Diachronicity: An issue shared between linguistics and literary studies

The essays published in this special issue engage with the issue of diachronicity, or diachronic change, at the interdisciplinary intersection of literary studies and linguistics. How do linguists and how do literary scholars approach developments of language and of literature from their disciplinary perspectives, and how do these approaches compare with each other? The essays in this special issue probe a subject of profound relevance to both fields and one which extends beyond the purview of English literature alone (albeit within the confines of the UK and its literary traditions). The contributions have their origin in a special session co-convened by editors Monika Fludernik and Olga Timofeeva at the 2022 Anglistentag (Mainz), the annual meeting of academics in English language and literature in German-speaking countries. Both Fludernik and Timofeeva have contributed extensively to historical language inquiry, particularly in the domain of historical pragmatics (for the term and the discipline see Jucker, 1995; Fitzmaurice and Taavitsainen, 2007; Taavitsainen and Jucker, 2015; see also the Journal of Historical Pragmatics), an area of research which has been at the forefront of discussions about how language changes in the context of language use over the centuries. Timofeeva’s interest in historical pragmatics is linked primarily to the evolution of English in diverse sociocultural contexts. Her research encompasses not only linguistic pragmatics but also the history of genres and discourse, unravelling the interplay between lexical, syntactic, and sociopragmatic patterns and genre variation in the history of Old and Middle English. For Fludernik, as a narratologist, historical pragmatics offers fertile ground for elucidating narrative development models. Expanding beyond individual sentences, historical pragmatics, akin to all branches of linguistic pragmatics, scrutinizes contextual language use at a textual (rather than sentence) level, encompassing entire texts and genres. This affords a seamless transition to narrative studies, which grapple with larger linguistic units—narrative texts. Moreover, historical pragmatics propounds diverse methodologies to correlate form and function patterns, thereby unveiling the intricate evolution of lexemes, phrases, and syntactic constructions, illuminating their formal and functional development. Such analysis, facilitated by expansive databases, delineates how linguistic forms undergo modification, substitution, or retention, contingent upon contextual exigencies. This research can therefore serve as an inspiration to narratology since it proposes models for historical change that have not been current in literary studies, that is in the discipline that most narratologists find themselves working in. At the same time, literary and narratological analysis may be useful to linguists because it takes into consideration wider and deeper social and literary contexts, and provides terminology that distinguishes specifically narrative functions and parameters in narrative discourse.

The examination of diachronic change is of paramount concern within the realms of both linguistics and literary studies. Historical linguistics, tracing its roots back to the seminal work by such scholars as Rasmus C. Rask and Franz Bopp at the dawn of the nineteenth century, alongside the establishment of Indo-European philology as a scholarly discipline, boasts a rich and extensive tradition of diachronic analysis characterized by profound methodological sophistication. Conversely, within literary studies, the diachronic perspective has historically been confined primarily to the realm of literary history. While this interest flourished notably during the Romantic era, it encountered a period of relative decline in the latter half of the twentieth century, coinciding with the ascendancy of structuralism and poststructuralism within literary theory. In the field of linguistics, the post-classical structuralist era witnessed a proliferation of diverse methodological approaches, encompassing generative syntax, pragmatics, and discourse analysis, among others. This period engendered a perception that the domain of historical linguistics had been exhausted, with little novel terrain left to explore. However, the emergence of historical pragmatics heralded a decisive reorientation within the field, augmented by the increasingly expansive repositories of linguistic data spanning earlier epochs of language evolution.

Hence, we contend that the inquiry into diachronicity, denoting the exploration of developmental trajectories in both language and literature, constitutes a fundamental pursuit within English studies. We advocate a cross-disciplinary approach, fostering collaboration among scholars from disparate fields of research. The term diachronicity is chosen deliberately over history for several reasons. Employing history already suggests that there is a historical development that can be traced. The label also, as Andrew Johnston’s essay demonstrates so forcefully, smacks of teleology; it suggests that there is one historical development which will result in the present status quo. This understanding of history as teleology (familiar from Hegel’s philosophy of history) has come under considerable pressure from the direction of postcolonial studies, especially in the context of European (the West’s) claims to modernity, which imply that the rest of the globe was or still is lagging behind the achievements of modernity and has been trying to acquire the knowhow and cultural mastery of the former colonial powers. As a result, critics like Dipesh Chakrabarty (2000) have argued that there are plural modernities and that non-Western modernities have had a key impact on the West. In fact, history is the study of the past through the perspective of the present: the key question of historical study has always been how one has arrived at the present moment. The past is therefore always that which is studied to provide an explanation of how present states of affairs have arisen; but by searching for causal models that trace such a development, one inevitably reduces the past to those aspects that allow for explications of the present. Historical narratives are inherently revisionary, subject to reinterpretation based on evolving contexts. Thus, while historical inquiry seeks to elucidate the past’s role in shaping the present and the future, it must continually adapt to accommodate new perspectives and emergent paradigms. Hence, history and teleology need not be equated in the sense that one assumes an inevitable unidirectional development of historical processes.

History, regardless of the field, remains relatively straightforward when anchored in factual data. Generally, one can discern events that happened, actions that took place and works of art that were published, performed or exhibited in a chronological sequence. The challenge in historical writing arises when it comes to selecting which events, authors, and literary works to include in the narrative. Where the writing of history becomes problematic is in the selection of events, authors and works of literature in the process of constructing a story. The problem of the mass of data requires selection, but selection is always prone to ideological falsification. In literary history, the contribution of women authors has until recently been deliberately downplayed and neglected; in linguistics, it was the language of everyday speech (the parole) that needed to be recuperated from side-lining; and, since the 1990s, the databases of manuscripts and early printed materials now available have opened access to much linguistic and literary evidence that could not be factored into whatever synchronic or diachronic analysis that had been undertaken.

Historical linguistics and historical pragmatics have significantly contributed to the theoretical examination of language evolution and the methodologies employed to elucidate them. The questions posed within these domains display striking similarities for both linguists and literary scholars. For instance, one can map out how the Great Vowel Shift occurred, or how neo-classical poetry was supplanted by Romantic poetry. Yet – unlike physics or chemistry – our disciplines grapple with the inherent challenge of formulating theories to explain these developments, as empirical validation remains elusive. While it may be comparatively easier to identify discontinuities, providing cogent explanations for why certain linguistic or literary features remain unchanged while others evolve poses a formidable challenge. This complexity stems from the multifaceted and intricate cultural contexts that underpin language and literary production, defying reduction to simple causal relationships. Thus, crafting nuanced explanations necessitates dealing with the intricate interplay of multilayered cultural factors, resisting facile attempts at causal reductionism.

Languages and literatures are organic systems that are involved in a continuous process of change. Perhaps, rather than imposing narratives and explanations, it is more prudent to describe continuities and discontinuities with a degree of humility. Recognizing where changes have occurred and outlining where and when they occur, what they consist in, and how widespread they are constitutes a useful first step towards a cautious diachronic study. Instead of precipitously delving into where angels fear to tread, it may be useful to analyze what contributions to historical linguistics and to literary history are actually doing after two different states of affairs have been diagnosed to exist and the question arises how the change originated, even before asking why that happened. Here literature scholars and linguists have much to learn from one another.

One key element in such analyses is the relation of form(s) to function(s). Rather than operating on the abstract level of explaining the shift from neo-classicism to Romanticism or from Middle English to Early Modern English, what narratologists and historical pragmaticists have been doing is to focus much more precisely on the language and the surface structure of generic conventions and linguistic devices and to map out how forms and functions – often separately and not in a coordinated manner – change over time, and this can allow insights into how certain functions arise or others become obsolete, how old forms are refunctionalized when they have been supplanted by competitive forms, and how new functions require new formal expression.

With the integration of methodological and theoretical approaches to diachronic development in language and narrative, the session at the Anglistentag and this resultant special issue aim to explore the intricacies of analyzing and comprehending historical change in textual form(s). By convening literary and linguistic scholars, the essays at hand investigate the complexities of diachronic change within their respective domains. Each paper endeavours to address the challenges of approaching diachronicity within its specific area of expertise. Notably, the methodologies employed diverge significantly, reflecting the evolution of scholarly practices. While linguistic studies of historical developments now rely heavily on corpus analysis, literary scholars predominantly concentrate on individual texts, exemplary instances, and genre-specific inquiries. However, it is crucial to note that many literary critics, beyond narratologists, also scrutinize language closely. Similarly, practitioners of historical pragmatics encounter challenges akin to those faced by literary scholars when delving into genre analysis and endeavouring to contextualize linguistic changes within broader sociological and historical frameworks. This interdisciplinary dialogue fosters a nuanced understanding of diachronic development, enriching scholarly discourse by bridging the gap between linguistic and literary approaches to historical inquiry.

Thus, diachronicity, the study of linguistic and literary changes over time, encompasses a multifaceted exploration of continuity and discontinuity within evolving textual forms. In the present collection, scholars engage in the complexities of comparing different synchronic situations, juxtaposing, for instance, the linguistic and literary landscapes of the fourteenth or seventeenth centuries with those of the twentieth or twenty-first. Rather than merely contrasting these snapshots in time, they delve deeper, seeking to unravel the intricate threads of how and why modern and present-day forms emerge from their medieval and Renaissance counterparts. This inquiry extends to the examination of intermediate stages, refunctionalization of forms, and other transformative processes. Central to this discourse is the discussion of formal versus functional change, with the contributors dissecting the nuanced interplay between linguistic structure and communicative purpose. Complicating matters further is the phenomenon of several forms serving the same function, alongside instances where a single form may adopt varied functions depending on contextual factors but also in free variation. As scholars grapple with the reasons for linguistic and literary change, the debate between externally triggered versus internally driven factors looms large. Whether changes are spurred by external influences such as sociopolitical shifts or by internal linguistic or literary dynamics remains a subject of ongoing inquiry, shaping our understanding of the complex forces driving diachronic evolution in language and literature.

The seven papers in this special issue open with a discussion of periodization by Andrew James Johnston, an issue that is equally relevant to literary and linguistic study and equally controversial in both fields. Johnston’s case study is the performative inscription of (pseudo-)orality in Middle English romances and its elaboration and ironic undermining in Chaucer’s oeuvre.

Claudia Claridge’s contribution concerns a data-driven study of addressees in narrative (narratologists would call them narratees) and is able to profit from literary discussions of this issue while proffering statistical data on the distribution of specific modes in which the ‘reader’ of the narrative texts is being addressed. As Claridge demonstrates on the basis of a corpus of novels published between 1710 and 1920, issues of politeness and face play a crucial role in explaining shifts in the distribution of the two main formulae of reader address that she is analyzing.

Dorothee Birke inventively links preoccupations with the reader’s emotions in eighteenth-century novels of sentiment and sensibility with present-day digital media enactments of emotional excess occasioned by affective reading. Rather than merely focusing on the linguistics of affect, that is the expression of emotions in syntax and by means of lexical choices, Birke concentrates on the impact of these strategies on readers, with intentional affect and mimetic restaging of emotional reaction playing a key role. The analysis poses the question of remediation of traditional patterns but also points to the financial underpinnings of the contemporary practices in digital media culture.

Christine Elsweiler’s examination of request sequences in Scottish correspondence from 1570 to 1750 likewise concerns an area of inquiry shared by literary and linguistic scholars. After all, letters are a prominent genre in literary study thanks to the epistolary novel. Letters have also been a focus in work on seventeenth and eighteenth-century conduct literature (often discussing how to compose epistolary correspondence). Issues of politeness, popular in early work in linguistic pragmatics (Brown and Levinson, 1987), have also been much studied in connection with literary texts (Sell, 1991) and in the narrator’s relationship with the reader/narratee, figuring extensively in analyses of the use of thou versus you in Shakespeare (Mazzon, 2003; Busse, 2006; among many others). Elsweiler’s analysis suggests that while there is no increase in polite gestures towards recipients over time, there is a decline in commitments to the recipient, indicating a potential shift towards a less deferential style in the eighteenth century. This finding offers valuable insights for future research into politeness norms in historical correspondence.

Olga Timofeeva’s essay explores the evolution of English second-person pronouns, particularly focusing on the introduction and functions of the polite forms ye/you in Early Middle English. The study derives data from two medieval verse romances, Havelok the Dane (c.1300) and The Tale of Gamelyn (c.1350). Both narratives feature protagonists facing social ambiguity. The key aim of the article is to understand how the characters of Havelok and Gamelyn are constructed through pronominal usage. The study of thou/thee versus ye/you variation is, thus, suggested as a tool to enhance literary interpretation, for example, character analysis.

Turning again to literary studies, the next two essays present case studies on literary developments on different levels of the literary text and in relation to different generic frames. Hilary Duffield’s analysis of recognition in coincidence patterns and in the invasion novel and film as well as in eco-literature takes its starting point from the cognitive experience of surprising recognition, which has been a staple of literary studies since Aristotle, and then demonstrates two crucial modes in which this scenario can be played out in fiction. The constellation of recognition itself is a human fact, but it is put to different historically variable uses in narratives.

Alexandra Effe focuses on what she calls the autofictional mode in narratives from the late seventeenth to the turn of the twentieth century, discussing texts that move towards – without as yet instantiating completely – what has become popular as autofiction in the late twentieth century. In so doing, she raises important questions about tracing a phenomenon which is anachronistically labelled since the referent cannot yet be fully identified as autofiction. In this respect she puts forward a problem that recurs in history – can we talk of the state or of parliament when we are treating proto-forms of these concepts – as well as literature – is Elizabethan romance a kind of proto-novel or not?

What these contributions demonstrate is the freedom (or licence) of literature to constitute its own processes of change for the sake of variety, the creation of new modes of expression and the creative appropriation and reinterpretation of previously available devices and techniques. It is therefore an important question to see to what extent language within a linguistic framework can become equally creative in generating emergent structures and devices without these developments necessarily having to be linked to pragmatic constraints based on social or historical influences. On the other hand, one may want to ask whether there are not after all ascertainable triggers and determinable causes for particular trends in literature, though these may be hard to prove in a scientific fashion.