Contents -- Introduction -- Historical pragmatics: What it is and how to do it -- The development of I mean: Implications for the study of historical pragmatics -- Soþlice, forsoothe, truly - communicative principles and invited inferences in the history of truth-intensifying adverbs in English -- Speech act verbs and speech acts in the history of English -- Text types and the methodology of diachronic speech act analysis -- A pragmatics for interpreting Shakespeare's Sonnets 1 to 20: Dialogue scripts and Erasmian intertexts -- Developing a more detailed picture of the English courtroom (1640-1760): Data and methodological issues facing historical pragmatics -- What do you lacke? what is it you buy? Early Modern English service encounters -- Letters as narrative: Narrative patterns and episode structure in early letters, 1400 to 1650 -- Historical linguistics, literary interpretation, and the romances of Margaret Cavendish -- Discoursal aspects of the Legends of Holy Women by Osbern Bokenham -- Index.