Teaching punctuation in Early Modern England
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Date
2010
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Adam Mickiewicz University
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Abstract
Much has been written on the punctuation practice of late sixteenth- and seventeenth-century
English writers in order to work out the ultimate function of marks of punctuation. The main point
of discussion has almost ever been whether punctuation indicated syntactic relationships or represented
speech pauses either to give emphasis in oral delivery or just to be able to breathe. The
focus of this paper, however, is the theory rather than the practice, in particular, the set of rules
and conventions used by schoolmasters to guide students in their use of stops. Thus, textbooks
used at the time to teach reading and writing will constitute our main sources of information to
achieve the following aims: (i) to offer a classification of the different marks of punctuation described,
(ii) to establish the functions schoolbooks assigned to punctuation marks in general, and
(iii) to assess the importance schoolmasters gave to pointing. The results of this study – which
follows the works by Ong (1944) and Salmon (1962, 1988) – will contribute to shed light on the
ever-lasting debate on the principles guiding Early Modern English punctuation usage.
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Sponsor
This paper is a contribution to the research project HUM2007-60725/FILO sponsored by the
Spanish Ministry of Science and Education.
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Citation
Studia Anglica Posnaniensia, vol. 46.1 (2010), pp. 35-49
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ISBN
ISSN
0081-6272