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Article published In: Historical (socio)pragmatics at present
Edited by Matylda Włodarczyk and Irma Taavitsainen
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 18:2] 2017
► pp. 235–251

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“He tells us that”

Strategies of reporting adversarial news in the English Civil War

 | University of Florence
Published online: 9 February 2018
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00004.bro
Abstract
In this paper, I examine a form of argumentation employed by one of the most prominent parliamentarian news pamphlets of the English Civil War (1642–1649). The pamphlet in question is Mercurius Britanicus. It was founded to counter through its pages the news that was being published in Mercurius Aulicus, the foremost royalist publication. In its animadversion of Aulicus’s news, Britanicus first repeated the royalist text, and then responded to it. In my study, I shall focus on instances where the not wholly faithful reporting of Aulicus’s text leads to (socio)pragmatic meanings. I have taken into consideration both the wider social context in which the pamphlet writers were writing as well as the immediate situational context – the pamphlet as a genre. In my analysis of Britanicus’s animadversion, I examine titles of courtesy and the omission and substitution of words.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Data
  • 3. Britanicus’s reporting strategies
    • 3.1Titles of courtesy
    • 3.2Omission and substitution of words
  • 4.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Primary sources
  • References
References (37)
Primary sources
Early English Books Online (EEBO). Accessed August 2014 at: [URL].
Florence Early English Newspapers (FEEN). Accessed August 2014 at: [URL].
Mercurius Aulicus (1643–1645).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mercurius Britanicus (1643–1646).Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
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2023. The pragmatic and rhetorical function of perfect doubling in the work of D. V. Coornhert. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 24:2 ► pp. 245 ff. DOI logo
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