Diachronic Pragmatics: Seven Case Studies in English Illocutionary Development by Leslie K. Arnovick (review)

HUMANITIES 173 only one to include Saussure=s Cours de linguistique générale in a French edition, not in a readily available English translation. Yet the English section is less Saussurean than its counterparts. This is clearly illustrated by the comparison of the entries Fr. signification, Eng. meaning, Sp. significado /significacíon, Germ. Bedeutung. The English entry is much shorter and does not provide the information about authors and studies given by the other entries. There is some confusion about the precise relationship of >signified= and >concept.= It goes back to the text of the Cours de linguistique générale. The complex problem is linked to polysemy: is the >signified= act to be split into several concepts: act (handling), act (section of a play), act (notarial paper)? If not, how does one combine everything into one concept? The opposition denotation/connotation is generally well explained. One could take issue with the statement that denotation represents objective meaning, free from context. It may well be that for many speakers the most frequent context subconsciously plays a part in establishing denotation. When the German entry declares that connotation represents the variable elements of denotative meaning, the separation seems to be incomplete. It is likely not the intention of the authors to incorporate connotation into denotation, though. The Spanish entry >Aspecto= is the only one to mention >grammatical aspect= alongside >lexical aspect.= Yet for translators the former is much more important than the latter, as anyone who has translated from the Slavic languages knows. Labels such as >instantaneous= for >to burst= are not very helpful for the translation of the city is bursting out of its seams. When discussing minority and majority languages, the authors mention the situation of Spanish in the United States and that of French in Canada, without pointing out the status of official language of the latter. In spite of the above remarks, I wholeheartedly recommend Terminologie de la traduction, especially for instructors dealing with the theory and/or practice of translation. (HENRY G. SCHOGT) Leslie K. Arnovick. Diachronic Pragmatics: Seven Case Studies in English Illocutionary Development John Benjamins 1999. xii, 192. US $65.00 This study presents methodologies for studying English speech acts within the new discipline of historical pragmatics in the field of linguistics. In seven case studies or >illocutionary biographies,= Leslie K. Arnovick examines how the relation of blessings, promises, greetings, curses, and insults to religious institutions and cultural practices condition their evolution. By comprehensively tracing changes within a range of semantic, pragmatic, and cultural variables, this diachronic methodology circumvents 174 LETTERS IN CANADA 2000 the circularity of selectively describing isolated linguistic changes as socially motivated, an explanation noted by Arnovick as currently questionable among historical linguists. Simultaneously accounting for both linguistic and extra-linguistic variables, Arnovick historicizes linguistic changes within the interplay between cultural processes and interpersonal communication. In the first and second case studies, Arnovick schematizes how historically specific objectives similarly shape >agonistic-insult= interactions. A cross-cultural contrast of flyting or boasting in Anglo-Saxon England with present-day African-American >sounding= serves to illustrate the purposefulness of this methodology. Like Anglo-Saxon boasting, AfricanAmerican >sounding= displays elaborate patterns that enact the cultural objectives of their speakers. Within a history of English agonistic orality, the wax and wane of such speech acts illustrate how pragmatic principles of language use are transhistorically and cross-culturally consistent. In the third and fourth >biographies,= Arnovick traces the semantic overlap of >shall= and >will= as modal auxiliaries marking intention or futurity. Rules prescribing their usage in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries demonstrate, for Arnovick, the self-consciousness with which speakers attempt to formalize and rationalize speech acts. A process of discursization within promissory illocutions in present-day English presents another pragmatic reaction to the semantic levelling of both >shall= and >will= to expressions of futurity. Without modals to express intention, illocutions of promising are >pragmatically-expanded= such that statements as >I promise= must fulfil the illocutionary function these modals had originally possessed in Anglo-Saxon culture. Arnovick convincingly argues that new strategies for formulating statements of promise-keeping linguistically instance changes in Western cultures linked to literacy and ideologies of individualism. A classification and overview...