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Description:
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This book is a corpus-based study examining 'thou' and 'you' in three
speech-related genres from 1560-1760, a crucial period in the history of
second person singular pronouns, spanning the time from when 'you' became
dominant to when 'thou' became all but obsolete. The study embraces the
fields of corpus linguistics, historical pragmatics, and historical
sociolinguistics. Using data drawn from the recently released 'A Corpus of
English Dialogues 1560–1760' and manuscript material, the aim is to
ascertain which extra-linguistic and linguistic factors highlighted by
previous research appear particularly relevant in the selection and
relative distribution of 'thou' and 'you'. Previous research on 'thou' and
'you' has tended to concentrate on Drama and/or been primarily qualitative
in nature. Depositions in particular have hitherto received very little
attention. This book is intended to help fill a gap in the literature by
presenting an in-depth qualitative and quantitative analysis of pronoun
usage in Trials, Depositions, and, for comparative purposes, Drama Comedy.
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