Preface & Acknowledgements -- Ego-documents in a historical-sociolinguistic perspective -- 1. Ego-documents -- 2. Social difference and variation in context -- 3. Representing the self -- 4. Speech and writing -- 5. Concluding -- References -- A lady-in-waiting's begging letter to her former employer (Paris, mid-sixteenth century) -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Mlle de la Tousche's begging letter (Letter I) -- 3. The letter's writing system -- 3.1 Assibilation of intervocalic /r/ → /z/ -- 3.2 "Ouisme" -- 3.3 Lowering of [er] → [ar] -- 3.4 Lowering of nasals -- 3.5 Past historic in -I -- 3.6 Endings of the third person plural -- 3.7 Learned features -- 4. Who was Mlle de la Tousche? Did she write the letter herself ? -- 4.1 Who was Mlle de la Tousche? -- 4.2 Is the letter an autograph? -- 5. The letter of "Jaquelin[e] de Reboul" (Letter II) -- 6. Contemporary attitudes to towards these vernacular variants -- 6.1 Assibilation [r] → [z] -- 6.2 Ouisme -- 6.3 [er] → [ar] -- 6.4 Lowering of nasals -- 6.5 Past historics in -i -- 6.6 Endings of the third person plural -- 7. Conclusion -- References -- Appendix -- Translation of letter 1 -- To the Queen of Scotland -- Translation of Letter 2 -- Epistolary formulae and writing experience in Dutch letters from the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The written culture and letter writing -- 2.1 Reading -- 2.2 Writing -- 3. Formulaic language and writing experience -- 4. Case study -- 4.1 The two subcorpora -- 4.2 Two formulae -- 4.3 Hypotheses -- 4.4 Results -- 5. Discussion and conclusion -- References -- From ul to U.E. -- 1. Introduction: A new view -- 2. The Letters as loot corpora -- 3. Seventeenth- and eighteenth-century forms of address: A wealth of options -- 3.1 Ul and U.E. -- 3.2 Gij and u -- 3.3 The new form jij and its inflected forms.

3.4 Earlier research on the use of forms of address in the two centuries -- 4. The seventeenth century -- 4.1 Overview -- 4.2 Social class: Lower classes vs. upper classes -- 4.3 Gender: Familiar differences -- 5. The eighteenth century: The omnipresence of U.E. -- 5.1 Overview -- 5.2 Social class: A gradual increase -- 5.3 Gender: Equality -- 6. Comparisons and conclusions -- 6.1 The seventeenth- and eighteenth-century forms of address compared -- 6.2 The present results compared to earlier research -- 6.3 Conclusion -- References -- Flat adverbs and Jane Austen's letters -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Jane Austen's letters -- 3. Flat adverbs in Jane Austen's letters -- 4. The normative grammars and actual usage -- 5. Influence from the normative grammars? -- 6. Conclusion -- References -- Letters from Gaston B. -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Interest in the language of soldiers in the Great War -- 3. The Republican education system -- 3.1 The legislation of Jules Ferry -- 3.2 School grammar -- 3.3 French and dialects at school -- 4. Gaston B. as a speaker and writer -- 5. Gaston B.'s language and prescriptivism -- 5.1 Some socio-pragmatic factors -- 5.2 Handwriting and segmentation of words -- 5.3 Orthography and syntax -- 6. Conclusion -- References -- Appendix 1. A sample of Gaston's letter -- Appendix 2. A trancription of the sample of Gaston's letter -- Written documents -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Large historical sociolinguistics corpora -- 2.1 Metalinguistic corpora -- 2.2 Literary corpora -- 2.3 Family letters -- 3. Hybridity and egodocuments -- 3.1 Charles-André Barthe's diary -- 3.1.1 Spelling and phonological features -- 3.1.2 Morphosyntactic features -- 4. Egodocuments and linguistic communities in a minority context -- 4.1 The Detroit region: From French to English influence -- 4.2 Vernacular features and English borrowings.

4.3 Language shift from French to English -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- The rhetoric of autobiography in the seventeenth century -- 1. Rhetoric and performance -- 2. Occasions of autobiography -- 3. Styles and plots -- 4. Grace abounding -- References -- "All the rest ye must lade yourself"* -- 1. Introduction -- 2. John Johnson and his network -- 3. Reconstructing power and social distance -- 3.1 Reconstructing relative power -- 3.2 Measuring social distance by network ties -- 4. Deontic modality -- 4.1 Modality and power -- 4.2 Modality and social distance -- 4.3 Power, social distance and modality -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Cordials and sharp satyrs -- 1. Introduction -- 2. The correspondence -- 3. Intertextuality in letters -- 4. Verbal irony in the age of politeness -- 5. Results -- 5.1 Epistolary conventions and the lexicalization of mental states -- 5.2 Intertextuality and irony -- 6. Conclusion -- References -- Self-reference and ego involvement in the 1820 Settler petition as a leaking genre -- 1. Introduction -- 2. Petition as a leaking genre -- 3. Private vs. public distinction in historical correspondence -- 3.1 The Landert & Jucker (2011) model -- 3.2 1820 Settler petition within the Landert & Jucker (2001) model -- 4. Self-reference as a feature of ego involvement -- 4.1. Self-reference in historical correspondence -- 4.2 Self-reference in the structural models of the 1820 Settler petition -- 4.3 Third-person reference -- 5. 1820 Settlers: The Eriths -- 6. Jane Erith's petitions: A case study -- 6.1 The hypothesis -- 6.2 Data: Corpora and informants -- 6.3 Switches in self-reference -- 6.4 Social roles -- 6.5 I-reference: A quantitative survey -- 6.6 Summary of the case study -- 7. Conclusions -- References -- Manuscripts -- Printed material -- The language of slaves on the island of St Helena, South Atlantic, 1682-1724.

1. Introduction -- 2. The island of St Helena, South Atlantic, and early court-cases involving slaves -- 3. Linguistic commentary -- 3.1 Some comments on Table 2 -- 3.3 Summary -- 4. Master-slave conditions on the island -- 4.1 Different groups of slaves -- 4.2 On slaves' names in the St Helena consultations -- 5. Conclusion -- References -- Manuscripts -- Printed material -- Databases -- Appendix -- Transcription from London, British Library, MS IOR G/32/2 and MS IOR G/32/3.