What Made Each Writer Write Differently in the Cely Letters?(Kanto Review of English Literature)
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概要
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Although medieval private letters shared characteristics of style, each writer also used his own style, which was influenced by the social relationships between the writer and the recipient of the letter. Alison Hanham suggests that William Cely wrote to Richard II and George "with great deference." In this historical sociolinguistic study, focusing on the uses of the auxiliaries "will," "shall," "should," and "would" in the first, second and third persons and their semantic relations with the verb following them, I have discussed how the writers of the Cely Letters used these social markers. After examining the uses and collocations of these auxiliaries, I conclude that "will," "shall," "should," and "would" express the writer's attitude toward the other member or members of the family with respect to its social hierarchical structure. I also conclude that whether the original modal meanings of the auxiliaries appeared depended on the nature of the verb (phrase) following the auxiliaries. If the volitional verb (phrase) followed, the auxiliaries expressed their original meaning of "wish" or "obligation". Furthermore, some writers tended to use "would" in the first person singular and to use "will" in the second person because the modal meaning of "would" was not as strong as that of "will." The complementary distribution of "would" and "will" between the first person and the second person is evidence that these auxiliaries were used as social markers to express the writer's hierarchical position in the family.
- 一般財団法人日本英文学会の論文
- 2009-01-10