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Article published In: Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 21:1 (2020) ► pp.1–27

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Visual pragmatics of abbreviations and otiose strokes in John Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes

 | Adam Mickiewicz University
Published online: 28 August 2020
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00034.rog
Abstract
This paper
addresses the visual-pragmatic functions of the so-called common mark of abbreviation, or macron, in a section of BL Royal MS 18 D II (ff. 147v–162r) – one of the best known “deluxe” manuscripts containing Lydgate’s Siege of Thebes. Contextualised within the framework of visual pragmatics, or Pragmatics on the Page (Carroll, Ruth, Matti Peikola, Hanna Salmi, Mari-Lisa Varila, Janne Skaffari and Risto Hiltunen. 2013. “Pragmatics on the Page: Visual Text in Late Medieval English Books”. European Journal of English Studies 17 (1): 54–71. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar), the manuscript in question is considered here as a visual text (Kendall, Judy, Manuel Portela and Glyn White. 2013. “Introducing Visual Text”. European Journal of English Studies 17 (1): 1–9. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar) – one for which the readers construe the meaning through internalising the physical organisation of discourse. The paper attempts to unpack the ways in which the common mark of abbreviation, employed by the scribes as a visual-pragmatic marker, organises the discourse of the manuscript page on three levels of meaning: textual, interactional and metalinguistic (following . 2001. “Pragmatic Markers Revisited with a Focus on ‘You Know’ in Adult and Adolescent Talk”. Journal of Pragmatics 33 (9): 1337–1359. Available online at: [URL]). The pragmatic roles of the macron are then confronted with the visual forms and possible functions of its notorious graphic doppelgänger (i.e., the otiose stroke).
Article outline
  • 1.Mediaeval manuscript as a visual text
  • 2.Visual pragmatics
  • 3.Pragmatic markers in manuscript discourse
  • 4.The macron
  • 5.Siege of Thebes in BL Royal MS D 18 II
    • 5.1Abbreviations in the Siege of Thebes
    • 5.2Textual function
    • 5.3Interactional function
    • 5.4Metalinguistic function
    • 5.5Otiose strokes
  • 6.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • References
References (33)
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British Library Royal MS 18 D II. Available online at: [URL]
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