“Speaking base approbious words”

Abstract

This paper explores the representation of speech in Early Modern English witness depositions. We demonstrate that Semino and Short’s (2004) framework of description, which has for the most part been used in explorations of present-day texts, is generally applicable to our historical data. Our study shows that factors such as the importance of the evidence cited and the clarity of the deposition narrative were crucial considerations in representing speech in different contexts.

Disgusting, obscene and aggravating language: speech descriptors and the sociopragmatic evaluation of speech in theOld Bailey Corpus

“…Another reason that is tied more closely to the legal context is that, by not citing the language as such, the speech act or evaluation becomes the focus. In other words, the reporter assumes interpretive authority and does not give interpretive opportunity to the reader or hearer (Collins 2001: 6, 70–1, 125, 273; Walker & Grund 2017: 15, 17). This means that the reporter does not allow the court officials and jury to weigh and interpret the words for themselves, perhaps suspecting that they would miss the point, or miss the impact that the language had for the speech reporters or other targets of the language.…”

“…However the words are treated in the speech representation, it is unclear whether this language represents what the original speaker said, since it is filtered through witnesses, the court recorders, court officials and the publisher of the proceedings (cf. Walker & Grund 2017; see section 4.3.2). The upshot is that most of the time we cannot tell what it is that the reporter considers bad, abusive, shocking or threatening.…”

“…Scholarship on genres ranging from early news writing to letters and witness depositions has outlined functions such as adding credibility and authority to speakers and speech reporters, foregrounding and backgrounding of voices and speakers, as well as delineating voices and structuring reported speech (e.g. McIntyre & Walker 2011;Evans 2017Evans , 2020Walker & Grund 2017).…”