Text Types and the History of English

Přední strana obálky
Walter de Gruyter, 22. 8. 2008 - Počet stran: 347

The history of modern European languages has been largely determined by the range of functions they have acquired, particularly after 1500. This development necessitated a notable expansion of their syntax and lexis, but is most characteristically reflected in the conventionalization of text types.

Starting from the German concept of Textsorte as developed from the 1960s onwards, the present account is a first comprehensive attempt at charting the field for the history and present-day situation of the English language. In text types, a designation is linked with a more or less stable form which guides the writer’s production as well as the reader's expectation, permitting one to recognize straightforward uses as well as deliberate misuses. Some two thousand of such designations are here listed with minimal definitions and dates for first occurrences. The discussion then concentrates on selected types, which are seen as especially illustrative for English: book dedications, cooking recipes, advertisements, church hymns, lexical entries, and jokes. Their functions and development over time are treated in correlation with their specific linguistic characteristics and adaptations to different period styles and social changes in the readership. The functional range of text types in traditions outside England and the consequences of the export of English categories are exemplified by the history of Scots/Scottish English and of English in India. The arguments are accompanied by a lavish supply of textual excerpts and more than fifty pages of facsimiles, which are especially relevant for insights derived from typographical features. A full bibliography and indices are provided at the end.

The book will prove useful for decisions on the constitution of representative text corpora and stimulate research into a greater number of individual text types as well as contrastive analyses at least among European languages.

Vyhledávání v knize

Obsah

63 The hymn as a text type
167
7 Lexical entries
175
72 Entries in monolingual dictionaries of modern English
176
8 Linguistic aspects of jokes
181
82 Types of jokes
188
83 Conclusion
199
9 Text types and the history of Scots
201
92 Formal texts
204

28 A list of Old English text types
91
3 Text types and the linguistic history of modern English
99
32 The concept of text types
102
the dedicatory epistle
109
factors conditioning the form of dedications
112
35 Linguistic features characteristic of dedications
115
36 Conclusion
119
the cooking recipe
121
42 The cooking recipe
123
43 The development after 1500
131
44 Crosscultural comparisons
136
45 Conclusions
140
5 A linguistic history of advertising
141
the 18th century
151
53 The 19th century
155
54 Changes in advertising style
156
55 A text type exported
161
56 Conclusion
162
6 The church hymn
163
62 The historical foundations of the text type
164
93 Informal language
211
94 Literary texts
216
95 Conclusion
220
10 Text types and Indian English
225
102 Newspaper reports and leaders
228
103 Book announcements and reviews
230
104 Dedications forewords and endpieces in scholarly books
231
105 Scholarly expository prose
232
106 Advertisements of various types
233
107 Obituaries
237
108 Letters and essays
239
109 Cooking recipes
244
1010 The language of literature
245
1011 Conclusion
250
Facsimiles
253
Bibliography
309
Index of persons
323
Index of topics terms places and anonymous works
326
Index of words and phrases
331
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O autorovi (2008)

Manfred Görlach is Professor Emeritus at the University of Cologne, Germany.

Bibliografické údaje