The Medieval Life of Language

Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe
Erscheinungsjahr 2021
ISBN: 978-94-6372-192-9
Verlag: Amsterdam University Press

Buch, Englisch, Band 10, 264 Seiten, Format (B × H): 156 mm x 234 mm

Reihe: Knowledge Communities

The Medieval Life of Language: Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe explores the complex history of medieval pragmatic theory and ideas and metapragmatic awareness across social discourses. Pragmatic thinking about language and communication is revealed in grammar, semiotics, philosophy, and literature. Part historical reconstruction, part social history, part language theory, Amsler supplements the usual materials for the history of medieval linguistics and discusses the pragmatic implications of grammatical treatises on the interjection, Bacon’s sign theory, logic texts, Chaucer’s poetry, inquisitors’ accounts of heretic speech, and life-writing by William Thorpe and Margery Kempe. Medieval and contemporary pragmatic theory are contrasted in terms of their philosophical and linguistic orientations. Aspects of medieval pragmatic theory and practice, especially polysemy, equivocation, affective speech, and recontextualization, show how pragmatic discourse informed social controversies and attitudes toward sincere, vague, and heretical speech. Relying on Bakhtinian dialogism, critical discourse analysis, and conversation analysis, Amsler situates a key period in the history of linguistics within broader social and discursive fields of practice.

Autoren/Hrsg.

Amsler, Mark

Fachgebiete

• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Alte Geschichte & Archäologie Vor- und Frühgeschichte, prähistorische Archäologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Sprachwissenschaften Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Philosophie Sprachphilosophie
• Geisteswissenschaften Sprachwissenschaft Grammatik, Syntax, Morphologie
• Geisteswissenschaften Geschichtswissenschaft Geschichtswissenschaft Allgemein

Inhaltsverzeichnis

Acknowledgements

Abbreviations

Introduction: Where is Medieval Pragmatics?

1 Medieval Pragmatics: Philosophical and Grammatical Contexts

Three Terms and a Theory

Roger Bacon’s Semiotics and Pragmatics

Peter (of) John Olivi: Pragmatics and the Will to Speak

2 Interjections: Does Affect have Grammar?

3 Allas Context

Allas: A Case for Context

4 Alisoun’s Giggle, or the Miller Does Pragmatics

Does a Giggle Mean?

Impoliteness, Hedging, and Textual Pragmatics

Polysemy, Bullseyes, Misfires, or How Narrative Escapes Intention

Centrifugal Narrative Contracts

5 How Heretics Talk, According to Bernard Gui and William Thorpe

Pragmatic Talk, Pragmatic Action

Bernard Gui’s Conversation Analysis and Institutional Discourse

William Thorpe’s Relationship Pragmatics

6 Margery Kempe’s Strategic Vague Language

Cooperate or Else

Vaguing Pragmatics

Kempe Comes to the Archbishop

Kempe Tells a Tale

One More Thing

Bibliography

Index

Über Autor(innen)

Amsler, Mark
Mark Amsler has taught medieval and comparative literature, linguistics, and writing at universities in the US and New Zealand. He is author of Etymology and Grammatical Discourse, Affective Literacies, and numerous essays on medieval literature, history of linguistics, English linguistics, and critical theory.