Historical Discourse Analysis

Historical discourse analysis has reached maturity in the past 30 years, the result, in part, of improving sources of, and access to, data, as well as expanded conceptions of both discourse analysis and historical linguistics. The field encompasses both the (synchronic) study of discourse-pragmatic categories in one particular historical period of a language and the (diachronic) study of the development of discourse-pragmatic categories over time. It intersects with historical linguistics proper, which is increasingly interested in the discourse-pragmatic factors responsible for language changes. The field may be interpreted either more broadly, with a focus on interactional aspects of the situation of discourse, such as speech acts and politeness, or more narrowly, with a focus on formal aspects of texts, such as discourse markers and information-structuring