<abstract xml:lang="en"><title style='display:none'>The Advice Genre (1400-1599). Genre and Text Type Conventions</title>The aim of this paper is to characterize the advice text as a genre in the late medieval and early modern English periods. This genre is very popular during this time and is usually found within medical remedy books. For this reason, it has been generally studied within the scope of medieval recipes in historical discourse analysis. In this paper my intention is to show the independent status of the advice text as a genre. A first step for this lies in the characterization of the linguistic features pertaining to the sections that compound this genre and its comparison with the recipe genre. The corpus for this study has been collected from several sources, both edited and unedited. The description of the text type features will be illustrated with examples taken from this corpus. As I show in the conclusion, the advice text is an independent genre with a clear communicative purpose and addressed to an intended audience.</abstract>

The Advice Genre (1400-1599). Genre and Text Type Conventions

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> Semantic change is an important part of African American slang and involves two mechanisms: figuration and shifting. Both are enormously productive and account for numerous slang expressions based on standard English. This paper presents these processes in detail. Partially drawing from the author’s earlier publications, the presentation is based on lexical material from a sizable database of citations from contemporary African American sources collected through extensive fieldwork in the United States in recent years.</abstract>

Semantic Change in African American Slang

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This article is part of a body of research into the conventions which govern the composition of Gothic texts. Gothic fiction resorts to formulas or formula-like constructions, but whereas in writers such as Ann Radcliffe this practice is apt to be masked by stylistic devices, it enjoys a more naked display in the–in our modern eyes–less ‘canonical’ Gothics, and it is in these that we may profitably begin an analysis. The novel selected was Peter Teuthold’s The Necromancer (1794)–a very free translation of K. F. Kahlert’s Der Geisterbanner (1792) and one of the seven Gothic novels mentioned in Jane Austen’s Northanger Abbey.There is currently no literature on the topic of formulaic language in Gothic prose fiction. The article resorts to a modified understanding of the term ‘collocation’ as used in lexicography and corpus linguistics to identify the significant co-occurrence of two or more words in proximity. It also draws on insights from the Theory of Oral-Formulaic Composition, in particular as concerns the use of the term ‘formula’ in traditional epic poetry, though again some modifications are required by the nature of Teuthold’s text. The article differentiates between formula as a set of words which appear in invariant or near-invariant collocation more than once, and a formulaic pattern, a rather more complex, open system of collocations involving lexical and other fields. The article isolates a formulaic pattern—that gravitating around the node-word ‘horror’, a key word for the entire Gothic genre –, defines its component elements and structure within the book, and analyses its thematic importance. Key to this analysis are the concepts of overpatterning, ritualization, equivalence and visibility.</abstract>

‘Thrilled with Chilly Horror’: A Formulaic Pattern in Gothic Fiction

<abstract><title style='display:none'>ABSTRACT</title> Drawing on Allan Edgar Poe’s provocative statement that “The death ... of a beautiful woman is, unquestionably, the most poetic topic in the world” (1951: 369), I will focus on the pivotal role of Shakespeare’s Ophelia in attesting to this assertion. Ophelia’s drowning is probably the most recognizable female death depicted by Shakespeare. Dating back to Gertrude’s “reported version” of the drowning, representations of Ophelia’s eroticized death have occupied the minds of Western artists and writers. Their necrOphelian fantasies materialized as numerous paintings, photographs and literary texts. It seems that Ophelia’s floating dead body is also at the core of postmodern thanatophiliac imagination, taking shape in the form of conventionalized representations, such as: video scenes available on YouTube, amateur photographs in bathtubs posted on photo sharing sites, reproductions and remakes of classical paintings (e.g. John Everett Millais), and contemporary art exhibitions in museums. These references will demonstrate that new cyber story - digital afterlife - is being built around the figure of Shakespearean Ophelia, unearthing the sexual attraction of the lifeless female body.</abstract>

NECROPHELIA AND THE STRANGE CASE OF AFTERLIFE

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>The article considers the significance of the Grendelkin as monsters, bringing to attention the Isidorian understanding of the monster as a sign, portent, and admonition. In the original <italic>Beowulf</italic> the Grendelkin are not described as possessing many of the inhuman qualities that have been applied to them in the later critical tradition or by its translators. Isidore acknowledges in <italic>Etymologies</italic> that monsters are natural beings, whose function in the system of creation is significant. The present article considers the significance of the Grendelkin in the poem and argues that Grendel and his mother function as signs underlying themes of feud and succession in the poem. The article also brings attention to the multiple references to body parts, such as hands, and their function within the poem as synecdochic representations of the Danish body politic. The article explores the sexualised and gendered perception of the body politic in the poem.</abstract>

The Grendelkin and the Politics of Succession at Heorot: The Significance of Monsters in <italic>Beowulf</italic>

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
Working on the hugely successful series of novels known collectively as <italic>A Song of Ice and Fire</italic>, George R. R. Martin is known to have drawn much of his inspiration from real-life events, landmarks in the history of the Middle Ages, such as the Hundred Years’ War, the Wars of the Roses, and the Crusades. It is not known, however, to what degree he actually relies in his work on sources of genuinely medieval provenance, since he himself frequently admits that amongst those that made the biggest impact on his writing are modern works of fiction, such as Maurice Druon’s heptalogy <italic>Les Rois maudits</italic> (2019 [1955–1977]). It is not impossible, though, that at least some features of Martin’s series have more or less direct parallels in medieval literature. One such element may be so-called kennings, the highly-stylised circumlocutions found in plenty in the poetic works of early Germanic literature and whose diction appears to shine through some of the series’ titles.
</abstract>

What’s in a Title? Some Remarks on the Semantic Features of Kenning-Like Titles in George R. R. Martin’s <italic>A Song of Ice and Fire</italic> Series

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
The aim of this work is to lemmatise the inflectional forms of the Old English nouns beginning with the letter L. This aim entails the classification of inflectional forms by declension type. The sources of the study comprise dictionaries and corpora of Old English, including the York corpora as well as <italic>ParCorOEv2. An open access annotated parallel corpus Old English-English</italic>. The methodology relies on database software, used for gathering and classifying information, which is structured, standardised, and made available for searches and information retrieval. The data include 1,657 inflectional forms, 1,639 of which are lemmatised with this method. A total of 1,149 inflectional forms are classified by type of declension and assigned to 435 lemmas. Most of them are declined according to the <italic>as</italic>-declension and the <italic>a</italic>-declension. The main conclusion of this study is that the lemmatisation method comprising linguistic analysis with lexical databases as well as a combination of lexicographical and textual sources of Old English produces solid results. From the methodological point of view, the master lemma list of <italic>ParCorOEv2</italic> is adequate for lemmatisation, as lemmas from this list have been assigned to all inflectional forms except 17. On the descriptive side, three new lemmas must be added to the current inventories to lemmatise the nouns beginning with the letter L.
</abstract>

The Lemmas and Inflections of Old English L-Nouns

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
In this paper we look at two seemingly unrelated historical processes: affrication of the Old English (OE) palatalized velars [kj] &gt; [tʃ], e.g., OE <italic>cild</italic> &gt; PDE <italic>child</italic>, OE <italic>cīosan</italic> &gt; PDE <italic>choose</italic>, and the Middle English (ME) vowel unrounding [y] &gt; [i] and [ø] &gt; [e]. More specifically, it is argued that the front rounded vowels [y] and [ø], as well as the palatalized velars [kj] and [j], are complex melodic expressions containing two antagonistic resonance elements |I| and |U|. Furthermore, it is proposed here that the phonological system of ME witnessed a drastic change as a consequence of the introduction of the ban on the |I| and |U| merger. This *|I U| constraint is responsible for the loss of the resonance element |U| from the internal structure of both segments, which leads to the unrounding of the <italic>i</italic>-umlauted vowels and the affrication of the palatalized velars. This paper provides a detailed analysis of velar palatalization and its subsequent affrication, while additionally we address the questions of the lack of affrication before both <italic>i</italic>-umlauted and unrounded vowels, the palatalization and vocalization of the voiced velar fricative /ɣ/ and the chronology of affrication in the history of English.
</abstract>

What do Affrication and Vowel Unrounding Have in Common? The Case of Velar Palatalization in Old English

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This article focuses on the way <italic>nitchevo</italic>, a nineteenth-century Russian borrowing, was adopted into the English language. In order to investigate the history of the word, six digital text archives were considered. The results of the research are promising: not only do they allow one to trace antedatings for both senses, which updates the treatment of <italic>nitchevo</italic> in the <italic>Oxford English Dictionary</italic> (OED), but they also shed light on its semantic development, spelling variation, and route of transmission. Tellingly, albeit unsurprisingly, the evidence suggests that the press is responsible for boosting the recognition of the word on both sides of the Atlantic. All this indicates that the potential of modern research tools, including British and American newspaper archives, remains to be fully explored.
</abstract>

Revising the History of <italic>Nitchevo</italic> with Text Archives

Review: <italic>Sunnyside. A Sociolinguistic History of British House Names</italic>. By Laura Wright. Cambridge University Press, 2020. Pp. xviii, 281.

Review: <italic>Forgeries and Historical Writing in England, France, and Flanders, 900–1200</italic> By Robert F. Berkhofer III. The Boydell Press, 2022. Pp. xi, 348

<abstract>
<title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>
This paper compares the use of anaphoric reference terms, such as <italic>le dit</italic> (and its English equivalent <italic>the said</italic>), a characteristic feature of ‘curial style’, in Anglo-Norman (hence AN) and Middle English (hence ME) personal letters. Whilst we know that this style was prevalent in the official AN letters that were used to conduct English parliamentary business until the end of the 1300s, we do not yet have a clear understanding of the extent to which it was prevalent in both AN and ME personal letters, defined here as being written to one addressee who was known to the writer. The results show that there more anaphoric reference terms in the AN epistolary material than in the ME, and that the difference is statistically significant. However, these anaphoric reference devices are very much in evidence in the ME material as well, albeit in smaller numbers, suggesting a degree of influence, or emulation, or both. It is furthermore suggested that the use of anaphoric reference devices in both the AN and ME personal letters is more similar to their use in the literary texts discussed by Burnley (1986) than to their use in their more official, administrative epistolary forebears, i.e., they are often used in a looser, relaxed way, as a kind of ‘connective convenience’ (Burnley 1986: 610). Results relating to diachronic variation demonstrate that the reference terms are most common in the latest (1380s) AN letters and earliest (pre-1431) ME letters, perhaps suggesting a period of overlap. In relation to geographic distribution, ME anaphoric reference terms appear to be used more in letters written in London and Oxfordshire than in the East Anglian or Northern letters. Finally, in the AN corpora, the anaphoric reference devices are most frequently used by writers from the gentry and professions, a finding mirrored in the ME material. Overall, the paper highlights the importance of taking different discoursal contexts, and the deliberate emulation of styles within those contexts, into account when investigating the interaction between Anglo Norman and Middle English during the medieval period.
</abstract>

A Comparative Investigation of Anaphoric Reference Devices in Anglo-Norman and Middle English Personal Letters

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> A close reading of three selected passages of the Middle English alliterative romance Sir Gawain and the Green Knight provides a detailed picture of fictional and fairy-tale manifestations of courtly and polite behaviour in Middle English, a period that imported many new terms of courtesy and politeness from French. In the three passages Sir Gawain is visited in his bedchamber by the lady of the house, who tries to seduce him and thus puts him in a severe dilemma of having to be courteous to the lady and at the same time loyal to his host and to the code of chivalry. The analysis shows how Sir Gawain and the lady of the house engage in a discursive struggle of the true implications of courteous behaviour. It also shows how the two characters use nominal and pronominal terms of address to negotiate their respective positions of power, dominance and submission towards each other. And, finally, an analysis of requests reveals how the lady carefully selects appropriate strategies to reflect the severity of the imposition of her requests and her momentary standing in their discursive struggle.</abstract>

Courtesy and Politeness in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>This study deals with novel English analogical compounds, i.e. compounds obtained via either a unique model (e.g. <italic>beefcake</italic> after <italic>cheesecake</italic>) or a schema model: e.g., <italic>green-collar</italic> based on <italic>white-collar</italic>, <italic>blue-collar</italic>, <italic>pink-collar</italic>, and other X-<italic>collar</italic> compounds. The study aims, first, to inspect whether novel analogical compounds maintain the same degree of morphosemantic transparency/opacity as their models, and, second, to find out the role played by the compound constituents in the constitution of compound families, such as X-<italic>collar</italic> and others. To these aims, the study proposes a scale of morphosemantic transparency/opacity for the analysis of compound constituents. In particular, the compound constituents in our database (115 examples) are analysed in connection with: 1) their degree of transparency (vs. opacity, including metaphorical/metonymic meaning), linked to their semantic contribution in the construction of the whole compound’s meaning, and 2) their part-of-speech. Against the common assumption that productive word-formation rules mostly create morphosemantically transparent new words, or that rule productivity is closely connected with transparency, the study of our database demonstrates that novel analogical compounds tend to maintain the same transparency/opacity degree as their models. It also shows that, in nuclear families and subfamilies of compounds, the part-of-speech of the constituents, their degree of transparency/opacity, and their semantic relation are reproduced in all members of the analogical set.</abstract>

The Morphosemantic Transparency/Opacity of Novel English Analogical Compounds and Compound Families

<abstract xml:lang="en"><title style='display:none'>The value of <italic>may</italic> as an evidential and epistemic marker in English medical abstracts</title>Our article addresses the issue of the relationship between epistemic modality and evidentiality. Earlier works such as Lazard (2001) claim that English does not hold grammatical markers for the source of knowledge in contrast to other languages, e.g. Quechua, that seem to do so. Dendale and Tasmowski (2001), however, think that grammatical evidentials are possible in English, and Aikhenvald (2004) admits that modal verbs in English are a borderline case. In our article, we seek to explore the use of <italic>may</italic> and <italic>might</italic> in a corpus of medical abstracts to demonstrate (i) their value as grammatical evidential markers, and (ii) their value as epistemic markers that show the author's attitude to the proposition manifested. In doing so, we follow Cornillie (2009), who defines these two concepts as independent categories. The results of our analyses indicate that these modals may be used as grammatical markers of evidentiality, regardless of other semantic and pragmatic meanings.</abstract>

The value of <italic>may</italic> as an evidential and epistemic marker in English medical abstracts

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> Since language teaching in modern-day society is closely linked to cultural instruction, this study employs the model of a cultural learning analysis based on the earlier work of Paige and Lee. Using this model, the authors analysed the cultural content of six B1 and B2-level textbooks for teaching English to adults in Spain, and carried out a comparative study of the results, contrasting the two levels. Findings show that the subjective aspects of culture receive less coverage in textbooks, despite being fundamental to an understanding of the values of a society. Regarding the comparison between B1 and B2 levels, the data indicate that the number of big “C” Culture occurrences is similar for both levels, although there are differences in other cultural aspects. So, for example, culture in general is dealt with more at the B1 level, whereas small “c” culture is dealt with more at the B2 level.</abstract>

Universidad de Córdoba. Facultad de Filosofía y Letras. Plaza del Cardenal Salazar 3. 14003, Córdoba, Spain

General and Specific Culture Learning in EFL Textbooks Aimed at Adult Learners in Spain

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title>Standardisation on the level of text is visible in the employment of stable and fixed expressions for a specific textual purpose. When gauging the extent of standardisation in texts, one of the parameters which should be taken into consideration is the length of such stable patterns. Since it is more difficult, and therefore rarer, to reproduce long chunks of text in an unchanged form, such a practice points towards greater standardisation. To explore the textual behaviour of long fixed strings in legal texts, this paper concentrates on long lexical bundles built out of eight consecutive elements (8-grams) and their frequency and function in historical legal texts. The database for this pilot paper comprises two collections of legal and administrative texts written in Scots between the fourteenth and the sixteenth century. The research results point to a considerable degree of textual standardisation throughout the corpus and to the most prominent functions of long repetitive chunks in historical legal discourse.</abstract>

Long Lexical Bundles and Standardisation in Historical Legal Texts

<abstract><title style='display:none'>Abstract</title> Epistemic adverbs, like other markers of epistemic modality, are concerned with the speaker’s assessment of the truth value of the proposition. In other words, they indicate that the speaker considers certain situations as possible, impossible, probable, certain, or uncertain. At the same time, they signal the author’s presence in the text, and invite the reader to make his/her own conclusions and interpretations. The use of modal markers has been demonstrated to differ across academic disciplines, but the specific differences concerning the use of epistemic adverbs have not been studied systematically. This paper investigates the use of epistemic adverbs in research articles representing six disciplines belonging to three different branches of science: the humanities (linguistics and literary studies), the social sciences (law and sociology), and the natural sciences (physics and medicine), with the aim of establishing discipline-specific tendencies in their use. The study is based on a corpus of 160 research articles compiled by the author. It begins with an attempt at delimiting the category of epistemic adverbs in English. After that, a list of the most frequent epistemic adverbs in the subcorpora of all the disciplines is established and discussed. The study demonstrates that frequent use of epistemic adverbs is largely a property of research articles in the humanities and social sciences. Medical and physics research articles use them significantly less often. The most frequent epistemic adverbs in the research articles under analysis include indeed, perhaps, clearly, certainly, of course, arguably, possibly, and reportedly. Some adverbs appear to be associated with specific disciplines, e.g., clearly (physics, linguistics, sociology, medicine), indeed (linguistics, literary studies, sociology), possibly, reportedly (medicine), arguably (law). The association of individual adverbs with specific disciplines may serve as an important clue to the understanding of their functions, in particular in the case of the less frequent ones, such as arguably and reportedly, which remain significantly understudied. The findings may also prove useful in teaching English for academic purposes.</abstract>

Adverbial Markers of Epistemic Modality Across Disciplinary Discourses: A Contrastive Study of Research Articles in Six Academic Disciplines

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The Journal of Adam Mickiewicz University

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