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Social networks and language change in Tudor and Stuart London – only connect?

Published online by Cambridge University Press:  01 July 2015

TERTTU NEVALAINEN
TERTTU NEVALAINEN*
Affiliation:
Department of Modern Languages, University of Helsinki, PO Box 24 (Unioninkatu 40), FI-00014 University of HelsinkiFinlandterttu.nevalainen@helsinki.fi
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Abstract

Place is an integral part of social network analysis, which reconstructs network structures and documents the network members’ linguistic practices in a community. Historical network analysis presents particular challenges in both respects. This article first discusses the kinds of data, official documents, personal letters and diaries that historians have used in reconstructing social networks and communities. These analyses could be enriched by including linguistic data and, vice versa, historical sociolinguistic findings may often be interpreted in terms of social networks.

Focusing on Early Modern London, I present two case studies, the first one investigating a sixteenth-century merchant family exchange network and the second discussing the seventeenth-century naval administrator Samuel Pepys, whose role as a community broker between the City and Westminster is assessed in linguistic terms. My results show how identifying the leaders and laggers of linguistic change can add to our understanding of the varied ways in which linguistic innovations spread to and from Tudor and Stuart London both within and across social networks.

Type
Research Article
Information
English Language & Linguistics , Volume 19 , Special Issue 2: Sense of place in the history of English , July 2015 , pp. 269 - 292
Copyright
Copyright © Cambridge University Press 2015 

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