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Article published In: Dialogues in Diachrony: Celebrating Historical Corpora of Speech-related Texts
Edited by Merja Kytö and Terry Walker
[Journal of Historical Pragmatics 19:2] 2018
► pp. 186–204

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“Heav’n bess you, my Dear”

Using the ESDD corpus to investigate address terms in historical drama dialogue

 | Uppsala University
Published online: 1 February 2019
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00018.ang
Abstract
The English and Swedish Drama Dialogue (ESDD) corpus is a sociopragmatically tagged corpus of English and Swedish drama texts from the eighteenth, nineteenth and twentieth centuries. Using this corpus, I investigated the use of the address terms Fool, Dear, Sir and Brother. The study focused on the contexts where these terms were found and traced diachronic usage patterns. The main questions asked in the investigation concerned, first, the speaker’s attitude towards the addressees when using the address phrases and whether attitudes connected with particular phrases changed over time; second, whether the phrases could be said to signal intimacy or distance between the interlocutors.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
    • 1.1Drama dialogue
    • 1.2Address terms
    • 1.3Aim and scope
  • 2.The ESDD corpus
    • 2.1Sociopragmatic tagging
    • 2.2Corpus makeup
  • 3.Method
  • 4.Results
    • 4.1 Sir
    • 4.2 Dear
    • 4.3 Brother / Bror
    • 4.4 Fool
  • 5.Conclusion
  • Corpora
  • References
References (29)
Corpora
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English and Swedish Drama Dialogue (ESDD). Compiled by Linnéa Anglemark, Merja Kytö, Ulla Melander Marttala and Mats Thelander (Uppsala University), and Sofia Gustafson Capková (Stockholm University).
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Cited by (3)

Cited by three other publications

Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria
2024. ‘My dearest Clara … my dear friend’ – Personal Names and direct address in Mary Hamilton’s private correspondence. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 10:1 ► pp. 31 ff. DOI logo
Ryś, Aleksandra
2023. Jak frazeologizmy funkcjonują w różnych wariantach i kontekstach? Funkcjonalna analiza materiału historycznojęzykowego na podstawie jednostki jak Boga kocham. LingVaria 18:2(36) ► pp. 323 ff. DOI logo
Buyle, Anouk
2021. Dear, my dear, my lady, your ladyship. Pragmatics. Quarterly Publication of the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA) 31:1 ► pp. 33 ff. DOI logo

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