Women's epistolary utterance
Subtitle: a study of the letters of Joan and Maria Thynne, 1575-1611
By: Graham T. Williams, University of Sheffield
Series: Pragmatics & Beyond New series -- v. 233
Publisher: John Benjamins Publishing Company; Benjamins Publishing Company, John
Published: 2014
Place of publication: Amsterdam
Language: eng
Number of pages: 266
ISBN-13: 9789027256386; 9789027271396
Subjects: Correspondence; English letters; History and criticism; Women authors; Letter writing; History; Women and literature; Letters in literature; England; Social life and customs
Description: "Located at the intersection of historical pragmatics, letters and manuscript studies, this book offers a multi-dimensional analysis of the letters of Joan and Maria Thynne, 1575-1611. It investigates multiple ways in which socio-culturally and socio-familially contextualized reading of particular collections may increase our understanding of early modern letters as a particular type of handwritten communicative activity. The book also adds to our understanding of these women as individual users of English in their historical moment, especially in terms of literacy and their engagement with cultural scripts. Throughout the book, analysis is based on the manuscript letters themselves and in this way several chapters address the importance of viewing original sources to understand the letters' full pragmatic significance. Within these broader frameworks, individual chapters address the women's use of scribes, prose structure and punctuation, performative speech act verbs, and (im)politeness, sincerity and mock (im)politeness." -- Publisher website.
Notes: Thesis (doctoral)--University of Glasgow, 2009.

Published under the title "Pragmatic readings of the letters of Joan and Maria Thynne, 1575-1611 : with diplomatic transcriptions of their correspondence" in 2009.

Includes bibliographical references and index.