Historical Pragmatics

This is the eighth of nine volumes in the Handbook of Pragmatics, which collectively aims to cover the entire field of pragmatics, defined as the analysis of language use in social contexts. This volume, edited by Jucker (U. of Zurich, Switzerland) and Taavitsainen (U. of Helsinki, Finland) provides an overview of key issues and the current state of the art in the field of historical pragmatics, which is primarily concerned with the social contexts of language use in earlier periods, the development of language use, and the principles of such developments. As in the other volumes, each contributed chapter combines a review of the literature and a critical evaluation of the topic at hand in light of recent developments. Following the introduction, 21 chapters examine general issues of data and methodology; aspects of the diachronic development of language use (including grammaticalization, subjectification and intersubjectification, pragmaticalization and discursization, and metaphor and metonymy); historical pragmatics investigations of Chaucer and Shakespeare; the evolution of discourse markers, interjections and expletives, and address terms; the historical pragmatics of interactions (including speech acts, politeness, controversies, and rituals); and the discourse domains of religion, science, news, courtrooms, correspondence, and literature. Annotation c2011 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Andreas H. Jucker, University of Zurich, Switzerland;Irma Taavitsainen, University of Helsinki, Finland.