The Sociopragmatics of Stance : Community, language, and the witness depositions from the Salem witch trials

Anchored in historical pragmatics, historical sociolinguistics, and corpus linguistics, this book weaves together a powerful narrative of the significance of stance marking in the history of English. Focusing on the community of practice that developed during the witch trials in Salem (Massachusetts) in 1692–1693, it showcases how witnesses and the recorders of their ca. 450 depositions deployed linguistic features to signal the evaluation of experiences with alleged witchcraft, the intensification of those experiences, and the sources of the witnesses’ knowledge. The resulting stance profiles for groups of depositions, witnesses, and recorders highlight varying strategies of claiming, supporting, and boosting the importance of the evidence and the role of the witnesses within the community of practice. With its innovative focus on sociopragmatic variation in a historical community, the book demonstrates the essential contribution of synchronic-historical research to the analysis, description, and theorization of stance and historical English more broadly.
"This Is the first to bee Read" : introduction -- "Testifieth and saith" : the Salem witch trial witness depositions -- "we thought we did doe well" : the Salem witch trials as a community of practice -- "I verily beleue in my hart that martha Carrier is a most dreadfull wicth" : methodology and overview of linguistic strategies of stance -- "in A sudden, terible, & strange, unusuall maner" : evaluating experience -- "I haue ben most greviously affleted" : intensifying experience -- "I saw the Apperishtion of Rebekah nurs" : sourcing experience -- "we perceiued hir hellish temtations by hir loud outcries" : stance profiles -- "and further saith not" : conclusion -- Appendix: RSWH depositions included in the study.