Historical pragmatics pragmatic developments in the history of English (J. Benjamins Pub. Co., 1995)
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Includes bibliographical references and indexes
HISTORICAL PRAGMATICS; Editorial page; Title page; Copyright page; Table of contents; Preface; List of Contributors; Introduction; The Historical Perspective in Pragmatics; Part I: Pragmaphilology; The Openness of Medieval Texts; They Had Their Points Punctuation and Interpretation in English Renaissance Literature; Punctuation: And -- 'Pragmatics'; A Close Reading of William Caxton's Dialogues" ... to lerne Shortly frenssh and englyssh"; Wills and Will-Making in 16th and 17th Century England Some Pragmatic Aspects
Until very recently, pragmatics has been restricted to the analysis of contemporary spoken language while historical linguistics has studied historical texts and language change in a decontextualized way. This has now radically changed and scholars from around the world are trying to build a new theoretical framework that integrates recent advances both in pragmatics and in historical linguistics. The volume, which contains 22 original articles, starts with an introduction that is both a state-of-the-art account of historical pragmatics and a programmatic statement of its future potential and i