Provides a fresh perspective on debates surrounding linguistic change in the Early Modern Period
Problematizes existing research about the evolution of prose writing and challenges assumptions about the process of standardization in English
Takes a discourse-analytic approach to prose structure that takes orality manifested in textual material into account
Accounts for the complex nature of historical data sources by considering Bess of Hardwick's use of scribes

Autorentext
Imogen Marcus is Lecturer in English Language at Edge Hill University, UK. She has published on the scribal profiling of early modern English letters, linguistic borrowing from French into English during the Middle English period and the interface between historical semantics and lexicography. She has also participated in the creation of two historical thesauruses.

Inhalt
Chapter 1: Introduction.- Chapter 2: Early Modern English manuscript letters as data: distinguishing between holograph and scribal writing.- Chapter 3: Prose structure.- Chapter 4: Prose structure in its social context.- Chapter 5: Lexical bundles.- Chapter 6: Vocatives.- Chapter 7: Conclusion.