Marina Dossena is Full Professor of English Language at the University of Bergamo (Italy), where she is Head of the MA program in Intercultural Studies in Languages and Literatures. Her research centres on Late Modern English, paying special attention to ‘language history from below’ and to the Scottish context. Currently involved in the compilation of a Corpus of 19th-Century Scottish Correspondence, she co-edits 'Token: A Journal of English Linguistics' and 'InScriptum: A Journal of Language and Literary Studies'. She has been invited to give plenary talks at relevant international conferences, such as ICEHL 15, ESSE 2014, the 1st International Symposium on Approaches to Dialects in English Literature (1500-1950) (Salamanca), and the 13th Conference of the Forum for Research in the Languages of Scotland and Ulster in Munich. Prof. Dossena has participated in the Coruña Corpus projects since 2013, and has been Visiting Professor at the Universities of Innsbruck, Helsinki and Complutense de Madrid. Address: I am grateful for your interest in my papers, but if you need the full text of something that is not open access, please find out if it is available in a library near you - see www.worldcat.org.
Distinctive in its markedly interdisciplinary approach, this book presents studies dealing with l... more Distinctive in its markedly interdisciplinary approach, this book presents studies dealing with literary, cultural and linguistic history both in Europe and in the US, bringing together scholars from different fields, while highlighting features that are shared among their contributions. It offers new insights into phenomena which have generally been under-investigated, such as the role played by popular culture, music, and the arts in the circulation of information, in the construction of popular taste, and even in scientific popularisation on both sides of the Atlantic.
As for the choice to focus on the nineteenth century, this is dictated by the fact that, in those decades, for the first time in history, scientific, technological, and social developments accelerated simultaneously. It is, therefore, important to see how such new knowledge was circulated among an ever-growing audience by means of different genres and text types, bearing in mind that divisions between the literary and non-literary were hardly as sharp as they are today.
The book presents contributions by Robert-Louis Abrahamson, Nicholas Brownlees, Bruno Cartosio, Sonia Di Loreto, Aileen Dillane, Marina Dossena, Kirsten Lawson, Angela Locatelli, William H. Mulligan, Jr., Stefano Rosso, and Polina Shvanyukova.
Current Trends in Historical Sociolinguistics, Cinzia Russi (ed.), Oct 2016
This contribution analyzes a collection of nineteenth-century documents meant to circulate inform... more This contribution analyzes a collection of nineteenth-century documents meant to circulate information to prospective emigrants to Canada and the US, in order to identify the main linguistic strategies employed to make knowledge credible: if sources could be presented as reliable, their persuasive quality would be enhanced. The materials under investigation comprise both published materials and 'ego documents', such as correspondence and travelogues meant for private circulation. Building on previous studies of familiar letters (Dossena, 2008, and 2012) and on the construction of reliability in business discourse (Dossena, 2010, and 2014), this study will focus on the importance of knowledge dissemination for the establishment and maintenance of (new) networks based on trust in the information provided. That knowledge is power may seem a truism, and it is for this very reason that such a statement should invite further reflection. In fact, it is not only knowledge per se that grants power to those who detain it, but also the extent to and the ways in which they choose to disseminate it. In this contribution I aim to analyze a collection of nineteenth-century documents meant to circulate information to prospective emigrants, concerning new territories in Canada and the US, in order to identify the main linguistic strategies employed to make knowledge credible by presenting the sources as both exhaustive and reliable, and thus enhancing their persuasive quality. My analysis will take into consideration both published materials (books and articles in popular journals and magazines) and 'ego documents', such as correspondence and travelogues meant for private circulation. This will enable the investigation of features across a relatively broad sample of authors, from those we can assume to have been fairly educated, such as the authors of journal articles, to minimally-schooled ones, such as those whose usage is often witnessed in emigrants' letters.44 44 In this kind of correspondence the writers wished to inform friends and family about their new circumstances , although their level of education did not always afford them much expertise in grammar, spelling, and composition; the consequence is that the texts that can be collected for the preparation of a computerized corpus are far from homogeneous in terms of the linguistic features they employ, which make them both more interesting and more complex to analyze.
The languages of Scotland and Ulster in a global context, past and present. Selected papers from the 13th triennial Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, Munich 2021, 2024
This contribution discusses how Scotland's languages and cultures have been represented and how a... more This contribution discusses how Scotland's languages and cultures have been represented and how a certain image of Scotland may seem to be rooted in myth, while at the same time it may be of relevance for Scotland's future. In order to investigate these issues, special attention is paid to representations of Scotland in nineteenth-century North American journals, in addition to other documents pertaining to both literary and non-literary sources. The aim is to assess whether mythical representations may have actually contributed to knowledge dissemination. Although this may seem paradoxical, the contribution of the arts and indeed of artefacts that have become emblematic of local culture, regardless of their authenticity, is hardly negligible when knowledge is propagated, especially in diasporic contexts. Within this framework, linguistic discussions occupy a very relevant place, as issues of antiquity and 'authenticity' have underpinned the debates of language codifiers since Late Modern times.
Emigrants’ letters have finally become the object of linguistic investigation since language hist... more Emigrants’ letters have finally become the object of linguistic investigation since language historians have joined historians in their study of correspondence as a valuable research tool. In historical sociolinguistics and historical pragmatics, in particular, letters have proved useful in studies of interaction strategies meant to convey greater or lesser distance from other participants in the exchange. In this contribution I intend to further my analysis of such strategies in a corpus of nineteenth-century Scottish emigrants’ letters, currently in preparation at the University of Bergamo, Italy; the aim is to study how the use of personal pronouns may vary depending on the topics at hand and the author’s attitude towards them. After an overview of the material currently available, my contribution will follow an integrated approach in which basic quantitative findings provide preliminary data; this will be supplemented with an outline of what pragmatic moves appear to be most prominent, in order to define how morphosyntactic patterns are used in different communicative contexts with different illocutionary aims. To that end, both close readings of the documents and qualitative analyses are shown to be indispensable.
The representation of Scots in dictionaries has a long and fascinating history. This contribution... more The representation of Scots in dictionaries has a long and fascinating history. This contribution aims to outline the ways in which it has crossed the border between monolingual and bilingual lexicography, while still failing to result in a dictionary in which both headwords and definitions are in Scots. To this end, I pay attention to the historical specificity of the variety under discussion, especially since Late Modern times. Within this framework, both normative attitudes and usage may help account for the ways in which – over time – entries have been selected and prefatory material has been compiled. Finally, some remarks are offered on the situation today and what developments might be expected.
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this... more Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at < http://dnb. ddb. de>. British Library and Library of Congress ...
This paper discusses verbal morpho-syntactic features in a corpus of nineteenth-century letters w... more This paper discusses verbal morpho-syntactic features in a corpus of nineteenth-century letters written by encoders of Scottish origin, whose levels of education vary quite considerably. The aim is to identify the features which appear to be most resistant to anglicization, paying particular attention to instances of the so-called Northern Subject Rule, and to modal auxiliaries. The aim is to shed more light on Late Modern English beyond the materials currently available for the study of this variety, especially as far as Scotland is concerned. Data compiled to date will be examined against data available in the recently-launched Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing, 1700-1945.
This chapter discusses some nineteenth-century Scottish authors, lexicographers, and periodicals ... more This chapter discusses some nineteenth-century Scottish authors, lexicographers, and periodicals that are frequently cited as sources in the Oxford English Dictionary, in order to assess their role in the expansion of English vocabulary that occurred throughout Late Modern times. As these citations concern the first instances of both new lexical items and of new meanings, their proportion is analyzed paying special attention to the former. Literary sources are considered on account of their relative popularity at different points in time, but the article also discusses periodicals and dictionaries, which could have a greater or lesser encyclopaedic approach to the vocabulary they collected. The study shows that the complexity of lexical accretion in Late Modern times requires the study of a broad range of materials in the cultural framework in which they were produced and received.
This study, part of a larger project on the role of popular culture in language change and stabil... more This study, part of a larger project on the role of popular culture in language change and stabilization, takes a historical sociolinguistic approach to a small, specially-compiled corpus of (mostly mid-twentieth-century) songs featuring as theme tunes in Western films, in order to study what linguistic mechanisms are at work for the construction and reinforcement of (group) identities. Such identities pertain both to the protagonists of the films themselves and-albeit indirectly-to their viewers, whose empathy and emotive participation in the fictional events is elicited. Although the strategies on the basis of which these identities are created are historically situated, the patterns they establish may be shown to have had a lasting impact on later phenomena, such as those pertaining to the tourist industry. Typically, the memorability of the songs enables potentially obsolete views to maintain a certain degree of viability even among twenty-first-century audiences: as a result, identities acquire time depth and remain recognizable across decades spanning almost a century.
Distinctive in its markedly interdisciplinary approach, this book presents studies dealing with l... more Distinctive in its markedly interdisciplinary approach, this book presents studies dealing with literary, cultural and linguistic history both in Europe and in the US, bringing together scholars from different fields, while highlighting features that are shared among their contributions. It offers new insights into phenomena which have generally been under-investigated, such as the role played by popular culture, music, and the arts in the circulation of information, in the construction of popular taste, and even in scientific popularisation on both sides of the Atlantic.
As for the choice to focus on the nineteenth century, this is dictated by the fact that, in those decades, for the first time in history, scientific, technological, and social developments accelerated simultaneously. It is, therefore, important to see how such new knowledge was circulated among an ever-growing audience by means of different genres and text types, bearing in mind that divisions between the literary and non-literary were hardly as sharp as they are today.
The book presents contributions by Robert-Louis Abrahamson, Nicholas Brownlees, Bruno Cartosio, Sonia Di Loreto, Aileen Dillane, Marina Dossena, Kirsten Lawson, Angela Locatelli, William H. Mulligan, Jr., Stefano Rosso, and Polina Shvanyukova.
Current Trends in Historical Sociolinguistics, Cinzia Russi (ed.), Oct 2016
This contribution analyzes a collection of nineteenth-century documents meant to circulate inform... more This contribution analyzes a collection of nineteenth-century documents meant to circulate information to prospective emigrants to Canada and the US, in order to identify the main linguistic strategies employed to make knowledge credible: if sources could be presented as reliable, their persuasive quality would be enhanced. The materials under investigation comprise both published materials and 'ego documents', such as correspondence and travelogues meant for private circulation. Building on previous studies of familiar letters (Dossena, 2008, and 2012) and on the construction of reliability in business discourse (Dossena, 2010, and 2014), this study will focus on the importance of knowledge dissemination for the establishment and maintenance of (new) networks based on trust in the information provided. That knowledge is power may seem a truism, and it is for this very reason that such a statement should invite further reflection. In fact, it is not only knowledge per se that grants power to those who detain it, but also the extent to and the ways in which they choose to disseminate it. In this contribution I aim to analyze a collection of nineteenth-century documents meant to circulate information to prospective emigrants, concerning new territories in Canada and the US, in order to identify the main linguistic strategies employed to make knowledge credible by presenting the sources as both exhaustive and reliable, and thus enhancing their persuasive quality. My analysis will take into consideration both published materials (books and articles in popular journals and magazines) and 'ego documents', such as correspondence and travelogues meant for private circulation. This will enable the investigation of features across a relatively broad sample of authors, from those we can assume to have been fairly educated, such as the authors of journal articles, to minimally-schooled ones, such as those whose usage is often witnessed in emigrants' letters.44 44 In this kind of correspondence the writers wished to inform friends and family about their new circumstances , although their level of education did not always afford them much expertise in grammar, spelling, and composition; the consequence is that the texts that can be collected for the preparation of a computerized corpus are far from homogeneous in terms of the linguistic features they employ, which make them both more interesting and more complex to analyze.
The languages of Scotland and Ulster in a global context, past and present. Selected papers from the 13th triennial Forum for Research on the Languages of Scotland and Ulster, Munich 2021, 2024
This contribution discusses how Scotland's languages and cultures have been represented and how a... more This contribution discusses how Scotland's languages and cultures have been represented and how a certain image of Scotland may seem to be rooted in myth, while at the same time it may be of relevance for Scotland's future. In order to investigate these issues, special attention is paid to representations of Scotland in nineteenth-century North American journals, in addition to other documents pertaining to both literary and non-literary sources. The aim is to assess whether mythical representations may have actually contributed to knowledge dissemination. Although this may seem paradoxical, the contribution of the arts and indeed of artefacts that have become emblematic of local culture, regardless of their authenticity, is hardly negligible when knowledge is propagated, especially in diasporic contexts. Within this framework, linguistic discussions occupy a very relevant place, as issues of antiquity and 'authenticity' have underpinned the debates of language codifiers since Late Modern times.
Emigrants’ letters have finally become the object of linguistic investigation since language hist... more Emigrants’ letters have finally become the object of linguistic investigation since language historians have joined historians in their study of correspondence as a valuable research tool. In historical sociolinguistics and historical pragmatics, in particular, letters have proved useful in studies of interaction strategies meant to convey greater or lesser distance from other participants in the exchange. In this contribution I intend to further my analysis of such strategies in a corpus of nineteenth-century Scottish emigrants’ letters, currently in preparation at the University of Bergamo, Italy; the aim is to study how the use of personal pronouns may vary depending on the topics at hand and the author’s attitude towards them. After an overview of the material currently available, my contribution will follow an integrated approach in which basic quantitative findings provide preliminary data; this will be supplemented with an outline of what pragmatic moves appear to be most prominent, in order to define how morphosyntactic patterns are used in different communicative contexts with different illocutionary aims. To that end, both close readings of the documents and qualitative analyses are shown to be indispensable.
The representation of Scots in dictionaries has a long and fascinating history. This contribution... more The representation of Scots in dictionaries has a long and fascinating history. This contribution aims to outline the ways in which it has crossed the border between monolingual and bilingual lexicography, while still failing to result in a dictionary in which both headwords and definitions are in Scots. To this end, I pay attention to the historical specificity of the variety under discussion, especially since Late Modern times. Within this framework, both normative attitudes and usage may help account for the ways in which – over time – entries have been selected and prefatory material has been compiled. Finally, some remarks are offered on the situation today and what developments might be expected.
Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this... more Bibliographic information published by Die Deutsche Bibliothek Die Deutsche Bibliothek lists this publication in the Deutsche National bibliografie; detailed bibliographic data is available on the Internet at < http://dnb. ddb. de>. British Library and Library of Congress ...
This paper discusses verbal morpho-syntactic features in a corpus of nineteenth-century letters w... more This paper discusses verbal morpho-syntactic features in a corpus of nineteenth-century letters written by encoders of Scottish origin, whose levels of education vary quite considerably. The aim is to identify the features which appear to be most resistant to anglicization, paying particular attention to instances of the so-called Northern Subject Rule, and to modal auxiliaries. The aim is to shed more light on Late Modern English beyond the materials currently available for the study of this variety, especially as far as Scotland is concerned. Data compiled to date will be examined against data available in the recently-launched Corpus of Modern Scottish Writing, 1700-1945.
This chapter discusses some nineteenth-century Scottish authors, lexicographers, and periodicals ... more This chapter discusses some nineteenth-century Scottish authors, lexicographers, and periodicals that are frequently cited as sources in the Oxford English Dictionary, in order to assess their role in the expansion of English vocabulary that occurred throughout Late Modern times. As these citations concern the first instances of both new lexical items and of new meanings, their proportion is analyzed paying special attention to the former. Literary sources are considered on account of their relative popularity at different points in time, but the article also discusses periodicals and dictionaries, which could have a greater or lesser encyclopaedic approach to the vocabulary they collected. The study shows that the complexity of lexical accretion in Late Modern times requires the study of a broad range of materials in the cultural framework in which they were produced and received.
This study, part of a larger project on the role of popular culture in language change and stabil... more This study, part of a larger project on the role of popular culture in language change and stabilization, takes a historical sociolinguistic approach to a small, specially-compiled corpus of (mostly mid-twentieth-century) songs featuring as theme tunes in Western films, in order to study what linguistic mechanisms are at work for the construction and reinforcement of (group) identities. Such identities pertain both to the protagonists of the films themselves and-albeit indirectly-to their viewers, whose empathy and emotive participation in the fictional events is elicited. Although the strategies on the basis of which these identities are created are historically situated, the patterns they establish may be shown to have had a lasting impact on later phenomena, such as those pertaining to the tourist industry. Typically, the memorability of the songs enables potentially obsolete views to maintain a certain degree of viability even among twenty-first-century audiences: as a result, identities acquire time depth and remain recognizable across decades spanning almost a century.
Distinctive in its markedly interdisciplinary approach, this book presents studies dealing with l... more Distinctive in its markedly interdisciplinary approach, this book presents studies dealing with literary, cultural and linguistic history both in Europe and in the US, bringing together scholars from different fields, while highlighting features that are shared among their contributions. It offers new insights into phenomena which have generally been under-investigated, such as the role played by popular culture, music, and the arts in the circulation of information, in the construction of popular taste, and even in scientific popularisation on both sides of the Atlantic. As for the choice to focus on the nineteenth century, this is dictated by the fact that, in those decades, for the first time in history, scientific, technological, and social developments accelerated simultaneously. It is, therefore, important to see how such new knowledge was circulated among an ever-growing audience by means of different genres and text types, bearing in mind that divisions between the literary ...
This contribution is a preliminary study in historical pragmatics, aiming to discuss the main str... more This contribution is a preliminary study in historical pragmatics, aiming to discuss the main strategies employed in CHET for the expression of stance in relation to events and people. In particular, the focus is on methodological issues concerning the analysis of greater or lesser personalization and of expressions of (un)certainty and evaluation, understood as essential strategies to convey point of view in acceptable ways within the cultural framework in which individual works were published. After a brief overview of significant caveats in studies of historiography in a linguistic perspective, my analysis will consider the samples in CHET as instances of Late Modern English academic writing; where applicable, comparisons will be made with similar data in CEPhiT.
THE LANGUAGE OF DISCOVERY, EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT, 2020
This volume offers the first fully-focused study on the language and discourse employed in histor... more This volume offers the first fully-focused study on the language and discourse employed in historical accounts of discovery, exploration and settlement, stretching from the 16th to 19th centuries, and covering areas as far afield as the Americas, Africa, India, Australasia and the Arctic. Providing a forum for the most recent and innovative research on how geographical discovery, exploration and settlement have been reported and narrated in historical texts and documents, the collection focuses on linguistic and rhetorical strategies in contemporaneous print news, manuscript correspondence, dictionaries, popular literature, travel books, and geography schoolbooks. The authors show how each genre conveyed three common aspects of knowledge dissemination: the factual, the personal and the ideological. The focus is, as such, on how domain-specific knowledge is mediated in specialized and popularizing discourse in order to address different stakeholders.
THE LANGUAGE OF DISCOVERY, EXPLORATION AND SETTLEMENT, 2020
This volume offers the first fully-focused study on the language and discourse employed in histor... more This volume offers the first fully-focused study on the language and discourse employed in historical accounts of discovery, exploration and settlement, stretching from the 16th to 19th centuries, and covering areas as far afield as the Americas, Africa, India, Australasia and the Arctic. Providing a forum for the most recent and innovative research on how geographical discovery, exploration and settlement have been reported and narrated in historical texts and documents, the collection focuses on linguistic and rhetorical strategies in contemporaneous print news, manuscript correspondence, dictionaries, popular literature, travel books, and geography schoolbooks. The authors show how each genre conveyed three common aspects of knowledge dissemination: the factual, the personal and the ideological. The focus is, as such, on how domain-specific knowledge is mediated in specialized and popularizing discourse in order to address different stakeholders.
Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI 10.1075/ahs.4
Review... more Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English. Amsterdam: Benjamins. DOI 10.1075/ahs.4 Reviewed by Alexandra D’Arcy in English World-Wide 37(2) (2016), 231-235, DOI: 10.1075/eww.37.2.06dar
We invite abstracts for papers on English historical lexicography that pay close attention to the... more We invite abstracts for papers on English historical lexicography that pay close attention to the growing number of electronic resources that are currently becoming available in this field. Within this framework, we encourage submissions that focus on social and geographical varieties of English, ideally up to Late Modern times. Papers will be 30 minutes, including 10 minutes for discussion, and we expect to publish a selection of them, following double-bind peer-review. Please note that we do not envisage parallel sessions. Send abstracts (ca. 400 words excluding references) as Word files to polina.shvanyukova@unibg.it no later than 15 November 2018. Notifications of acceptance will be issued by 15 December 2018.
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Books by Marina Dossena
As for the choice to focus on the nineteenth century, this is dictated by the fact that, in those decades, for the first time in history, scientific, technological, and social developments accelerated simultaneously. It is, therefore, important to see how such new knowledge was circulated among an ever-growing audience by means of different genres and text types, bearing in mind that divisions between the literary and non-literary were hardly as sharp as they are today.
The book presents contributions by Robert-Louis Abrahamson, Nicholas Brownlees, Bruno Cartosio, Sonia Di Loreto, Aileen Dillane, Marina Dossena, Kirsten Lawson, Angela Locatelli, William H. Mulligan, Jr., Stefano Rosso, and Polina Shvanyukova.
Papers by Marina Dossena
and the order form at https://www.mla.org/Publications/Bookstore/Options-for-Teaching/Teaching-the-History-of-the-English-Language
As for the choice to focus on the nineteenth century, this is dictated by the fact that, in those decades, for the first time in history, scientific, technological, and social developments accelerated simultaneously. It is, therefore, important to see how such new knowledge was circulated among an ever-growing audience by means of different genres and text types, bearing in mind that divisions between the literary and non-literary were hardly as sharp as they are today.
The book presents contributions by Robert-Louis Abrahamson, Nicholas Brownlees, Bruno Cartosio, Sonia Di Loreto, Aileen Dillane, Marina Dossena, Kirsten Lawson, Angela Locatelli, William H. Mulligan, Jr., Stefano Rosso, and Polina Shvanyukova.
and the order form at https://www.mla.org/Publications/Bookstore/Options-for-Teaching/Teaching-the-History-of-the-English-Language
http://www.cambridgescholars.com/the-language-of-discovery-exploration-and-settlement
Reviewed by Alexandra D’Arcy in English World-Wide 37(2) (2016), 231-235, DOI: 10.1075/eww.37.2.06dar