Downward Social Mobility in Eighteenth-Century English: A Micro-Level Analysis of the Correspondence of Queen Charlotte, Mary Hamilton and Frances Burney
This article discusses the construction of identities and the negotiation of social relationships in the correspondence between Queen Charlotte and Mary Hamilton, members of the societal elite, as well as between Mary Hamilton and Frances Burney, a social climber. The addressors are socially superio...
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Veröffentlicht in: | Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 2018-01, Vol.119 (1), p.71-100 |
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Format: | Artikel |
Sprache: | eng |
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Zusammenfassung: | This article discusses the construction of identities and the negotiation of social relationships in the correspondence between Queen Charlotte and Mary Hamilton, members of the societal elite, as well as between Mary Hamilton and Frances Burney, a social climber. The addressors are socially superior to the addressees, yet try to equalise the relationships by assigning status and prestige to the recipients, which is understood as downward social mobility (Cutillas-Espinosa et al. 2010). The social relationships will be analysed within Hua’s (2014) framework of self-oriented and ascribed identities. On the basis of letters and notes preserved in the Mary Hamilton Papers, as well as supplementary egodocuments, the linguistic means of identity construction will be investigated with a focus on referential terms. Evidence of linguistic awareness, as observed in meta-comments and self-corrections, offers additional insights into the social relationships between the interacting letter writers. The reactions of the addressees to the projected personae and offers of friendship are diametrically opposed: Hamilton warms to the Queen’s openings, while Burney retains a certain degree of emotional distance. The study further contributes to research on historical non-native Englishes, as well as language variation and change in eighteenth-century England, and highlights the value of analysing self-corrections in ego-documents. |
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ISSN: | 0028-3754 |