The history of the English language is a vast and diverse area of research. In this volume, a team of leading historians of English come together to analyse 'real' language, drawing on corpus data to shed new light on long-established issues and debates in the field. Combining synchronic and diachronic analysis, the chapters address the major issues in corpus linguistics - methodological, theoretical and applied - and place special focus on the use of electronic resources in the research of English and the wider field of digital humanities. Topics covered include polemical articles on the optimal use of corpus linguistic methods, macro-level patterns of text and discourse organisation, and micro-features such as interjections and hesitators. Covering Englishes from the past and present, this book is designed specifically for graduate students and researchers working in fields of corpus linguistics, the history of the English language, and historical linguistics.

Non-literal language is ubiquitous in everyday life, and while hyperbole is a major part of this, it has so far remained relatively unexplored. This volume provides the first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on data from genres such as spoken conversation, TV, newspapers, and literary works from Chaucer to Monty Python. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, it uses approaches from semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and classical rhetoric, to investigate in detail both speaker-centered and emotive aspects of hyperbole, and also addressee-related aspects, such as interpretation and interactional uptake. Illustrated with a range of diachronic case studies, hyperbole is also shown to be a main means of linguistic creativity, and an important contributor to language change. The book concludes with an exploration of the role of hyperbole in political speaking, humour, and literature. Original and in-depth, it will be invaluable to all those working on meaning, discourse, and historical linguistics.

Punctuation is an integral element in writing and has been so for centuries. The present volume brings together approaches in linguistics, stylistics and other fields to highlight the rich repertoire of issues involved in the study of punctuation. The contributions to the book discuss the grammatical, pragmatic, rhetorical and stylistic functions of punctuation, such as encoding emotion, metalinguistic marking, foregrounding and paralinguistic indication. They also highlight the sensibility of punctuation to genre and the speech-writing continuum, as well as the important role punctuation plays for reader interpretation. They further demonstrate how punctuation conventions change in time. The data is drawn from English, with one investigation devoted to German.

Non-literal language is ubiquitous in everyday life, and while hyperbole is a major part of this, it has so far remained relatively unexplored. This volume provides the first investigation of hyperbole in English, drawing on data from genres such as spoken conversation, TV, newspapers, and literary works from Chaucer to Monty Python. Combining quantitative and qualitative analyses, it uses approaches from semantics, pragmatics, discourse analysis and classical rhetoric to investigate in detail both speaker-centered and emotive aspects of hyperbole, and also addressee-related aspects, such as interpretation and interactional uptake. Illustrated with a range of diachronic case studies, hyperbole is also shown to be a main means of linguistic creativity, and an important contributor to language change. The book concludes with an exploration of the role of hyperbole in political speaking, humour, and literature. Original and in-depth, it will be invaluable to all those working on meaning, discourse, and historical linguistics.

The history of the English language is a vast and diverse area of research. In this volume, a team of leading historians of English come together to analyse 'real' language, drawing on corpus data to shed new light on long-established issues and debates in the field. Combining synchronic and diachronic analysis, the chapters address the major issues in corpus linguistics - methodological, theoretical and applied - and place special focus on the use of electronic resources in the research of English and the wider field of digital humanities. Topics covered include polemical articles on the optimal use of corpus linguistic methods, macro-level patterns of text and discourse organisation, and micro-features such as interjections and hesitators. Covering Englishes from the past and present, this book is designed specifically for graduate students and researchers working in fields of corpus linguistics, the history of the English language, and historical linguistics.