Eighteenth-century English letters: In search of the vernacular

This paper presents a research model for the study of vernacular writing styles in eighteenth-century English. By focussing on spontaneously produced letters it will be possible to study an individual’s most informal styles of writing. Such letters are not easily found, due to the fact that during the eighteenth century letter writing was considered an art, with rules dictating the requirements for what were considered good letters at the time. The paper sets out a number of criteria that have to be met for letters to be suitable for sociolinguistic analysis. The approach advocated proceeds from the individual writer, as part of a larger social network. From this perspective, it is possible to concentrate on various topical issues in sociolinguistics, including macro as well as micro-level analyses as well as socio-pragmatic studies. An inventory of currently available editions of eighteenth-century correspondence collections is presented, published as an open-access online database, with requirements for new enterprises in this respect. It is argued that when new correspondence collections are published, attention should be given to the needs of historical sociolinguistic researchers alongside the more traditional reading public.