Intra-individual variation is an emerging research field in linguistics with a rapidly growing number of studies. In historical sociolinguistics, this trend has been delayed, as it is still largely dominated by the macroscopic approaches of earlier sociolinguistics. Microscopic studies focusing on intra-individual variation in writing, i.e. intra-writer variation, however, are able to reveal how writers functionalize social or text-type variation for reasons such as audience design or persona creation. They may also provide insights into how ongoing changes were perceived by speakers and writers. In general, micro-approaches are able to uncover a wide array of possible factors influencing variation, which may not always carry sociolinguistic functions.
This volume comprises twenty-two research articles on a wide range of languages and periods, all closely connected by their focus on intra-writer variation in historical texts and by their use of empirical and corpus-based approaches. The studies demonstrate that the challenges that historical material have for research on intra-individual variation can certainly be met and that the insights gleaned from analysing variation in individual writers are considerable.
Intra-individual variation is an emerging research field in linguistics with a rapidly growing number of studies. This volume comprises twenty-two research articles on a wide range of languages and periods, all closely connected by their focus on intra-writer variation in historical texts and by their use of empirical and corpus-based approaches.
Contents: Intra-writer variation in historical sociolinguistics: The
emergence of a new research field A qualitative approach to intra-writer
variation in late Babylonian letters: Two near-duplicate letters from the
Eanna archive (528 BCE) The use of discourse-ending formulae: Exploring
intra-writer variation in Michelangelo Buonarrotis correspondence Intra-
writer variation and the real world of epistolary interaction in historical
sociolinguistics: John Paston Is use of the orthographic variable (TH)
Patterns of stylistic variation in the use of synthetic and analytic
comparative adjectives: Evidence from private letters in sixteenth- to
eighteenth- century England Patterns of linguistic variation in Late Modern
English pauper petitions from Berkshire and Dorset Petitioning for the
education of the poor: Self-corrections as stylistic choices in a Late Modern
English draft letter Intra-writer variation in the requestive behaviour of
two Early Modern Scottish letter-writers Between societal constraints and
linguistic self-awareness: Stylistic variation in the letters of Prince
Ludwig von Anhalt-Köthen (16381646) Intra-writer variation in clitics in
German patient letters from the nineteenth and the early twentieth century
Intra-writer variation and linguistic accommodation in the letters of the
Milanese merchant Giovanni da Pessano to the Datini network (13971402)
Eighteenth-century Scots in correspondence during the Union Debates: An
intra-writer perspective Variation in verbal inflection in the private
writings of the Scottish emigrant Mary Ann Wodrow Archbald (17621841)
Assessing Dutch-French language choice in nineteenth-century private family
correspondence: From intra-writer variation to the bigger picture
Intra-writer variation in the multilingual Diary of Vytautas Civinskis
(18871910) Picnick and Sauerkraut: GermanEnglish intra-writer variation
in script and language (18671900) Intra-writer variation in Early Modern
Greek notary acts: Morphosyntactic patterns of accommodation What shall we
do with the writing sailor?: Style-shifting and individual language use in
a French navigation journal from the eighteenth century The linguistic
choices of an early nineteenth-century Basque writer Linguistic repertoires
and intra-writer variation in Old English: Hemming of Worcester Intra-text
variation as a case of intra-writer variation: Middle English scribal
behaviours, with a focus on the spelling variation of woman in MS Pepys 2125
Intra-writer variation in Old High German and Old Swedish: The impact of
social role relationship on constructing instructions On the indexical
meaning of literary style shifting: The case of word order variation in the
sixteenth-century Welsh Bible translations.
Markus Schiegg works in German Linguistics at Friedrich-Alexander-Universität Erlangen-Nürnberg. He currently leads the junior research group «Flexible Writers in Language History» that is compiling a corpus of historical patient texts from the nineteenth and early twentieth century. His research focuses on historical sociolinguistics, in particular on language variation and change in the history of German.
Judith Huber works in English Historical Linguistics at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU). She holds a PhD from LMU and worked in English Historical Linguistics at FAU Erlangen-Nürnberg and KU Eichstätt-Ingolstadt before returning to Munich. Her research focuses on variation and change in the history of English from a usage-based perspective, including syntax, lexicology, pragmatics and language contact.
