Genre and literacies: Historical (socio)pragmatics of the 1820 settler petition
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Date
2016
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Publisher
Wydawnictwo Naukowe UAM
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Abstract
In the history of English, the Late Modern period offers a chance to observe rapid developments
in petitioning practices as growing literacy rates open up potential access to the contemporary
models of written request-making. Still the nature of Late Modern literacies complicates the
attempts at written composition and participation in literacy cultures. In addition, spatial and
social mobility that characterise European communities in the period not only generate more
demand for active literacy, but also entail new factors, expectations and constraints on written
communication. Thus the ways in which the Late Modern literacies may be elucidated and
accessed through the study of petitions remain at the core of this investigation.
The book embarks upon a (socio)pragmatic study of two sets of institutional correspondence
surviving in connection to the British government colonisation scheme of the Cape
of Good Hope, the 1820 settlement. The data, referred to as the candidate (1819) and colonial
collections (1820-25), offer a unique opportunity to observe genre development over a
relatively short span of time, to identify the specific aspects of genre change and to connect
these to the discourse and language external context. The study focuses on the structural
models of petition and issues of authorship, as well as variability of punctuation and aspects
of spelling and morpho-syntax in the letters. The analysis makes use of specific digital
methodologies, such as the n-gram analysis, as well as purely qualitative methods.
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Keywords
Late Modern English, petition, genre, literacy, historical (socio)pragmatics
Citation
Włodarczyk Matylda. Genre and literacies: Historical (socio)pragmatics of the 1820 settler petition. Adam Mickiewicz University Press. Poznań 2016. Seria Filologia Angielska nr 51. Pp. 393, 16 Figs., 50 Tabs.
Seria
FILOLOGIA ANGIELSKA;nr 51
ISBN
978-83-232-3068-7