Material practices meet sociolinguistics: Letter-writing in seventeenth-century England
Bidragets beskrivning
Letters are physical artefacts, and carry meaning both in their text, and in their material features. This project investigates material practices of letter-writing in 17th-century England by combining archival research on manuscript letters with resources and quantitative methods from historical sociolinguistics. The results reveal a previously invisible source that will benefit all historical studies that use letters. Two kinds of new knowledge are produced: an overview of early modern English epistolary material practices and how they changed over time, and a detailed survey of how practices varied according to their social contexts. These results will function as a 'key' to deciphering the social meaning of material practices in letter-writing, which will be valuable to literary, cultural and social historians as well as historical linguists, and which will enrich our understanding of past societies.
Visa merStartår
2022
Slutår
2025
Beviljade finansiering
Finansiär
Finlands Akademi
Typ av finansiering
Forskardoktorer
Utlysning
Övriga uppgifter
Finansieringsbeslutets nummer
347257
Vetenskapsområden
Språkvetenskaper
Forskningsområden
Kieli, yhteiskunta ja kulttuuri