Cover not available

Article published In: Journal of Historical Pragmatics
Vol. 26:1 (2025) ► pp.69–99

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

Presenting manuscript tables and diagrams to the Middle English reader

ORCiD logo with link | University of Turku
 | University of Turku
Published online: 27 August 2024
DOI logo with link
https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.22004.pei
Abstract
In this paper, we examine information-organising graphic devices such as tables and diagrams in Middle English manuscripts. Our focus is on text producers’ metadiscourse describing these devices and instructing the reader in their use. We also pay attention to the visual and spatial relationship between the graphic device and the surrounding text. Our findings indicate that the metadiscourse associated with graphic devices serves similar functions to image captions (verbal cueing) in modern textbooks: identifying and describing the devices and instructing the reader in using them.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Graphic devices and reader instruction
  • 3.Metadiscourse
  • 4.Primary sources
  • 5.Presenting graphic devices in late medieval English texts
    • 5.1The relationship between device and verbal cues
    • 5.2Identifying the device
    • 5.3Describing the device
    • 5.4Instructing the reader
  • 6.Conclusion
  • Acknowledgments
  • Notes
  • References
References (82)
References
. 2017. “Remember that Your Reader Cannot Read Your Mind: Problem/Solution-Oriented Metadiscourse in Teacher Feedback on Student Writing”. English for Special Purposes 451: 54–68. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ädel, Annelie and Anna Mauranen. 2010. “Metadiscourse: Diverse and Divided Perspectives”. Nordic Journal of English Studies 9 (2): 1–11. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alonso-Almeida, Francisco. 2009. “Stance Marking and Register in Middle English Charms”. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 45 (1): 13–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Alonso-Almeida, Francisco and Margarita Mele-Marrero. 2014. “Stancetaking in Seventeenth-Century Prefaces on Obstetrics”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 15 (1): 1–35. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Al-Subhi, Aisha Saadi. 2022. “Metadiscourse in Online Advertising: Exploring Linguistic and Visual Metadiscourse in Social Media Advertisements”. Journal of Pragmatics 1871: 24–40. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Anesa, Patrizia and Ilaria Fornasini. 2017. “The Modernity of Middle English Manuscripts: A Multimodal Investigation”. Elephant & Castle 171: 5–41. Available online at: [URL]
Bateman, John A. 2008. Multimodality and Genre: A Foundation for the Systematic Analysis of Multimodal Documents. Basinsgtoke: PalgraveMacmillan. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
2009. “Discourse across Semiotic Modes”. In Jan Renkema (ed.), Discourse, of Course: An Overview of Research in Discourse Studies, 55–66. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bernard, Robert M. 1990. “Using Extended Captions to Improve Learning from Instructional Illustrations”. British Journal of Educational Technology 21 (3): 215–225. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Biber, Douglas. 2004. “Historical Patterns for the Grammatical Marking of Stance”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 5 (1): 107–136. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Boggel, Sandra. 2009. Metadiscourse in Middle English and Early Modern English Religious Texts. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Bös, Birte. 2017. “Of Hopes and Plans: Newsmakers’ Metadiscourse at the Dawn of the Newspaper Age”. In Minna Palander-Collin, Maura Ratia and Irma Taavitsainen (eds), Diachronic Developments in English News Discourse, 15–37. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Buyle, Anouk and Hendrik De Smet. 2018. “Meaning in a Changing Paradigm: The Semantics of you and the Pragmatics of thou”. Language Sciences 681: 42–55. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Carroll, Ruth, Matti Peikola, Hanna Salmi, Mari-Liisa 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
Chaemsaithong, Krisda. 2013. “Interaction in Early Modern News Discourse: The Case of English Witchcraft Pamphlets and Their Prefaces (1566–1621)”. Text & Talk 33 (2): 167–188. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crawford, Matthew R. 2019. The Eusebian Canon Tables: Ordering Textual Knowledge in Late Antiquity. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Crismore, Avon. 1989. Talking with Readers: Metadiscourse as Rhetorical Act. New York: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Domínguez-Rodríguez, M. Victoria and Alicia Rodríguez-Álvarez. 2015. “Metacomments in the Prefaces to English School Grammars of the Eighteenth Century”. Journal of Historical Pragmatics 16 (1): 86–108. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eagleton, Catherine. 2007. “‘Chaucer’s Own Astrolabe’: Text, Image and Object”. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 38 (2): 303–326. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eagleton, Catherine and Matthew Spencer. 2006. “Copying and Conflation in Geoffrey Chaucer’s Treatise on the Astrolabe: A Stemmatic Analysis Using Phylogenetic Software”. Studies in History and Philosophy of Science 37 (2): 237–268. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Eisner, Sigmund (ed.). 2002. Geoffrey Chaucer: A Treatise on the Astrolabe. Norman, Oklahoma: University of Oklahoma Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Falk, Seb. 2016. “Learning Medieval Astronomy through Tables: The Case of the Equatorie of Planetis”. Centaurus 58 (1–2): 6–25. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Flowerdew, John. 2015. “Revisiting Metadiscourse: Conceptual and Methodological Issues Concerning Signalling Nouns”. Ibérica 291: 15–34.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Fuertes-Olivera, Pedro A., Marisol Velasco-Sacristán, Ascensión Arribas-Baño and Eva Samaniego-Fernández. 2001. “Persuasion and Advertising English: Metadiscourse in Slogans and Headlines”. Journal of Pragmatics 33 (8): 1291–1307. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
van Gog, Tamara. 2021. “The Signaling (or Cueing) Principle in Multimedia Learning”. In Richard E. Mayer and Logan Fiorella (eds), The Cambridge Handbook of Multimedia Learning, 221–230. (Third edition.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Gottschall, Anna. 2008. “The Lord’s Prayer in Circles and Squares: An Identification of Some Analogues of the Vernon Manuscript’s Pater Noster Table”. Marginalia 71: [n.p.]. Available online at: [URL]
Hiippala, Tuomo and John A. Bateman. 2020. “Introducing the Diagrammatic Mode”. arXiv 2001.11224. Available online at: [URL]
Hyland, Ken. 1998. “Persuasion and Context: The Pragmatics of Academic Metadiscourse”. Journal of Pragmatics 30 (4): 437–455. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2004. “Engagement and Disciplinarity: The Other Side of Evaluation”. In Gabriella del Lungo Camiciotti and Elena Tognini Bonelli (eds), Academic Discourse — New Insights into Evaluation, 13–30. Bern: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2017. “Metadiscourse: What Is It and Where Is It Going?” Journal of Pragmatics 1131: 16–29. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2018. Metadiscourse: Exploring Interaction in Writing. (Second edition.) London: Bloomsbury.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Hyland, Ken and Polly Tse. 2004. “Metadiscourse in Academic Writing: A Reappraisal”. Applied Linguistics 25 (2): 156–177. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Ifantidou, Elly. 2005. “The Semantics and Pragmatics of Metadiscourse”. Journal of Pragmatics 37 (9): 1325–1353. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jones, Peter Murray. 2016 (2006). “Image, Word, and Medicine in the Middle Ages”. In Jean A. Givens, Karen M. Reeds and Alain Touwaide (eds), Visualizing Medieval Medicine and Natural History, 1200–1550, 1–24. London: Routledge. (First published by Ashgate.)Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Jucker, Andreas H. 2000. “Thou in the History of English: A Case for Historical Semantics or Pragmatics?” In Christiane Dalton-Puffer and Nikolaus Ritt (eds), Words: Structure, Meaning, Function. A Festschrift for Dieter Kastovsky, 153–163. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kaltenböck, Gunther, María José López-Couso and Belén Méndez-Naya. 2020. “The Dynamics of Stance Constructions”. Language Sciences 821: 1–12. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Keiser, George R. 1998. “Works of Science and Information”. In Albert E. Hartung (ed.), A Manual of the Writings in Middle English 1050–1500, 3593–3967. (Volume 101.) New Haven: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kembhavi, Aniruddha, Mike Salvato, Eric Kolve, Minjoon Seo, Hannaneh Hajishirzi and Ali Farhadi. 2016. “A Diagram is Worth a Dozen Images”. In Bastian Leibe, Jiri Matas, Nicu Sebe and Max Welling (eds), Computer Vision — ECCV 2016. 14th European Conference, Amsterdam, The Netherlands, October 11–14, 2016, Proceedings, Part IV, 235–251. Cham: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kennedy, Kathleen E. 2014. “Reintroducing the English Books of Hours, or ‘English Primers’”. Speculum 89 (3): 693–723. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Kumpf, Eric P. 2000. “Visual Metadiscourse: Designing the Considerate Text”. Technical Communication Quarterly 9 (4): 401–424. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Marchese, Francis T. 2013. “Tables and Early Information Visualization”. In Francis T. Marchese and Ebad Bannissi (eds), Knowledge Visualization Currents, 35–61. London: Springer. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mauranen, Anna. 1993. Cultural Differences in Academic Rhetoric: A Textlinguistic Study. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Means, Laurel. 1992. “‘Ffor as moche as yche man may not haue þe astrolabe’: Popular Middle English Variations on the Computus”. Speculum 67 (3): 595–623. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Middle English Dictionary. 1952–2001. Edited by Robert E. Lewis, et al. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Press. Online edition in Middle English Compendium. 2000–2018. Edited by Frances McSparran, et al. Ann Arbor, Michigan: University of Michigan Library. See: [URL]
Mooney, Linne R. 1995. The Index of Middle English Prose. Handlist XI: Manuscripts in the Library of Trinity College, Cambridge. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
(ed.). 1998. The Kalendarium of John Somer. Athens: The University of Georgia Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Murdoch, John E. 1984. Album of Science: Antiquity and the Middle Ages. New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Obrist, Barbara. 2020. “The Idea of a Spherical Universe and Its Visualization in the Earlier Middle Ages (Seventh to Twelfth Century)”. In Marcia Kupfer, Adam S. Cohen and J. H. Chajes (eds), The Visualization of Knowledge in Medieval and Early Modern Europe, 229–258. Turnout: Brepols.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Oxford English Dictionary Online. 2000–. Available online at: [URL]
Pahta, Päivi and Irma Taavitsainen. 2004. “Vernacularisation of Scientific and Medical Writing in its Sociohistorical Context”. In Irma Taavitsainen and Päivi Pahta (eds), Medical and Scientific Writing in Late Medieval English, 1–22. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peikola, Matti. 2013. “Tables of Lections in Manuscripts of the Wycliffite Bible”. In Eyal Poleg and Laura Light (eds), Form and Function in the Late Medieval Bible, 351–378. Leiden: Brill. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2020. “Patterns of Reader Involvement on Sixteenth-Century English Title Pages, with Special Reference to Second-Person Pronouns”. In Ewa Jonsson and Tove Larsson (eds), Voices Past and Present — Studies of Involved, Speech-Related and Spoken Texts: In Honor of Merja Kytö, 113–129. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Peikola, Matti and Mari-Liisa Varila. 2023. “Multimodal and Multilingual Practices in Late Medieval English Calendars”. In Matylda Włodarczyk, Jukka Tyrkkö and Elżbieta Adamczyk (eds), Multilingualism from Manuscript to 3D: Intersections of Modalities from Medieval to Modern Times, 93–118. New York: Routledge. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Pozzer-Ardenghi, Lilian and Wolff-Michael Roth. 2010. “Toward a Social Practice Perspective on the Work of Reading Inscriptions in Science Texts”. Reading Psychology 31 (3): 228–253. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Purchase, Helen C. 2014. “Twelve Years of Diagrams Research”. Journal of Visual Languages and Computing 25 (2): 57–75. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Quintana-Toledo, Elena. 2009. “Middle English Medical Recipes: A Metadiscursive Approach”. Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 45 (2): 21–38. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rand, Kari Anne. 2014. Index of Middle English Prose: Index to Volumes I to XX. Cambridge: Boydell & Brewer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Rand Schmidt, Kari Anne. 1993. The Authorship of the Equatorie of the Planetis. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Reinking, David, David A. Hayes and John E. McEneaney. 1988. “Good and Poor Readers’ Use of Explicitly Cued Graphic Aids”. Journal of Reading Behavior 20 (3): 229–247. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Sandler, Lucy Freeman. 1983. The Psalter of Robert de Lisle in the British Library. London: Harvey Miller.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Scott, Kathleen L. (ed.). 2000–. An Index of Images in English Manuscripts from the Time of Chaucer to Henry VIII. London and Turnhout: Harvey Miller.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Severs, J. Burke, Albert E. Hartung and Peter G. Beidler (eds). 1967–2005. A Manual of the Writings in Middle English, 1050–1500. (Eleven1 volumes.) New Haven, Connecticut: The Connecticut Academy of Arts and Sciences.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Slough, Scott W., Erin M. McTigue, Suyeon Kim and Susan K. Jennings. 2010. “Science Textbooks’ Use of Graphical Representation: A Descriptive Analysis of Four Sixth Grade Science Texts”. Reading Psychology 31 (3): 301–325. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Smith, Jordan. 2020. “A Content Analysis of Figure Captions in Academic Journals from Four Disciplines”. IEEE Transactions on Professional Communication 63 (4): 341–360. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma. 2000. “Metadiscursive Practices and the Evolution of Early English Medical Writing 1375–1550”. In John M. Kirk (ed.), Corpora Galore: Analyses and Techniques in Describing English, 191–207. Amsterdam: Rodopi. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 2006. “Audience Guidance and Learned Medical Writing in Late Medieval English”. In Maurizio Gotti and Françoise Salager-Meyer (eds), Advances in Medical Discourse Analysis: Oral and Written Contexts, 431–456. Frankfurt am Main: Peter Lang.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Taavitsainen, Irma and Turo Hiltunen. 2012. “Now as a Text-Deictic Feature in Late Medieval and Early Modern English Medical Writing”. In Ulrich Busse and Axel Hübler (eds), Investigations into the Meta-Communicative Lexicon of English: A Contribution to Historical Pragmatics, 179–205. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Vande Kopple, William J. 1985. “Some Exploratory Discourse on Metadiscourse”. College Composition and Communication 36 (1): 82–93. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Varila, Mari-Liisa. 2020. “Book Producers’ Comments on Text-Organization in Early 16th-Century Printed Paratexts”. In Matti Peikola and Birte Bös (eds), The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena: Historical Approaches to Paratext and Metadiscourse in English, 209–239. Amsterdam: John Benjamins. Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Voigts, Linda Ehrsam. 1986. “The Latin Verse and Middle English Prose Texts on the Sphere of Life and Death in Harley 3719”. The Chaucer Review 21 (2): 291–305.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1989. “Scientific and Medical Books”. In Jeremy Griffiths and Derek Pearsall (eds), Book Production and Publishing in Britain 1375–1475, 345–402. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
. 1994. “The Golden Table of Pythagoras”. In Lister M. Matheson (ed.), Popular and Practical Science of Medieval England, 123–139. East Lansing: Michigan State University Press.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Voigts, Linda Ehrsam and Patricia Deery Kurtz. 2019. Scientific and Medical Writings in Old and Middle English: An Electronic Reference CD. (An extended and revised online version. Originally published in 2000.) Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press. Available online at: [URL], accessed through [URL]
Wallis, Faith. 2015. “What a Medieval Diagram Shows: A Case Study of Computus”. Studies in Iconography 361: 1–40.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wieck, Roger S. 2017. The Medieval Calendar: Locating Time in the Middle Ages. New York: The Morgan Library & Museum in association with Scala Arts Publishers.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Witherden, Sian. 2017. “Balancing Form, Function, and Aesthetic: A Study of Ruling Patterns for Zodiac Men in Astro-Medical Manuscripts of Late Medieval England”. Journal of the Early Book Society for the Study of Manuscripts and Printing History 201: 79–109.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Wright, Patricia. 1981. “Tables in Text: The Subskills Needed for Reading Formatted Information”. In L. John Chapman (ed.), The Reader and the Text: Proceedings of the Seventeenth Annual Course and Conference of the United Kingdom Reading Association University of Warwick, 1980, 60–69. London: Heinemann Educational Books.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
Mobile Menu Logo with link to supplementary files background Layer 1 prag Twitter_Logo_Blue