Cover not available

In:Unlocking the History of English: Pragmatics, prescriptivism and text types
Edited by Luisella Caon, Moragh S. Gordon and Thijs Porck
[Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 364] 2024
► pp. 198–224

Get fulltext from our e-platform
JBE logo with link
PDF logo with download linkDownload Book PDF
EPUB logo with download linkDownload Book EPUB
authorization required

Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions to the Foundling Hospital

A comparison and the influence of letter-writing manuals

 | Complutense University of Madrid
Published online: 4 April 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/cilt.364.09cal
Abstract
The present study compares filled-in petition forms with hand-drafted petitions addressed to the Foundling Hospital between 1759 and 1815. The focus of the analysis is on the similarities and/or differences between the two types and how they compare to the petition models presented in the letter-writing manuals of the time. The results show that the hand-drafted petitions display more variation in general than the filled-in petition forms, although not as much as expected. The findings suggest that the writers of these petitions were aware of the conventions established at the time even when they had to draft a petition themselves and that their writing did not differ much from the writing of other letter writers of the time.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.The context of the petitions
    • 2.1The Foundling Hospital in eighteenth-century London
    • 2.2The petitioners
  • 3.Petitions in letter-writing manuals in eighteenth-century Britain
  • 4.Spelling in letter writing in Late Modern England
  • 5.The present study
    • 5.1Data and method
    • 5.2Analysis
      • 5.2.1Formal aspects: Addresses, introductions and conclusions
        • 5.2.1.1Filled-in petitions
        • 5.2.1.2Hand-drafted petitions
        • 5.2.1.3Filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions compared
        • 5.2.1.4Model petitions in manuals and real petitions compared
      • 5.2.2Spelling in the filled-in petition forms and the hand-drafted petitions
        • 5.2.2.1Spelling in the filled-in petition forms
        • 5.2.2.2Spelling in the hand-drafted petitions
        • 5.2.2.3Spelling in filled-in petition forms and hand-drafted petitions compared
        • 5.2.2.4Spelling in model petitions and in real petitions compared
  • 6.Concluding remarks
  • Acknowledgements
  • Notes
  • References
References (45)
References
Auer, A. 2015. Stylistic variation. In A. Auer, D. Schreier & R. J. Watts (eds.), Letter writing and language change, 133–155. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Auer, A., D. Schreier, & R. J. Watts (eds.). 2015. Letter writing and language change. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bannet, E. T. 2005. Empire of letters. Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Beal, J. 2010. The grocer’s apostrophe: Popular prescriptivism in the 21st century. English Today 26(2). 57–64. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bergs, A. T. 2007. Letters: A new approach to text typology. In T. Nevalainen & S. K. Tanskanen (eds.), Letter writing, 27–46. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Berry, H. 2019. Orphans of empire. The fate of London’s foundlings. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Brown, G. 1790. The English writer or the whole art of general correspondence […] together with the universal petitioner. Alexander Hogg.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Calvo Cortés, N. 2020. Variations from letter-writing manuals: humble petitions signed by women in Late Modern London. In A. H. Jucker & I. Taavitsainen (eds.), Manners and their transgressions in the history of English, 184–212. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Cooke, T. 1791. The universal letter-writer or new art of polite correspondence […] to which is added the complete petitioner. W. Osborne, T. Griffin & J.M. Mozley.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Denison, D. 1994. A Corpus of Late Modern English Prose. University of Manchester. [URL].
Dossena, M. & G. del Lungo Camiciotti (eds.). 2012. Letter writing in Late Modern Europe. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Dossena, M. & I. Tieken-Boon van Ostade (eds.). 2008. Studies in Late Modern English correspondence. Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Evans, T. 2005. ‘Unfortunate objects’: Lone mothers in eighteenth-century London. Palgrave Macmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fairman, T. 2000. English pauper letters 1800–34, and the English language. In D. Barton & N. Hall (eds.), Letter writing as social practice, 63–82. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Görlach, M. 2001. Eighteenth-century English. Winter.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Halsey, K. 2015. The home education of girls in the eighteenth-century novel: ‘The pernicious effects of an improper education’. Oxford Review of Education 41(4). 430–446. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jespersen, O. 1923. Growth and structure of the English language, 4th edn. Appleton & Co.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Johnson, S. 1755. A dictionary of the English language. J & P Knapton.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
King, S. 2007. Pauper letters as a source. Family and community history 10(2). 167–70. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Laitinen, M. 2015. Early nineteenth-century pauper letters. In A. Auer, D. Schreier & R. J. Watts (eds.), Letter writing and language change, 185–201. Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2018. Indefinite pronouns with singular human reference. In T. Nevalainen, M. Palander-Collin & T. Säily (eds.), Patterns of change in 18th-century English. A sociolinguistic approach, 137–158. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Levene, A., S. King, A. Tomkins, P. King, T. Nutt, D. A. Symonds & L. Zunshine (eds.). 2006. Narratives of the poor in eighteenth-century Britain. Volume 1: Voices of the poor: Poor law depositions and letters. Taylor & Francis.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Lowth, R. 1762. A short introduction to English grammar. J. Hughs.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
McClure, R. K. 1981. The London Foundling Hospital in the eighteenth century. Yale University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevalainen, T. 1998. Corpus of Early English Correspondence. VARIENG, University of Helsinki. [URL]
Nevalainen, T. & H. Ramoulin-Brunberg. 2003. Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. Pearson Education.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Nevalainen, T. 2007. Introduction. In T. Nevalainen & S. Tanskanen (eds.), Letter writing, 1–11. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
OED = Oxford English Dictionary. Oxford University Press. [URL]
Osselton, N. E. 1984. Informal spelling systems in Early Modern English: 1500–1800. CETAL Conference Papers Series 3. 123–137.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pugh, Gillian. 2007. London’s forgotten children. Thomas Coram and the Foundling Hospital. Tempus.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sairio, A. 2010. ‘if You think me obstinate I can’t help it’: Exploring the epistolary styles and social roles of Elizabeth Montagu and Sarah Scott. In P. Pahta, M. Nevala, A. Nurmi & M. Palander-Collin (eds.), Social roles and language practices in Late Modern English, 87–109. John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sheetz-Nguyen, J. A. 2012. Victorian women, unwed mothers and the London Foundling Hospital. Bloomsbury. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Simonton, D. 2005. Women and education. In H. Barker and E. Chalus (eds.), Women’s history: Britain 1700–1850, an introduction, 33–56. Routledge.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sokoll, T. (ed.). 2001. Essex pauper letters, 1731–1837 (Records of Social and Economic History, New Series 30). Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2006. Writing for relief: Rhetoric in English pauper letters, 1800–1834. In A. Gestrich, S. King & R. Lutz (eds.), Being poor in Modern Europe: Historical perspectives 1800–1940, 91–111. Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Stephens, W. B. 1998. Education in Britain, 1750–1914. Red Globe Press London. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The Complete Letter-Writer. 1778. W. Darling.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
The Young Secretary’s Guide. 1721. H. Tracey.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I. 2011. The bishop’s grammar: Robert Lowth and the rise of prescriptivism. Oxford University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2014. In search of Jane Austen. The language of the letters. Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Timmis, I. 2018. The pragmatics in the Essex pauper letters, 1731–1837. Corpus Pragmatics 2. 243–263. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Tomkins, A. 2011. ‘I mak Bould to Wrigt’: First-person narratives in the history of poverty in England, c. 1750–1900. History Compass 9(5). 365–373. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ward, W. 1796. The scripture spelling book, 3rd edn. Ogilvy & Speare.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Williams, S. 2005. ‘A good character for virtue, sobriety, and honesty’: Unmarried mothers’ petitions to the London Foundling Hospital and the rhetoric of need in the early nineteenth century. In A. Levene, T. Nutt & S. Williams (eds.), Illegitimacy in Britain, 1700–1920, 86–101. Palgrave Macmillan.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue