The Medieval Life of Language: Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe

Mark Amsler

Published by Amsterdam University Press 2021

The Medieval Life of Language

Grammar and Pragmatics from Bacon to Kempe

Mark Amsler

Volume 10 in the series Knowledge Communities

https://doi.org/10.1515/9789048550166

Overview
Contents

About this book

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.

Author / Editor information

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.

Reviews

“[...] Amsler’s book offers a persuasive demonstration not only of the existence of a medieval pragmatics avant la lettre but also of the fresh analyses of familiar medieval texts that the terminology of modern pragmatics can facilitate.”
- Rory G. Critten, Anglia, Vol. 140, Iss. 3-4

"[...] an interesting collection of case-studies under an over-arching thematic framework of Bakhtinian dialogism and pragmatics. [...] this is a hugely stimulating volume and I found myself constantly thinking of examples from within my own field which would benefit from these types of analysis."
- Paul Russell, Language & History, Vol. 65, Iss. 2
"the book’s overall achievement... is to develop out of a winningly clear and detailed analysis of medieval linguistic thought a well-stocked toolkit for prising out the “pragmatic thinking” (Amsler’s apt phrase) embedded in literature, testimony, and life-writing"
Christopher Cannon, Speculum: A Journal of Medieval Studies, volume 98, number 2

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	1
Table of Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	5
Acknowledgements Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	7
Abbreviations Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	9
Introduction: Where is Medieval Pragmatics? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
1 Medieval Pragmatics: Philosophical and Grammatical Contexts Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	31
2 Interjections: Does Affect have Grammar? Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	85
3 Allas Context Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	103
4 Alisoun’s Giggle, or the Miller Does Pragmatics Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	139
5 How Heretics Talk, According to Bernard Gui and William Thorpe Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	165
6 Margery Kempe’s Strategic Vague Language Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	205
One More Thing Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Bibliography Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Index Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	263

(Deutsch)

Language: English
Publisher: Amsterdam University Press
Audience: Professional and scholarly;
Pages
- Main content: 264
Illustrations
- Illustrations: 5
Keywords: (History of) Pragmatics; Medieval linguistics; Literary pragmatics; Religious and social dissent

eBook

Published: June 28, 2021
ISBN: 9789048550166