Sage Journals: Discover world-class research

Abstract

None of the extant approaches to Early Modern English you and thou can satisfactorily account for all types of pronominal shift present in Shakespeare's plays. The difficulty often lies in swift changes of pronoun performed by one speaker while addressing the same hearer, sometimes in the course of the same dramatic scene or even within the same conversational turn. In this article, some landmarks in the study of the pronouns of address — Brown and Gilman (1960), McIntosh (1963), Wales (1983) — are briefly discussed before concentrating on some of the problems posed by Celia's and Rosalind's shifts of pronominal choice in As you like it. McIntosh's analysis of you and thou in this play is questioned, and the shortcomings of approaches in terms of the norm/deviation or marked/unmarked dichotomies lead to the conclusion that the pronouns of address in Early Modern English must have fulfilled other functions beside those of conveying ‘expressive’ or ‘attitudinal’ overtones. Finally, it is suggested that you and thou might have functioned as markers of in-group or out-group relations in the negotiation of social identities, and as discourse markers signalling a change of conversational topic and the presence of a boundary in the structure of the dialogue.

Keywords

Discourse markers discourse stylistics negotiation of social identities politeness theory pronouns of address Shakespeare studies social markers

Get full access to this article

View all access options for this article.

References

Abbut

E.A.

(1871) A Shakespearian grammar: an attempt to illustrate some of the differences between Elizabethan and Modern English, 3rd edn, Macmillan. London.

Aers

Kress

(1981) The language of social older: Individual, society and historical process in King Lear, in Aers

Hodge

Kress

Literature, language and society in England 1580–1680, Gill and Macmillan, Dublin, 75–99.

Barber

(1976) Early Modern English, André Deutsch, London.

Blake

N.F.

(1983) Shakespeare's language: an introduction, Macmillan, London.

Brown

Gilman

, (1960) The pronouns of power and solidarity, in Sebeok

T.A.

(ed.) Style in language, MIT Press and John Wiley, New York, 253–76.

Brown

Gilman

(1989) Politeness theory and Shakespeare's four major tragedies, Language and Society 18 (2): 159–212.

Brown

Levinson

(1979) Social structure, groups and interaction, in Scherer

K.R.

Giles

(eds.) Social markers in speech, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge and Maison des Sciences de l'Homme, Paris, 291–341.

Brown

Levinson

(1987) Politeness: some universals in language use, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

Byrne

St G.

(1936) Shakespeare's use of the pronouns of address: its significance in characterization and motivation, Haskell House, New York, 1970.

10.

Downes

(1988) Discourse and drama: King Lear's ‘question’ to his daughters, in van Peer

(ed.) The taming of the text: explorations in language, literature and culture, Routledge, London and New York.

11.

Fraser

(1990) An approach to discourse markers, Journal of Pragmatics 14 (3): 383–95.

12.

Gigliuli

P.P.

, (ed.) (1972) Language and social context, Penguin, Harmondsworth.

13.

Goodenough

W.H.

(1965) Rethinking ‘status’ and ‘role’: Toward a general model of the cultural organisation of social relationships, in Banton

(ed.) The relevance of models for social anthropology, Tavistock, London.

14.

Halliday

M.A.K.

(1978) Language as social semiotic: the social interpretation of language and meaning, Arnold, London.

15.

Hamer

(1986) Shakespeare's Rosalind and her public image. Theatre Research International 11 (2): 105–18.

16.

Hodge

R.I.V.

Kress

(1982) The semiotics of love and power: King Lear and a new stylistics, Southern Review, 15 (2): 143–56.

17.

Humphreys

A.R.

, (ed.) (1984) Much ado about nothing, Methuen (The Arden Shakespeare), London and New York.

18.

Hussey

S.S.

(1982) The literary language of Shakespeare, Longman, London and New York.

19.

Latham

, (ed.) (1975) As You Like It, Methuen (The Arden Shakespeare). London and New York.

20.

Laver

Hutcheson

, (eds.) (1972) Communication in face to face interaction, Penguin. Harmondsworth.

21.

Leith

(1984) Tudor London: Sociolinguistic stratification and linguistic change, MALS Journal 9: 47–64.

22.

McIntosh

(1963) ‘As you like it’: A grammatical clue to character, Review of English Literature 4 (2): 68–81.

23.

Quirk

(1971) Shakespeare and the English language, in Muir

Schoenbaum

(eds.) A new companion to Shakespeare studies, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge, 67–82.

24.

Schiffrin

(1987) Discourse markers, Cambridge University Press, Cambridge.

25.

Short

M.H.

(1981) Discourse analysis and the analysis of drama. Applied Linguistics 2 (2): 180–202.

26.

Stein

(1985) Discourse markers in Early Modern English, in Eaton

Fischer

Koopman

Van Der Leek

(eds.) Papers from the 4th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, John Benjamins, Amsterdam, 283–302.

27.

Wales

(1983) ‘Thou’ and ‘you’ in Early Modern English: Brown and Gilman re-appraised, Studia Linguistica 37 (2): 107–25.

Pronouns of Address and Social Negotiation in as You Like it

Abstract

Keywords

Get full access to this article

References