“I hope you will write” : The function of projection structures in a corpus of nineteenth century Irish emigrant correspondence
- Submitting institution
-
Coventry University
- Unit of assessment
- 32 - Art and Design: History, Practice and Theory
- Output identifier
- 11594869
- Type
- D - Journal article
- DOI
-
10.1075/jhp.16.2.06mor
- Title of journal
- Journal of Historical Pragmatics
- Article number
- -
- First page
- 277
- Volume
- 16
- Issue
- 2
- ISSN
- 1566-5852
- Open access status
- Out of scope for open access requirements
- Month of publication
- January
- Year of publication
- 2015
- URL
-
-
- Supplementary information
-
-
- Request cross-referral to
- 27 - English Language and Literature
- Output has been delayed by COVID-19
- No
- COVID-19 affected output statement
- -
- Forensic science
- No
- Criminology
- No
- Interdisciplinary
- No
- Number of additional authors
-
0
- Research group(s)
-
-
- Proposed double-weighted
- No
- Reserve for an output with double weighting
- No
- Additional information
- In histories of the mass migration from Ireland to the United States, which peaked in the 19th Century, letters have been used by historians to understand the conditions and daily lives of emigrants and how individuals and groups adapted to the New World. Linguists have used collections of correspondence to shed light on language change and variation and to map out the linguistic and structural features of letters. This provides an invaluable connection between linguistic analysis, material culture, and the field of cultural memory. The research asks how the language of correspondence enabled emigrants to maintain relationships across distance and time.
The corpus contains 88 letters by four sisters (the Lough sisters), who emigrated from Ireland to America in the 1870s and 1880s. Emigrant letters are expressive and indicative of correspondents' identities, values, preoccupations and beliefs; they are a powerful source of information and understanding about migration issues and provide a colourful picture of domestic life from an emigrant perspective. The research examines the use of the pattern Pronoun + Verb + Pronoun (as in I hope you, you think I and she knows he) in the corpus, aims to investigate how these clauses (described as projection structures) function and how they contribute to the interactive nature of letters, helping to strengthen and maintain familial bonds over time and distance. Corpus methods are used to identify and extract these patterns. A more qualitative investigation then examines the function of projection structures and how they construct and reflect author/recipient relationships. What the research reveals is that the ability to directly address and involve the recipient of the letter, by assigning to them a role to play in the communicative event, builds an important psychological link between author and recipient. Projection structures may, therefore, reveal something about how family relationships are maintained.
- Author contribution statement
- -
- Non-English
- No
- English abstract
- -