1. Introduction to Old and Middle English: Part I Historical pragmatics January 26, 2006 Andreas H. Jucker

2. Definitions  Pragmatics studies the use of language in human communication as determined by the conditions of society. (Mey 2001: 6)  Historical pragmatics can be defined as the study of historical data from a pragmatic perspective, the diachronic study of pragmatic elements or the study of study of language change from a pragmatic perspectives. (Jucker 2000: 90)

3. Subfields  Pragmaphilology Historical texts studied from a pragmatic perspective  Diachronic pragmatics – Form-to-function mapping A linguistic form: How does its function change? – Function-to-form mapping A linguistic function: How is it realized in the course of time?

4. “Bad data”  Historical pragmatics and, in a wider sense, historical sociolinguistics need access to spoken texts, preferably items of spontaneously spoken language of earlier periods; these are, however, no longer available. This plight has recently been referred to as the problem of “bad data”. (Fries 1998: 85)

5. Data in historical pragmatics Genuinely written Represen- tation of spoken dialogic monologic retrospective fictional prospective letters, pamphlets books, poems reports, protocols in poetry, in narratives in academic texts drama in conversation manuals in language textbooks

6. Corpus of Dialogue (Culpeper & Kytö 2000)

7. Communicative immediacy versus distance Communi- cative immediacy Communi- cative distance written code spoken code Intimate conversation Radio interview Job interview Lecture Legal contract Academic paper Private letter Email (Based on Koch and Oesterreicher 1985; Koch 1999)

8. Research agenda for historical pragmatics  Speech acts  Patterns of social interaction  Pragmatic factors in language change  Discourse organisation  Discourse types  Patterns of the dissemination of knowledge and information

9. St. Peter’s Church at Monkwearmouth, Jarrow

11. Whitby Abbey

12. Christianization  Christianization of the Celtic inhabitants during Roman rule  Christianization of Anglo-Saxons from Rome and from the Irish-Scottish monastery of Iona  597 St Augustine sent by Pope Gregory  C 700 all of Anglo-Saxon England was Christian  C 800 Danish attacks on monasteries  Late 10th century: Benedictine Reform

13. Christianization  Christianization of the Celtic inhabitants during Roman rule  Christianization of Anglo-Saxons from Rome and from the Irish-Scottish monastery of Iona  597 St Augustine sent by Pope Gregory  657 Abbess Hild at Whitby Abbey (Cædmon)  C 700 all of Anglo-Saxon England was Christian  731 Bede‘s Latin Historia Ecclesiastica Gentis Anglorum written at Monkwearmouth-Jarrow  C 800 Danish attacks on monasteries  King Alfred‘s reign (871-99) Historia translated  Late 10th century: Benedictine Reform

14. Anglo-Saxon Dialects Northumbria Mercia East Anglia Essex Kent Sussex Wessex Northumbrian Mercian Kentish Westsaxon Cf.Baugh & Cable 1978: 53 Jarro w Whitb y