Language and Letters of the Bluestocking Network : Sociolinguistic Issues in Eighteenth Century Epistolary English

This study deals with language change and variation in the correspondence of the eighteenth-century Bluestocking circle, a social network which provided learned men and women with an informal environment for the pursuit of scholarly entertainment. Elizabeth Montagu (1718 1800), a notable social hostess and a Shakespearean scholar, was one of their key figures. The study presents the reconstruction of Elizabeth Montagu s social networks from her youth to her later years with a special focus on the Bluestocking circle, and linguistic research on private correspondence between Montagu and her Bluestocking friends and family members between the years 1738 1778. The epistolary language use is investigated using the methods and frameworks of corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, and social network analysis. The approach is diachronic and concerns real-time language change. The research is based on a selection of manuscript letters which I have edited and compiled into an electronic corpus (Bluestocking Corpus). I have also devised a network strength scale in order to quantify the strength of network ties and to compare the results of the linguistic research with the network analysis. The studies range from the reconstruction and analysis of Elizabeth Montagu s most prominent social networks to the analysis of changing morphosyntactic features and spelling variation in Montagu s and her network members correspondence. The linguistic studies look at the use of the progressive construction, preposition stranding and pied piping, and spelling variation in terms of preterite and past participle endings in the regular paradigm (-ed, - d, -d, - t, -t) and full / contracted spellings of auxiliary verbs. The results are analysed in terms of social network membership, sociolinguistic variables of the correspondents, and, when relevant, aspects of eighteenth-century linguistic prescriptivism. The studies showed a slight diachronic increase in the use of the progressive, a significant decrease of the stigmatised preposition stranding and increase of pied piping, and relatively informal but socially controlled epistolary spelling. Certain significant changes in Elizabeth Montagu s language use over the years could be attributed to her increasingly prominent social standing and the changes in her social networks, and the strength of ties correlated strongly with the use of the progressive in the Bluestocking Corpus. Gender, social rank, and register in terms of kinship/friendship had a significant influence in language use, and an effect of prescriptivism could also be detected. Elizabeth Montagu s network ties resulted in language variation in terms of network membership, her own position in a given network, and the social factors that controlled eighteenth-century interaction. When all the network ties are strong, linguistic variation seems to be essentially linked to the social variables of the informants.

Sermons, discourses, and epistolary opinions on religious matters by Gershom Seixas

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Collaborative Scholarship on the Margins: An Epistolary Network

This article explores collaborative scholarship on the margins of intellectual life in eighteenth-century England via a close examination of George Ballard's collected correspondence from women letter-writers. Ballard was both a man of trade and an antiquary, and his modest social status inhibited his freedom to move in scholarly circles. Ballard's only published book documented the lives and works of "learned ladies" of Britain from the fifteenth to the eighteenth centuries, and his female correspondents included the Anglo-Saxon scholar Elizabeth Elstob. His collected correspondence provides an insight into a network that operated outside of the major institutions of scholarship and far from the coffee houses of metropolitan life, but which supported its participants in their intellectual endeavours. By examining the collection materially, and by plotting the correspondents geographically, a more precise picture can be drawn of how women and lower-status men could engage in intellectual life from the peripheries of scholarly society. 

An epistolary discourse containing a new resolution and improvement of the grand apocalyptical question, concerning the rise and fall of Rome papal /

Early editions published under title: Apocalyptical key.

The epistolary correspondence of the Right Hon. Edmund Burke and Dr. French Laurence.

Mode of access: Internet.

Junius, lord Chatham; a biography, setting forth the condition of English politics preceding and contemporary with the revolutionary Junian period, and showing the the greatest orator and statesman was also the greatest epistolary writer of his age.

An attempt to identify Junius with William Pitt, earl of Chatham.

The life of Samuel Johnson ... comprising a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons; and various original pieces of his composition; with a chronological account of his studies and numerous works ...

Mode of access: Internet.

Athenian letters: or, The epistolary correspondence of an agent of the king of Persia, residing at Athens during the Peloponnesian war. A new edition; to which is prefixed a geographical index. In two volumes. Illustrated with engravings, and a map of ancient Greece ...

The work of a group of English writers each letter being signed by an initial indicating the author, as follows. P.-Philip Yorke; C.-Charles Yorke; R.-G.H. Rooke; G.-John Green; W.-Daniel Wray; H.-Henry Heaton; E.-Wm. Heberden; O.-Henry Coventry; L.-John Lawry; T.-Catherine Talbot; B.-Thomas Birch; S.-Samuel Salter. The work was edited by Thomas Birch, the brothers Yorke having the largest share in the composition of the letters.

Friends' miscellany: being a collection of essays and fragments, biographical, religious, epistolary, narrative and historical; designed for the promotion of piety and virtue ...

Mode of access: Internet.

A select series, biographical, narrative, epistolary, and miscellaneous; chiefly the productions of early members of the Society of Friends: intended to illustrate the spiritual character of the gospel of Christ /

The first five volumes were edited by John Barclay. After his death in 1838 volumes 6 through 8 were prepared by his brother A.R.Barclay. cf. Smith, I-172.

The life of Samuel Johnson, LL.D. : comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works, in chronological order; a series of his epistolary correspondence; and conversations with many eminent persons ... /

Spine title: Boswell's Johnson.

The life of Samuel Johnson : comprehending an account of his studies and numerous works in chronological order : a series of his epistolary correspondence and conversations with many eminent persons : and various original pieces of his composition, never before published /

Advertisement to the 9th ed. signed by the editor, Alexander Chalmers.