Search

This paper explores register variation in diaries and travel journals during the early and late Modern English periods (1500–1900), based on the case study of preposition placement, specifically preposition stranding (which I refer to) and preposition pied piping (to which I refer). Findings show that diaries and travel journals in general have a similar frequency of stranded and pied-piped prepositions, but that sharp differences emerge in their diachronic evolution. The trends suggest that the two registers generally follow the same historical drift towards oral styles previously observed in non-specialised registers, albeit at different rates and with only a moderately oral-like pattern in the nineteenth century. Also of note is that the frequency of stranded prepositions in diaries is lower than expected. I will argue that, although norms on ‘proper’ style and eighteenth-century prescriptive norms of ‘correct’ English play an important role, especially in the second half of the eighteenth century, one should also take into account register-specific characteristics such as the topic and purpose of the text, the setting in which it is produced (private/public), the participants involved and the production circumstances of the text. Likewise, idiolectal differences should not be underestimated, since they can on occasions skew results. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstract: This paper examines register-based language internal variation, focussing on subject omission in English diaries. This register-specific pattern might be seen as some kind of ‘extragrammatical’ culturally-determined stylistic convention associated with this particular register, but a survey of the relevant data shows that the omission of the subject in diary styles is subject to the core syntactic constraints that have been identified in formal syntax. Importantly, the observed restrictions on subject omission do not follow from a purely functional account according to which recoverable subjects can be omitted: while recoverability certainly plays a role, there are precise constraints on the syntactic positions in which recoverable subjects can be omitted. The empirical generalisation that emerges is that subjects can be omitted in root clauses. Moreover, apart from fronted adjuncts no other constituent can precede the non-overt subject. The generalisation applies both to English and to French. The paper develops an account for subject omission which, in addition to standard assumptions about phrase structure, makes use of (i) the Phase based theory of truncation, (ii) the hypothesis of the articulated subject field. It is shown that other instantiations of subject omission such as that found, for instance, in note style journalese or in Samuel Beckett''s poem Rockaby (Bianchi, 2007), are governed by the same principles, suggesting that the pattern is subject to grammatical constraints which are not exclusively tied to the specific register. That the type of subject omission identified here should be analysed in terms of core grammatical principles is confirmed by the fact that subject ellipsis in second conjuncts, a phenomenon which is independent of register variation, is subject to the same restrictions as subject omission in the diary style and can be accounted for using the hypotheses developed here. The conclusion I draw from this discussion is that the grammatical patterns displayed by what might seem a culturally determined linguistic system are fully amenable to core principles and parameters of universal grammar. [Copyright &y& Elsevier]

Immigrants of British stock were among the people hailing from innumerous nationalities that flocked to the southern state of Paraná, Brazil, during the mid-19th century. Although a fact hardly mentioned in modern historiography, British immigration to Brazil was unsuccessful. Current paper deals with the British enterprise in Brazil and the reasons for its failure, with special reference to the life of Caroline Tamplin. The Tamplin family arrived in the then province of Paraná in 1868 and immediately settled in the Assunguy Colony. Caroline's husband died in 1874 but she remained in the colony for the next six years. In 1880 she and her two children moved to Curitiba where she published an advertisement in the newspaper Dezenove de Dezembro of April 1880 announcing that she was giving lessons in languages, painting and piano. Current research is foregrounded on her diary written between 1880 and 1882 and the memoirs of her grandson written in the 1950s. Other sources, such as the main newspaper of the period, correspondence and official reports, were compounded to the above documents. The theoretical presuppositions of Cultural History authors make one understand how an outsider widow established herself in the province's capital city and problematizes her writing on her experience as cultural practice and a strategy for the construction of identities. Manners of representation triggered by a concern for building one's good image may be perceived in her behavior. Reading Tamplin's diary and several articles in the newspapers of the period reveals daily life, modes of thinking and living of a section of society during the 19th century. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Abstracts and an index for articles and essays appearing in the 2012 issues of "English Literary Renaissance" are presented which includes abstracts on topics such as the Roman goddess Venus in Early Modern culture, a literary analysis of the 1605 play "The Tragedy of Philotas" by Samuel Daniel, and a study of the 1602-1603 diary kept by English lawyer John Manningham.

This article is concerned with subject omission in English diaries, a phenomenon that has often been taken to be the adult analogue of subject omission in child language. This hypothesis is based on the observation that, as is the case in subject omission in the child language, subject omission in the adult diary style is restricted to root contexts. We show that this restriction to root contexts is not absolute and that in recent British English, some varieties of diary style and of abbreviated registers do allow for embedded subject omission. We postulate that such data illustrate dialectal variation in the diary style. Further data suggest that diaries with embedded subject omission are more liberal with respect to pronoun ellipsis in other contexts (reflexives, coordination). [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]