The Language of Queen Elizabeth I

The Language of Queen Elizabeth I presents one of the first diachronic accounts of the language – the idiolect – of the Tudor monarch who ruled England and Ireland from 1558-1603.

• Suggests that Elizabeth I was a leader of language innovation and change, using it to build her complex social identity as a female monarch in a masculine position of power
• Examines a number of the monarch’s letters, speeches, and translations
• Establishes Elizabeth I’s participation in ten morpho-syntactic changes and explores her spelling practice
• Develops theoretical and methodological frameworks of variationist sociolinguistics through the analysis of the individual speaker
• Argues for the significance of style as a linguistic and material property in our account of language variation and change

Acknowledgements

List of Abbreviations

Part 1

1. Introduction 1

1.1 Historical Sociolinguistics

1.2 Research Question 1

1.3 Research Question 2

1.4 Research Question 3

2. The Elizabeth I Corpus (QEIC)

3. Methodology

3.1 Macro-level Corpora

3.2 Comparative Analysis

3.3 Social Factors

3.4 Interactive Factors

3.5 Stylistic Factors

3.6 Systemic Factors

3.7 Linguistic Factors

Part 2: Results and Analysis

4. Affirmative Do

4.1 Results

4.2 Social Factors

4.3 Systemic Factors

4.4 Interactive Factors

4.5 Stylistic Factors

4.6 Summary

5. Negative Do

5.1 Results

5.2 Systemic Factors

5.3 Social Factors

5.4 Interactive Factors

5.5 Stylistic Factors

5.6 Summary

6. The Replacement of Ye by You

6.1 Results

6.2 Social Factors

6.3 Stylistic Factors

6.4 Interactive and Systemic Factors

6.5 Summary

7. First- and Second-Person Possessive Determiners

7.1 Results

7.2 Social Factors

7.3 Stylistic Factors

7.4 Interactive Factors

7.5 Summary

8. Multiple Negation vs. Single Negation

8.1 Results

8.2 Systemic Factors

8.3 Social Factors

8.4 Stylistic Factors

8.5 Summary

9. Animacy and Relative Marker: who/which

9.1 Results

9.2 Systemic Factors

9.3 Social Factors

9.4 Interactive Factors

9.5 Stylistic Factors

9.6 Objective case: whom/which

9.7 Summary

10. Which and The Which

10.1 Results

10.2 Social Factors

10.3 Systemic Factors

10.4 Stylistic Factors

10.5 Interactive Factors

10.6 Summary

11. Superlative Adjectives

11.1 Results

11.2 Systemic Factors

11.3 Interactive Factors

11.4 Stylistic Factors

11.5 Double Forms

11.6 Results

11.7 Stylistic Factors

11.8 Summary

12. Royal We and Other Pronouns of Self-Reference

12.1 Background

12.2 Results

12.3 Interactive Factors

12.4 Stylistic Factors

12.5 Comparison with Other Royal Idiolects

12.6 Other Pronouns of Self-Reference

12.7 Summary

13. Spelling

13.1 Background

13.2 Methodology

13.3 Results: Spelling Consistency

13.4 Diachronic Consistency

13.5 Graph Combinations

13.6 Final

13.7 and

13.8 Combinations

13.9 , and

13.10 and

13.11 and

13.12 and

13.13 Idiosyncrasies and Spelling Reform

13.14 Summary

Part 3: Research Questions

14. Research Question 1

14.1 The Gender Question

14.2 Summary

15. Research Question 2

15.1 Case Study 1: The Seymour Letters

15.2 Case Study 2: 1576 Parliamentary Speech

15.3 Case Study 3: The CEEC Hoby Letter

15.4 Case Study 4: 1597 Prayer

15.5 Summary

16. Research Question 3

16.1 Idiolects and Idiosyncrasy

16.2 Adolescence and Adulthood

16.3 Linguistic Leadership

16.4 Innovators, Early Adopters and Networks

16.5 Explaining Progressiveness: Communities of Practice

16.6 Hypercorrection and Linguistic Leadership

16.7 Stylistic Variation and Historical Sociolinguistics

17. Final Word

Part 4: Appendix

18. Tabular Data

19. The Queen Elizabeth I Corpus (QEIC)

19.1 Correspondence

19.2 Speeches

19.3 Translations

19.4 Queen Elizabeth I Corpus: Text Information

Textual Sources

References

“I recommend this work to scholars specialising in Elizabeth I, regardless of their discipline; historical and present-day sociolinguists working particularly with idiolect research; and those interested in historical spelling variation and historical authorship attribution.” (Cercles, 1 February 2015)

Mel Evans is a Lecturer in English Language at the University of Birmingham. Her research explores the relationship between language variation and change, style, and identity in contemporary and Early Modern English, with a particular interest in the language of the Tudor Court.

The Language of Queen Elizabeth I presents a diachronic account of the language – the idiolect – of the Tudor monarch who ruled England and Ireland from 1558-1603. English language expert and Tudor scholar, Mel Evans, utilizes the principles of variationist sociolinguistics to identify and interpret the relationship between Elizabeth’s changing language use and her social experiences as princess and queen.

Examining a corpus of the popular monarch’s letters, speeches, and translations, Evans’ innovative research firmly establishes the queen’s participation in ten morpho-syntactic changes. Evans’ findings suggest that Elizabeth I was often in the vanguard of language innovation and change, with her stylistic choices (by genre or context) working to constitute and reflect her complex social identity as a highly-educated female monarch in a masculine position of power. A systematic analysis of Elizabeth's spelling likewise reveals the bearing of the queen's social experiences on her orthographic practice. While offering illuminating insights into a fascinating aspect of the last Tudor monarch, The Language of Queen Elizabeth I makes a broader argument relating to the importance of the individual speaker in sociolinguistic research, and the significance of style as a linguistic and material property in our account of language variation and change.