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In:Late Modern English: Novel encounters
Edited by Merja Kytö and Erik Smitterberg
[Studies in Language Companion Series 214] 2020
► pp. 333–356

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“I am desired (…) to desire”

Routines of power in the British Colonial Office correspondence on the Cape Colony (1827–1830)

 | Adam Mickiewicz University
Published online: 18 March 2020
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https://doi.org/10.1075/slcs.214.15wlo
Abstract
Historical pragmatic analyses have underlined the discourse dependence and pragmatic sensitivity of speech acts. As a result, researchers’ attention has shifted from form, structure and tokenisation of utterances to interactive frameworks. This paper follows suit and argues that speech acts in historical correspondence – in this paper, the letters of the British Colonial Office on the Cape Colony – bear a close resemblance to speech events, interactional moves or speech actions. It presents a qualitative approach to speech act identification and classification that relies on the routines of power and the notion of macro-speech act. In the process of speech act identification, co-textual features and outcomes (perlocutionary effects) serve as crucial reference points. The findings confirm the significance of the status differentials for an early nineteenth-century specialised discourse domain of institutional correspondence.
Article outline
  • 1.Introduction
  • 2.Speech acts and macro speech acts
  • 3.Historical context and data
  • 4.Routines of power
    • 4.1Writer performed speech act vs. described speech act
    • 4.2Macro-speech acts
    • 4.3Macro-speech acts: Discussion
    • 4.4Initiation: Response dyads
    • 4.5Micro-speech acts
  • 5.Conclusions
  • Notes
  • Primary source
  • References
  • Appendix
References (42)
Primary source
Theal, George McCall. 1897–1905. Records of the Cape Colony (1793–1869). London: Public Record Office.Google Scholar logo with link to Google Scholar
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