Letters as Loot : A sociolinguistic approach to seventeenth- and eighteenth-century Dutch / Gijsbert Rutten, Marijke J. Wal.

Format:

Book

Author/Creator:

Rutten, Gijsbert Johan, 1977- Author.

Wal, M. J. van der, Author.

Series:

Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics ; 2

Language:

English

Subjects (All):

Historical linguistics.

Letter writing, Dutch--History--17th century.

Letter writing, Dutch.

Letter writing, Dutch--History--18th century.

Linguistic change--Social aspects--History.

Linguistic change.

Sociolinguistics--Netherlands--History.

Sociolinguistics.

Physical Description:

1 electronic resource (xiii, 426 p.)

Place of Publication:

Amsterdam : John Benjamins Publishing Company, [2014]

Language Note:

English

Summary:

The study of letter writing is at the heart of the historical-sociolinguistic enterprise. Private letters, in particular, offer an unprecedented view on language history. This book presents an in-depth study of the language of letters focussing on a unique collection of Dutch private letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, which comprises letters from the lower, middle and upper ranks, written by men as well as women.The book discusses the key issues of formulaic language and the degree of orality of private letters, it questions the importance of letter-writing manuals, and reveals remarkable patterns of social, regional and gender variation in a wide range of linguistic features. Arguing for writing experience as an important factor in historical linguistics generally, the book offers numerous new perspectives on the history of Dutch.The monograph is of interest to a wide readership, ranging from scholars of historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, Germanic linguistics, sociology and social history to (advanced) graduate and postgraduate students in courses on language variation and change.

Contents:

Prelim pages

Table of contents

Preface and acknowledgements

Chapter 1. Letters as Loot

Chapter 2. Sounds and signs

Chapter 3. Epistolary formulae

Chapter 4. Variation and change in formulaic language

Chapter 5. Detailing the writing process

Chapter 6. Forms of address

Chapter 7. Clause chaining between spoken and written language

Chapter 8. Variation and change in the relative clause

Chapter 9. Apocope of final schwa

Chapter 10. Clausal and local negation

Chapter 11. Harvesting

References

Index

Notes:

This eBook is made available Open Access under a CC BY-NC-ND 3.0 license: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/3.0

Description based on online resource; title from PDF title page (publisher's Web site, viewed 23. Jan 2025)