How intimate was the tone of female History writing in the Modern period? Evidence from the Corpus of History English Texts

Abstract

[Abstract] This paper is concerned with female authors and the attitude to their topics, as conveyed through their writing. Late Modern as well as twentieth- and twenty-first century scholarly writing has been said to be broadly objective in tone (Atkinson, 1999; Hyland, 2001; DontechevaNavrátilová, 2013), showing little or no trace of personal involvement. In recent times, however, it has been claimed that such discourse is not as objective and detached as we might suppose (Hyland, 2002) and that authors tend to express their thoughts and feelings through their texts and make some kind of connection on an emotional level with their readership. Also, female writing is said to present a more intimate tone than male writing (Argamon et al.; 2003, Biber and Burges, 2000; Palander-Colin, 2006). In this work I will particularly explore the extent to which the tone of Modern female history writing was intimate or involved, especially in comparison to non-scholarly works by women written at the same time. To this end, I will examine some of the linguistic strategies that have been recognised as indicators of authorial presence (Biber, 1988; Quirk et al., 1985) and the reactions or feelings that can be aroused in the readership. These linguistic strategies will be further examined from the point of view of two variables: time and communicative format.