Diachronicity: An issue shared between linguistics and literary studies

Abstract

Both linguists and literary scholars deal with change over time. This special issue approaches the question of diachronic development from a comparative perspective, contrasting the ways in which analysis of changes observable in literary texts over the centuries is handled in the realm of literary studies and how linguists discuss language-specific (dis)continuities from one period to the other. For instance, as is well known, generic modifications and repurposing frequently play an important role in literary studies, while linguists often focus on form versus function analysis. These methodological preferences are not exclusive to the two fields, however. The essays in this issue demonstrate how very similar questions and often comparable methodologies are employed by linguists and literary scholars, especially by representatives of historical pragmatics and narratologists, who share methodological assumptions about form and function analysis.