LINGUIST List 21.2240 Mon May 17 2010 Review: Historical Ling; Pragmatics; Socioling: Nurmi et al. (2009) Editor for this issue: Monica Macaulay <monicalinguistlist.org> This LINGUIST List issue is a review of a book published by one of our supporting publishers, commissioned by our book review editorial staff. We welcome discussion of this book review on the list, and particularly invite the author(s) or editor(s) of this book to join in. If you are interested in reviewing a book for LINGUIST, look for the most recent posting with the subject "Reviews: AVAILABLE FOR REVIEW", and follow the instructions at the top of the message. You can also contact the book review staff directly. Directory         1.    Lelija Socanac, The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800) Message 1: The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800) Date: 17-May-2010 From: Lelija Socanac <lelijasocanacyahoo.com> Subject: The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800) E-mail this message to a friend Discuss this message Announced at http://linguistlist.org/issues/20/20-1793.html EDITORS: Nurmi, Arja; Nevala, Minna; Palander-Collin, Minna TITLE: The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800) SERIES TITLE: Pragmatics & Beyond New Series 183 PUBLISHER: John Benjamins Publishing Company YEAR: 2009 Lelija Socanac, University of Zagreb, Croatia SUMMARY This book is a result of research on the Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC) covering the years 1400-1800. The corpus contains a stratified sample of letters by male and female informants from different geographical locations and provides a rich source of material for the study of language variation and change in the history of English. Personal letters were originally selected as research material because they are close to spoken language in many ways (Biber & Finegan 1992). Moreover, language change typically emerges from spoken language. Thus, a genre like personal letters may provide good access to early phases of change in the history of a language. The book begins with an introduction entitled ''The language of daily life in the history of English: Studying how macro meets micro'' in which the editors present the methodological background of research and emphasize the need to incorporate within the same model macro- and micro-levels of analysis which have often been regarded as opposite or mutually exclusive (Carter & Sealey 2000; Deumert 2003). The framework of research is provided by historical sociolinguistics, drawing on many different approaches such as correlational sociolinguistics, interactional sociolinguistics, sociopragmatics, discourse studies, contact linguistics and sociology of language. In the introduction, the editors provide a brief outline of the development of CEEC research methods and approaches. When the project was initiated in 1993 with the aim of testing sociolinguistic theories, findings and methods in historical context, the theoretical framework was predominantly correlational and variationist, since the idea was to see how social factors affect the diffusion of morphosyntactic change. Correlational studies provide information on language variation and change in relation to broad social categories such as gender, class, age and education. Variation and change are studied together, as variation is regarded as a prerequisite of change. Correlational studies have been criticized for their simplistic treatment of social categories, which does not allow for an individual speaker's situated understanding and construction of his or her social position to be taken into account. While macro analysis focuses on remote, impersonal, large-scale phenomena and patterned distribution of groups of people or resources in society, micro-analysis is concerned with face-to-face conduct and relates to self-identity, subjective experience and the individual's agency. The two approaches should be combined since some research questions, such as the spread of morphosyntactic change in the population, are best addressed on the macro-level, while others, such as situated meaning-making processes, require a micro-level analysis (Carter & Sealey 2000; Deumert 2003; Tagliamonte 2002). The broad perspective and situation-specific analyses can be combined, which often means combining quantitative and qualitative methodologies. One of the goals of the book is to combine ''static'' and ''dynamic'' approaches in order to see how different social variables affect language use in written interaction and to see how the fact that the material is a written and delayed type of interaction shows in the way social relationships are strategically maintained and/or altered. The book is divided into three sections. Section 1: ''Variation and social relations'', explores language variation as a means of identity and role construction in letters. Section 2: ''Methodological considerations in the study of change'', focuses on questions of language change from the perspective of individuals, their networks and parental input. Section 3: ''Sociohistorical context'' highlights the social contexts of language use. An Appendix contains a list of all editions used for compiling the Corpora of Early English Correspondence (CEEC), containing the following subcorpora: Corpus of Early English Correspondence (CEEC), Corpus of Early English Correspondence Extension (CEECE), and Corpus of Early English Correspondence Supplement (CEECSU). The book contains a Name index and a Subject index. All the chapters explore the role of language in society and in everyday life in the period under consideration, which often means combining perspectives, such as sociolinguistic and pragmatic approaches, and quantitative and qualitative methods. In ''Negotiating interpersonal identities in writing: Code-switching practices in Charles Burney's correspondence'', Päivi Pahta and Arja Nurmi examine code-switching in eighteenth-century interpersonal communication, focusing on the correspondence of musician and music historian Charles Burney. The most common embedded language used in Burney's correspondence is French, but the array of other modern and classical languages used is impressive. The results of research show variation in code-switching practices with regard to the relationship between the writer and recipient. The frequency of switches to different recipients reflects both Burney's knowledge of the recipient's command of foreign languages as well as the intimacy of the relationship. Thus, code-switching is more frequent in letters written between correspondents who have a close relationship. Switches can have a locally meaningful function, organizing discourse, indicating stance, or indexing the writer's identity. Switching can also be seen as a style which in itself indexes particular types of social memberships and relationships. The overall uses of code-switching are very similar to those found in present-day languages. The paper: ''Patterns of interaction: Self-mention and addressee inclusion in the letters of Nathaniel Bacon and his correspondents'' by Minna Palander-Collin deals with the late-sixteenth-century correspondence of a Norfolk gentleman, Nathaniel Bacon, and his circle, and explores how the interpersonal and identity functions of language are enacted through the use of self-mention and addressee inclusion patterns, as they overtly bring in the writer and recipient of the letter. The results show both quantitative and qualitative differences in self-mention and addressee inclusion patterns according to Bacon's relationship to the addressee. The highest frequencies of self-mention and direct addressee inclusion characterize close relationships as well as those relationships where Bacon wrote in the role of a social superior. In ''Referential terms and expressions in eighteenth-century letters: A case study on the Lunar men of Birmingham'', Minna Nevala explores how interpersonal relations and social roles influence the form and function of person-referential terms in the Late Modern English letters written by, to and about three members of the Lunar Society of Birmingham, with Erasmus Darwin, Matthew Boulton and James Watt as its founding members. The article discusses whether Levinson's (1992) concept of social deixis can be implemented by using referential terms and also explores how distance/proximity, as well as authority, influence referential usage. The analysis shows that the use of addressee- and self-oriented reference seems to be determined by socio-contextual aspects of appearance, attitude, and authority. The second section begins with the article ''Methodological and practical aspects of historical network analysis: A case study of the Bluestocking letters'' by Anni Sairio that presents the reconstruction and analysis of Elizabeth Montagu's Bluestocking network, and proposes a network strength scale (NSS) for quantifying the strength of network ties in this eighteenth-century social circle. The NSS scores are compared with the use of pied piping and preposition stranding in the network's correspondence in order to see whether strong network ties correlate positively with the use of a familiar and stigmatized linguistic feature. Preposition stranding was more common in Elizabeth Montagu's letters when the recipients were linked to her with strong ties and when they were socially inferior. Preposition stranding was avoided and pied piping favoured when the recipients were her social superiors. The NSS analysis thus benefited from the inclusion of sociolinguistic variables. In ''Grasshoppers and blind beetles: Caregiver language in Early Modern English correspondence'', Terttu Nevalainen examines caregiver language in sixteenth and seventeenth-century letters. She addresses the issue of how parents and other caregivers communicated with children and adolescents in their personal correspondence, and to what extent it is possible to reconstruct patterns of child-directed language using personal letters as data. The study analyses the patterns of discourse and linguistic models that Lady Katherine Paston transmitted in her letters to her teenage son. Her usage is also compared with inter-adult communication. The results indicate that the caregiver language of the past can be characterized at various levels: speech activity and politeness phenomena, lexical content and even ongoing processes of language change. In ''Lifespan changes in the language of three early modern gentlemen'', Helena Raumolin-Brunberg examines the participation of Sir Walter Raleigh, Philip Gawdy and John Chamberlain in on-going grammatical changes across their life spans. The findings question the view that an adult's grammar, once acquired, would be fixed. The author finds that there is considerable individual variation in the adoption of innovative forms, and she discusses possible reasons for the resulting linguistic profiles of the informants. Age, ambitions, and geographical and social migration are considered as possible reasons for their behavior. The changes studied include possessives MY/THY vs. MINE/THINE, third-person suffix -S vs. -TH, affirmative and negative DO and subject relativiser WHO. She suggests that apparent-time analysis and the roles of generational and communal changes as descriptive models should be reconsidered. The third section begins with the article ''Singular YOU WAS/WERE variation and English normative grammars in the eighteenth century'' by Mikko Laitinen, focusing on sociolinguistic mechanisms in operation when one variant was established as a standard and the other as a non-standard form. The results show that YOU WAS peaks before the mid-eighteenth century and gradually becomes a socially stigmatized linguistic marker, as evinced in normative comments in grammars. He goes on to describe the gender distribution of the variable, and reports that both the initial increase of YOU WAS as well as its decline, were led by male informants. Finally, Laitinen looks at the ways in which grammarians and other professionals use YOU WAS and YOU WERE and shows that the prescribed new standard form YOU WERE is adopted more quickly by them than by other letter writers of the period. In ''Encountering and appropriating the Other: East India Company merchants and foreign terminology'', Samuli Kaislaniemi investigates the process of lexical borrowing in a historical language contact situation using a micro-level of analysis. Kaislaniemi discusses three Japanese loanwords ('goshuin', 'tono' and 'tatami') adopted by East India Company merchants in the early seventeenth century. The persistent 'incorrect' use of a borrowed term ('appropriation'), is found to fit poorly into traditional models of borrowing. In order to understand rapid synchronic developments in language contact situations, such traditional models need to be supplemented by analyses of the socio-historical and discourse contexts of the borrowing events. The records of the East India Company prove a valuable resource for such studies. The last contribution: ''Everyday possessions: Family and identity in the correspondence of John Paston II'' by Teo Juvonen combines the historical and linguistic descriptions of possession in a case study of the letters of John Paston II, a fifteenth-century Norfolk gentleman. Juvonen describes possession as a component of identity, comprising both the material and the social, the first being more defined by legal considerations and the second expressing e.g. familial bonds. Linguistically, the possessive relation can be divided into an assertive, informative type in which ownership is central and an inherently relational type in which kinship and body relations are central. EVALUATION ''The Language of Daily Life in England (1400-1800)'' is an important state-of-the art account of historical sociolinguistic and socio-pragmatic research. It presents new information on linguistic variation and change while evaluating and developing the relevant theoretical and methodological tools. The selection and order of contributions results in a coherent and comprehensive volume of cutting-edge research. The range of methodologies employed and spectrum of linguistic features investigated make this volume a valuable resource for scholars in historical linguistics, sociolinguistics, socio-pragmatics and social history. The results of research presented in the book are an excellent way of showing that in sociolinguistics today cross-disciplinary, multi-layered approaches are increasingly called for as a way of reaching beyond traditional paradigms and established categories. REFERENCES Biber, Douglas & Finegan, Edward (1992). ''The linguistic evolution of five written and speech-based English genres from the 17th to the 20th century'' In: History of Englishes. New Methods and Interpretations in Historical Linguistics, Matti Rissanen, Ossi Ihalainen, Terttu Nevalainen & Irma Taavitsainen (Eds.), 688-704. Berlin/New York : Mouton de Gruyter. Carter, Bob & Sealey, Alison (2000). ''Language, structure and agency: What can realist social theory offer to sociolinguistics?'' Journal of Sociolinguistics 4 (1): 3-20. Deumert, Ana (2003). ''Bringing speakers back in? Epistemological reflections on speaker-oriented explanations of language change.'' Language Sciences 25: 15-76. Levinson, Stephen (1992). Pragmatics. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Tagliamonte, Sally (2002). ''Comparative sociolinguistics''. In: The Handbook of Language Variation and Change, J.K. Chambers; Peter Trudgill; Natalie Schilling-Estes (Eds.), 729-763. Malden, MA/Oxford, UK: Blackwell Publishers. ABOUT THE REVIEWER Dr. Lelija Socanac is Assistant Professor of Legal English at the Faculty of Law, University of Zagreb, Croatia. She currently directs the project 'Legal and Linguistic Aspects of Multilingualism'. Her main research interests include sociolinguistics, contact linguistics and legal linguistics. 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