pragmatics, and grammaticalization.

Based on an investigation of the Old Bailey Corpus, this article explores the development and usage patterns of maximizers in Late Modern English (LModE). The maximizers to be considered for inclusion in the study are based on the lists provided in Quirk et al. (1985) and Huddleston & Pullum (2002). The aims of the study were to (i) document the frequency development of maximizers, (ii) investigate the sociolinguistic embedding of maximizers usage (gender, class) and (iii) analyze the sociopragmatics of maximizers based on the speakers’ roles, such as judge or witness, in the courtroom.Of the eleven maximizer types focused on in the investigation, perfectly and entirely were found to dominate in frequency. The whole group was found to rise over the period 1720 to 1913. In terms of gender, social class and speaker roles, there was variation in the use of maximizers across the different speaker groups. Prominently, defendants, but also judges and lawyers, maximized more than witnesses and victims; further, male speakers and higher-ranking speakers used more maximizers. The results were interpreted taking into account the courtroom context and its dialogue dynamics.

Both metaphor and hyperbole are akin to lying in saying something that is strictly speaking false (i.e., exhibits no world–word fit) and thus have deceptive potential. How close or distant the relationship metaphor/hyperbole versus lie is seen to be depends on the theoretical approach taken, which is illustrated by brief treatments of classical rhetoric, philosophy, Gricean pragmatics, relevance theory, and cognitive linguistics. From a functional perspective the overlap between metaphor/hyperbole and lying may be small, but nevertheless is present in various politeness functions of hyperbole and in using metaphors for reconceptualization and (euphemistic) disguising. Depending on the forms and contexts chosen, the distinction between hyperbole/metaphor and lying might be blurred or sharpened. The former is found, e.g., by diminishing the recognizability of the contrast between literal and non-literal forms in hyperbole, while the latter happens in case of extreme flouts or metalinguistic marking, which is possible for hyperbole/metaphors but not for lies.

L'A. examine la deixis discursive a partir d'un corpus constitue de textes integraux en anglais contemporain dans sa periode initiale. La deixis discursive est composee de deux types de signes : 1. des signes d'information directionnelle permettant au locuteur de se reperer dans le texte et 2. des signes d'information deictique qui fonctionnent comme des meta-commentaires sur la structure du texte. L'A. analyse ainsi les fonctions et comportements de ces deux classes d'elements deictiques, d'une part, en relation avec le comportement du lecteur et, d'autre part, par rapport a l'opposition entre texte ecrit et texte oral

This paper investigates the challenges and chances involved in creating a corpus of message board (or internet forum) language, in particular one that also reflects the regional varieties of English. Message boards as an asynchronic and public form of computer-mediated communication function as an ‘electronic agora’ (Largier 2002: 287), in so far as they are used for a variety of functions ranging from the more private to the more public, including the discussion of highly topical socio-political subject-matter. Thus, content orientation, evaluation and interactive argumentation are potential characteristics of this text form. Firstly, the technical aspects of corpus compilation will be highlighted, examining such matters as how to transform the web interface into a suitably annotated corpus, how to adequately represent the sequencing/relatedness of messages and how to establish regional speaker identities. Secondly, a pilot study on interaction and stance markers will examine how these are realized and distributed in this genre, and whether there are any regional differences in their use.

Various types of phrasal and prepositional verbs (e.g. make up, look after, put up with) are a characteristic and rather frequent feature of modern English. German has superficially similar verbal types, the particle verbs (or so-called separable verbs), e.g. anbrennen, ubereinkommen. Furthermore, (inseparable) prefix verbs, for instance durchleben, uberdenken, also bear some resemblance to the English structures. Here translations of English phrasal verbs in the Chemnitz English- German Translation Corpus are analyzed in order to examine whether the similar structures in both languages are a help or a hindrance to translation (false vs. true friends). Translators’ strategies found comprise translations by (i.) separable verbs, (ii.) inseparable verbs, (iii.) simplex verbs, (iv.) paraphrases or (v.) complete omission. Translation by separable and inseparable is by far the most common approach, often also using the most literal translation variant for verb and/or particle/prefix. Moreover, this strategy works well in the majority of cases, indicating that the German and English structures do indeed share semantic and structural properties which make them good translation equivalents.

The paper deals with the use of the superlative degree in spoken British English on the basis of the demographic part of the British National Corpus. The aspects investigated include the distribution of the morphological types (inflectional vs. periphrastic), the types of adjectives used in this construction and the syntax of the superlative (attributive, predicative and nominal use; determiner usage). Special attention is being paid to the semantics (relative, absolute, intensifying meanings) and the corresponding functions of the superlative, where it is noticeable that absolute and intensifying readings are much more common than expectable from the extant literature. Together with the usage of generalising modification structures, this points to the conclusion that the superlative may be less a means of factual comparison than rather a means for (often vague) evaluation and the expression of emotion.

Non-literal language is ubiquitous in everyday life, and while hyperbole is a major part of this, it has so far remained relatively unexplored. This volume provides the first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on data from genres such as spoken conversation, TV, newspapers, and literary works from Chaucer to Monty Python. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, it uses approaches from semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and classical rhetoric to investigate in detail both speaker-centered and emotive aspects of hyperbole, and also addressee-related aspects, such as interpretation and interactional uptake. Illustrated with a range of diachronic case studies, hyperbole is also shown to be a main means of linguistic creativity, and an important contributor to language change. The book concludes with an exploration of the role of hyperbole in political speaking, humour, and literature. Original and in-depth, it will be invaluable to all those working on meaning, discourse, and historical linguistics.

This article investigates speech and writing presentation in medieval historiography, based on (excerpts from) six texts from the Old and Middle English periods, and focusing on the functional aspect. It shows that in order to capture pecularities of the register/genre, approaches from the fields of evidentiality, evaluation/appraisal, and literary as well as academic stylistics need to be combined. Three functional groups of quoting are identified: (i) providing evidence/proof (in similar but not identical ways to modern academic practices) and borrowing authority from suitable texts (e.g. the Bible), (ii) direct or indirect evaluation, also by foregrounding through quotation, and (iii) various narrative functions such as plot advancement, characterization, focusing, and the creation of greater reader involvement. Besides references to writing and speaking, the article also highlights the potential significance of references to hearing, in particular in oral cultures.

1. English in the digital age. General introduction Irma Taavitsainen, Merja Kytoe, Claudia Claridge and Jeremy Smith Part I. Linguistic Directions and Crossroads: Mapping the Routes Merja Kytoe: 2. Corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches to linguistic analysis: one and the same? Charles F. Meyer 3. Quantitative corpus approaches to linguistic analysis: seven or eight levels of resolution and the lessons they teach us Stefan Th. Gries 4. Profiling the English verb phrase over time: modal patterns Bas Aarts, Sean Wallis and Jill Bowie Part II. Changing Patterns Claudia Claridge: 5. On the functional change of desire in relation to hope and wish Minoji Akimoto 6. From medieval to modern: on the development of the adverbial connective considering (that) Matti Rissanen 7. Spoken features of interjections in English dialect (based on Joseph Wright's English Dialect Dictionary) Manfred Markus Part III. Pragmatics and Discourse Irma Taavitsainen: 8. Interjection-based delocutive verbs in the history of English Laurel J. Brinton 9. Uh and um as planners in the Corpus of Historical American English Andreas H. Jucker 10. Religious discourse and the history of English Thomas Kohnen Part IV. World Englishes Jeremy Smith: 11. History, social meaning and identity in the spoken English of postcolonial white Zimbabweans Susan Fitzmaurice 12. Singapore weblogs between speech and writing Andrea Sand 13. Mergers, losses and the spread of English Raymond Hickey 14. Complex systems in the history of American English William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.

The article traces the development of three pragmatic markers with a hedging function, as it were, so to speak and if you like, back to their origins in the fourteenth century, the mid-seventeenth century and the early nineteenth century, respectively. They all probably started out as full clauses, as adverbial clauses (as it were, if you like) or as complement clause (so to speak), but underwent different degrees of restructuring and shortening. While as it were has lost its whole complement section and has fossilised an older conjunction use, if you like just froze in a fairly usual elliptical form and so to speak may not have changed its form at all. In the case of if you like and so to speak the influence of parallel parenthetical forms seems to have been important. The changes in question are seen as instances of pragmaticalisation and partly also lexicalisation, although they share many features with grammaticalisation.