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Written Reliquaries: The resonance of orality in medieval English texts establishes the linguistic component of orality and oral tradition. The relics it examines are traces of spoken performance, artifacts of linguistic and cultural processes. Seven case studies animate verbal acts of making promises, quoting proverbs, pronouncing curses, speaking gibberish, praying Pater Nosters, invoking saints, and keeping silence. The study of their resonance is enabled by a methodological conjunction of historical pragmatics and oral theory. Insights from oral theory enlighten spoken traditions which in turn may be understood in the larger historical-pragmatic context of linguistic performance. The inquiry ranges across broad as well as narrow planes of reference to trace a complex set of cultural and linguistic interactions. In this way it reconstructs relevant discursive contexts, giving detailed accounts of underlying assumptions, traditions, and conventions. Doing so, the book demonstrates that an integrated methodology not only allows access to oral discourse in both Old English and Middle English but also provides insight into the fluid medieval interchange of literacy and orality.

Historical linguistics --- Pragmatics --- Anglo-Saxon language (c. 600-1100) --- Dialogue in literature. --- Discourse analysis, Narrative --- English philology --- Literature, Medieval --- English philology, Middle --- Middle English philology --- Narration (Rhetoric) --- Social aspects. --- History and criticism --- Theory, etc.

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English philology --- Civilization, Medieval, in literature. --- Civilization, Medieval, in literature --- English Literature --- English --- Languages & Literatures --- English philology, Middle --- Middle English philology --- Chaucer, Geoffrey, --- Chaucer, Jeffrey, --- Chʻiao-sou, Chieh-fu-lei, --- Chieh-fu-lei Chʻiao-sou, --- Choser, Dzheffri, --- Choser, Zheoffreĭ, --- Cosvr, Jvoffrvi, --- Tishūsar, Zhiyūfrī, --- Criticism and interpretation.

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This book traces the development of the ideal of sincerity from its origins in Anglo-Saxon monasteries to its eventual currency in fifteenth-century familiar letters. Beginning by positioning sincerity as an ideology at the intersection of historical pragmatics and the history of emotions, the author demonstrates how changes in the relationship between outward expression and inward emotions changed English language and literature. While the early chapters reveal that the notion of sincerity was a Christian intervention previously absent from Germanic culture, the latter part of the book provides more focused studies of contrition and love. In doing so, the author argues that under the rubric of courtesy these idealized emotions influenced English in terms of its everyday pragmatics and literary style. This fascinating volume will be of broad interest to scholars of medieval language, literature and culture.

English literature --- English philology --- Sincerity in literature. --- English philology, Middle --- Middle English philology --- History and criticism. --- Linguistics. --- Literature, Modern. --- Pragmatics. --- British literature. --- Comparative linguistics. --- Historical Linguistics. --- Early Modern/Renaissance Literature. --- Language and Literature. --- British and Irish Literature. --- Comparative Linguistics. --- Comparative philology --- Philology, Comparative --- Historical linguistics --- Pragmalinguistics --- General semantics --- Language and languages --- Logic, Symbolic and mathematical --- Semantics (Philosophy) --- Modern literature --- Arts, Modern --- Linguistic science --- Science of language --- Philosophy --- Historical linguistics. --- Philology. --- Diachronic linguistics --- Dynamic linguistics --- Evolutionary linguistics --- Language and history --- Linguistics --- History