3 The corpus
It is important to choose the texts for a study along these lines carefully to achieve a satisfactory coverage of the English language of the period.
Rydén & Brorström (1987:14) state that in a diachronic study, a stylistically homogeneous corpus is preferable. In a primarily synchronic study such as this, however, stylistic variation in the corpus aids the coverage strived for. An average for the period can then be determined, rather than an average for a single author or text type.
The corpus examined was compiled specifically for this paper, and it consists of examples of "private" and "public" language. "Private" language is represented by diaries and letters, neither of which were intended for other readers than the writer (and the receiver of the letter), and "public" language by comedies. For a discussion on spoken language, see sections 3.1 and 3.2. These text types were deemed to form a sufficiently varied corpus. Other text types that could have been examined are e.g. sermons, scientific texts and newspapers; it was, however, important to limit the corpus to a size which made several close readings of all texts possible.
The texts were written between the years 1660 and 1707. Only one woman is represented among the writers, which reflects the fact that not much has survived to us from female authors of the period.
Some of the texts studied have been modernised in spelling and punctuation without altering the wording of the texts in a way harmful to the data excerpted for this study. See Appendix A for comments on the various editions.
A number of comedies by William Congreve, Sir George Etheredge, George Farquhar, Sir John Vanbrugh and William Wycherley were excerpted for relevant data. Two plays by each author were selected, making it circa 200,000 words all in all. For comments on the authors' styles, see section 4.1.
The inclusion of comedies in the corpus was made upon the assumption that the comedy authors tried to capture the contemporary spoken language, at least to some degree.8 After the restoration of Charles II in 1660 and the end of Puritan rule, stage-play was no longer forbidden and subjects considered unmentionable in writing ten years earlier were suddenly acceptable on the stage. The fact that the continuum of play-writing had been broken meant that the dramatists had to start anew, with comparatively little influence from earlier playwrights. Another novelty was the introduction of women on the stage: boys no longer played female parts in the plays, and all of a sudden it was possible to make scenes with flirtations and attempted seductions much more realistic. This new freedom presumably resulted in a more modern usage of language than the older writers could allow themselves to.
It must not, however, be assumed that the stage dialogue was identical to contemporary spoken language off stage. Comedies were often used as satirical affronts on society, and the language of the plays was employed to achieve those goals. See Altenberg 1982:268 ff., Davison 1969:x f. The function of the comedies in this corpus is to exemplify public rather than spoken language; it is also probable that the language of the comedies to some degree represents the language of less well-educated people of a lower standing in life.
The comedies were written between the years 1668 and 1707, which is a somewhat larger time span than either of the other two text types included in the study show. They have yielded a considerably larger number of examples than either of the other text types.
The diary texts studied comprise circa 200,000 words from the diaries of Samuel Pepys, John Evelyn and the Rev. Ralph Josselin. There is a marked difference in the number of examples gleaned from these three authors (see Table 2). This is a consequence of Josselin's fondness for clipped sentences and verbless clauses of the type "report the Dutch fleet on our coast, and wee unreadie" (p. 567), as well as some contracted VPs which were not included owing to the incompleteness of the phrase structure, e.g. "the Q was sent for to France said to be come" (p. 471).
The fact that Josselin's diary is so extremely sparse in useful examples to some degree overshadows the fact that the two other diary writers have also yielded rather fewer examples per textual unit than the authors of other text types, as shown in Table 1. This is in all probability caused by the difference in intended readers; although some diarists have been known to write "public" diaries anticipating publication, this was not the case with the authors included in this corpus. The only intended reader seems to have been the diarist himself.
The diary texts were written between the years 1660 and 1685. Pepys, who wrote very extensive diary entries, is represented in the year 1668 only; the examples from Josselin range from 1660 to 1676 while the examples from Evelyn are collected from the years 1670 to 1685.
Approximately 100,000 words drawn from letters of the period were excerpted for examples. The letters are taken from the Lyme letter collection, from the letters of Humphrey Prideaux to John Ellis and from lady Rachel Russell's letters.
The Lyme letters were written by the Leigh family of Lyme to their friends and relations between the years 1662 and 1690. Some of the writers were women; it is, however, extremely difficult and due to the small number of examples not very rewarding to try and separate the female writers from the male ones.9
Humphrey Prideaux was employed at the Oxford University Press for part of the period 1674 - 1681, when the letters excerpted for study were written. Later, he was a tutor and lecturer in Hebrew at Christ Church College, Oxford. In 1681, he became Prebendary of Norwich. His letters to John Ellis are full of amusing details of the college and parish life and clearly not very formal in register.
The letters chosen from Lady Russell's collection were written between the years 1683 and 1688. Most of her letters were written to Doctor Fitzwilliam, "a divine for whom lady Russell had a great esteem and friendship" (Russell p.7). There are also a few letters written to officials. Lady Russell became a widow in 1683, when her husband William, Lord Russell was beheaded, charged with treason. Many of her letters to Dr. Fitzwilliam deal with her sorrow and grief and are rather personal in register, for which reason it can be assumed that her language is not unusually formal. There are two letters from a Dr. Tillotson and a few from Dr. Fitzwilliam, all to lady Russell, in the excerpt. Very few of the instances of aux+PP come from these letters.
On reading these letters, it became clear that letter-writing at this time, including letters to one's family and close friends, was formalised almost into an art. It is probable that the elaborate language of the letters lies far from the spoken language, and the letters therefore represent written language, specifically as used by upper-class well-educated people.