Analysis of interactive speaking roles in a paratextual genre: The case of witchcraft pamphlets’ prefaces (1566–1621)

Abstract

Informed by Goffman’s concept of footing, this study seeks to explore the multiple voices and speaking roles that a pamphleteer may assume in the preface of witchcraft pamphlets, along with their pragmatic functions. The study quantitatively and qualitatively analyzes the prefatory section of 13 witchcraft pamphlets, spanning from Elizabethan to Jacobean England (1566–1621). The findings reveal the ways in which pamphleteers consistently shift into and depart from three speaking identities (authorial, interlocutory, and character roles), and different patterns of speaking role inhabitance are witnessed during the periods under study, which in turn makes the prefaces come across in different ways. Such distinct patterns strategically serve to promote the reception, and avoid the refutation, of the main text.