Studies in Early Modern English

Studies in Early Modern English
Author: Dieter Kastovsky
Publisher: Walter de Gruyter
Total Pages: 517
Release: 2011-12-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 311087959X

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

Late Modern English

Late Modern English
Author: Merja Kytö
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company
Total Pages: 369
Release: 2020-03-15
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027261431

The past few decades have witnessed an unprecedented surge of interest in the language of the Late Modern English period. Late Modern English: Novel Encounters covers a broad range of topics addressed by international experts in fields such as phonology, morphology, syntax, lexis, spelling and pragmatics; this makes the collection attractive to any scholar or student interested in the history of English. Each of the four thematic sections in the book represents a core area of Late Modern English studies. This division makes it easy for specialists to access the chapters that are of immediate relevance to their own work. An introductory chapter establishes connections between chapters within as well as between the four sections. The volume highlights recent advances in research methodology such as spelling normalization and other areas of corpus linguistics; several contributions also shed light on the interplay of internal and external factors in language change.

Irregularities in Modern English

Irregularities in Modern English
Author: Hans Frede Nielsen
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 396
Release: 2007-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027272743

This book, which appeared first in a Danish version in 1980 and subsequently in an English translation in 1986, reverses the history of the English language: it takes present-day English ‘irregularities’ in grammar and spelling as its point of departure, providing historical explanations only to the extent that they illustrate modern forms. A number of comparisons with developments in other Germanic languages are given, not only with Danish phenomena as in the original Danish edition, but also with Dutch and German ones. The authors believe that such comparisons shed light on English language history as well as contribute to make the book more interesting also to students of other Germanic languages.

Discourse Markers in Early Modern English

Discourse Markers in Early Modern English
Author: Ursula Lutzky
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 304
Release: 2012
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027256322

This volume provides new insights into the nature of the Early Modern English discourse markers marry, well and why through the analysis of three corpora (A Corpus of English Dialogues, 1560-1760, the Parsed Corpus of Early English Correspondence, and the Penn-Helsinki Parsed Corpus of Early Modern English). By combining both quantitative and qualitative approaches in the study of pragmatic markers, innovative findings are reached about their distribution throughout the period 1500-1760, their attestation in different speech-related text types as well as similarities and differences in their functions. Additionally, this work engages in a sociopragmatic study, based on the sociopragmatically annotated Drama Corpus of almost a quarter of a million words, to enhance our understanding about their use by characters of different social status and gender. This volume therefore constitutes an essential piece of the puzzle in our attempt to gain a full picture of discourse marker use.

Early Modern English Literature

Early Modern English Literature
Author: Jason Scott-Warren
Publisher: Polity
Total Pages: 335
Release: 2005-10-07
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 0745627528

When we engage with the writings of Shakespeare and his contemporaries, we encounter a culture radically unfamiliar to us at the start of the twenty-first century. The past is a foreign country, and so too are many of its texts. This readable and provocative book seeks to enhance our understanding of early modern literature by recovering the contexts in which it was originally produced and consumed. Taking us back to the courts, theatres and marketplaces of early modern England, Jason Scott-Warren reveals the varied ways in which literary texts dovetailed with everyday experience, unlocking the distinctive social practices, economic structures and modes of behaviour that gave them meaning. He shows how the periods most beguiling writings were conditioned by long-forgotten notions of knowledge, nationhood, sexuality and personal identity. Bringing an anthropologists eye to his materials, he offers richly detailed new readings of works from within and beyond the canon, covering a span that stretches from Erasmus and More to Milton and Behn. Resisting any notion of the period as merely transitional a staging post on the road leading from the medieval to the modern world Scott-Warren reveals the distinctiveness of its literary culture, and equips the reader for fresh encounters with its extraordinary textual legacy. Any undergraduate student of the period will find it an essential guide, while scholars will find its fresh approach invigorating.

Desire and Domestic Fiction

Desire and Domestic Fiction
Author: Nancy Armstrong
Publisher: Oxford University Press
Total Pages: 317
Release: 1990-02-22
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0199879036

Desire and Domestic Fiction argues that far from being removed from historical events, novels by writers from Richardson to Woolf were themselves agents of the rise of the middle class. Drawing on texts that range from 18th-century female conduct books and contract theory to modern psychoanalytic case histories and theories of reading, Armstrong shows that the emergence of a particular form of female subjectivity capable of reigning over the household paved the way for the establishment of institutions which today are accepted centers of political power. Neither passive subjects nor embattled rebels, the middle-class women who were authors and subjects of the major tradition of British fiction were among the forgers of a new form of power that worked in, and through, their writing to replace prevailing notions of "identity" with a gender-determined subjectivity. Examining the works of such novelists as Samuel Richardson, Jane Austen, and the Brontës, she reveals the ways in which these authors rewrite the domestic practices and sexual relations of the past to create the historical context through which modern institutional power would seem not only natural but also humane, and therefore to be desired.

The Structure of Modern English

The Structure of Modern English
Author: Laurel J. Brinton
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing
Total Pages: 357
Release: 2000-01-01
Genre: Language Arts & Disciplines
ISBN: 9027225672

This text is designed for undergraduate and graduate students interested in contemporary English, especially those whose primary area of interest is English as a second language. Focus is placed exclusively on English data, providing an empirical explication of the structure of the language.

Everything and Less

Everything and Less
Author: Mark McGurl
Publisher: Verso Books
Total Pages: 337
Release: 2021-10-19
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 183976385X

National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist Best Book of Fall (Esquire) and a Most Anticipated Book of 2021 (Lit Hub) What Has Happened to Fiction in the Age of Platform Capitalism? Since it was first launched in 1994, Amazon has changed the world of literature. The “Everything Store” has not just transformed how we buy books; it has affected what we buy, and even what we read. In Everything and Less, acclaimed critic Mark McGurl explores this new world where writing is no longer categorized as high or lowbrow, literature or popular fiction. Charting a course spanning from Henry James to E. L. James, McGurl shows that contemporary writing has less to do with writing per se than with the manner of its distribution. This consumerist logic—if you like this, you might also like ...—has reorganized the fiction universe so that literary prize-winners sit alongside fantasy, romance, fan fiction, and the infinite list of hybrid genres and self-published works. This is an innovation to be cautiously celebrated. Amazon’s platform is not just a retail juggernaut but an aesthetic experiment driven by an unseen algorithm rivaling in the depths of its effects any major cultural shift in history. Here all fiction is genre fiction, and the niches range from the categories of crime and science fiction to the more refined interests of Adult Baby Diaper Lover erotica. Everything and Less is a hilarious and insightful map of both the commanding heights and sordid depths of fiction, past and present, that opens up an arresting conversation about why it is we read and write fiction in the first place.

Women's Work in Early Modern English Literature and Culture

Women's Work in Early Modern English Literature and Culture
Author: Michelle M. Dowd
Publisher: Springer
Total Pages: 269
Release: 2009-04-13
Genre: Literary Criticism
ISBN: 0230620396

Dowd investigates literature's engagement with the gendered conflicts of early modern England by examining the narratives that seventeenth-century dramatists created to describe the lives of working women.