A Linguistic Study Of Changes In The Modern Historical Discourse

From the 16^th century the natural science has exerted its impacts upon the British society.The scientific mode of thinking not only influences people's actions,but the discourse as well.The modern British historical discourse has a shift in genre from the genre of chronicles in the 16^th century to the grand narrative in the 19^th and 20^th centuries.The authors of the historical discourse change from the non-professional city chroniclers of the 16^th century to the university-based professional historians of the 19^th and 20^th centuries.Themes of the historical discourse shift from political and military affairs to almost every aspect of human lives.In line with the changes in genres,author groups and themes,the language of the modern historical discourse also has obvious changes.In comparison with the 16^th century historical discourse,the 19^th and 20^th century historical discourse acquires some linguistic features that only modern scientific and academic discourses have.The historical discourse in its evolution moves towards discourse of science and academy.Historiographers probe into the changes in the modern historiography in terms of the historical methods,historical thoughts,historical professions,genres,author groups and themes under the influence of the modern science.These changes contribute to the establishment of the modern historiography as a professional discipline.We hold that these developments in the modern historiography are as well indispensable to the changes in the language of the modern historical discourse.Some typical changes in the language of the modern historical discourse are high levels of abstraction, generalization,technicality,explanation,logical deduction and objectivity etc.Rhetoricians give priority to the structure and evolution of the narrative in the historical discourse of different periods.They study the overall styles,and expressions and functions of specific rhetorical devices in some history works.They show that narrative is an essential means by historians to represent the past.It is through the narrative form that historians combine the historical evidences with their explanations and analysis.They also point out that the historical discourse is the end product of the employment of tropes.In their analysis of the evolution of the Western historical narratives from the medieval annalistic narrative to the Renaissance chronicle narrative to the 19^th-and 20^th-century historical narrative,explanation is highlighted as the major difference among these three forms of historical narratives.Corpus linguists study the evolution of some linguistic forms of the modern English prose from the diachronic and corpus perspectives.They focus on discourses of medicine,science and law.They fred that from the 16^th to the 20^th centuries,discourses of these written registers have such features as the decrease of narrative and the increase of informational contents and impersonality.Systemic Functional linguists explore the linguistic features of the school history discourse.Their researches deal with such topics as genres,transitivity,grammatical metaphor,lexicogrammar of temporality and causality,mood,modality and hedging of the historical discourse.They find that grammatical metaphor is an important linguistic resource for historian to construe abstraction and technicality.Material and relational processes are found to be major types of processes for the construal of action and explanation.They also find that historians prefer to reduce modal expressions to present to readers an objective picture of the past and the distribution of hedges is largely dependent on the availability of historical evidences and historians' knowledge of the past.This thesis attempts to have a comparative and contrastive linguistic study of the changes in the British historical discourse under the influence of the scientific developments in the modern historiography.The linguistic framework is Systemic Functional Linguistics.Both quantitative and qualitative methods are adopted.In order to shed light on the changes in the language of the modern historical discourse,this thesis selects the Historie of England,Ireland and Scotland by Raphael Holinshed and the History of the Later Roman Empire by J.B.Bury.The genre of chronicles is one major genre in the 16^th century historical discourse.Holinshed is a representative of the city chroniclers.The 19^th century witnessed the emergence of the university-based school of professional historiography.Bury is a representative of the professional historiography in Britain.As a genre of grand narrative,the History of the Later Roman Empire is Bury's typical history work. Holinshed's discourse has a higher distribution of specific referents of persons while Bury's discourse has a higher distribution of generalized referents of persons through the comparative study of the distribution of specific and generalized referents of persons in the discourse.We also fmd that Holinshed's discourse has a higher distribution of specific referents of persons as participants while Bury's discourse has a higher distribution of generalized referents of persons as participants in the chuse.This shows Bury's discourse has a higher degree of generalization than Holinshed's. Through the comparative study of the distribution of temporal,institutional and semiotic terms which are not counted as nominalizations,we find that in comparison with Holinshed's discourse Bury's discourse has a higher distribution of temporal, institutional and semiotic terms in the discourse as well as in the clause functioning as participants.This makes Bury's discourse more abstract.Bury's discourse is also more abstract with the use of a higher distribution of grammatical metaphors,including the higher distribution of nominalization where the deverbal type of nominalization plays a more important role,and that of the abstract chuse consisting of both nominalization and verbalization.The high degree of abstraction in Bury's discourse is also reflected in the difficult process of and even the impossibility of unpacking of nominalization, nominal groups and abstract clauses.Bury's discourse also has a higher degree of technicality construed through nominalizations.Linguistically this higher degree of technicality is manifest in the creation of technical terms of temporality and further taxonomized terms of temporality.The higher degree of generalization,abstraction and technicality in Bury's discourse construed through the language make Bury's discourse closer to the scientific discourse in terms of these scientific effects.Holinshed's discourse has a higher distribution of congruent lexiogrammar of causality such as paratactic and hypotactic causal conjunctions to explain the past. Causal conjunctions make temporality hinged upon the framework of temporality and connect two clauses where specific historical characters function as participants.The explanation based on causal conjunctions has the lower degree of generalization.By contrast,Bury's discourse has a higher distribution of metaphoric lexicogrammmar of causality.Metaphoric lexicogrammar of causality includes counterfactual conditional clause,causal participants,external and internal causal processes,causal circumstance and causal circumstantial relational process.The shift of lexicogrammar of causality from congruent forms to metaphoric forms indicates that temporality in Holinshed's discourse moves away from the restriction imposed by the temporal framework and becomes an important semantic motif in the discourse.The counterfactual conditional clause is a characteristic of scientific and academic discourse where the author expresses his speculations on possible results of different conditions of experiments.When used in the modern historical discourse,this type of clause indicates the author's interpretation of the past.Scientists use expressions of external and internal causality to explain abstract phenomena and reach conclusions through data,evidences and facts.Bury uses causal participant of external process to change causal conjunctions into causal nouns which function as cause and effect between abstract things.Specific historical characters are replaced with abstract participants.The historical explanation moves from specificity to abstraction.Bury uses external causal process to change causal conjunctions into causal verbs which establish cause-and-effect relations between two abstract things.By the same token the historical explanation changes from specificity to abstraction.Holinshed's discourse has external causal process,but it only links specific historical characters.This makes the historical explanation in Holinshed's discourse less abstract.Causal participant of internal causal process and internal causal process show historians reach conclusions after analyzing historical evidences and historical facts.Only when historiography becomes a professional discipline and when historiography is based on the historical evidences and facts can expressions of internal causality emerge in large quantity.The higher distribution of causal participant of internal causal process and internal causal process in Bury's discourse shows a high level of interpretation on the part of the historian. Causal circumstance makes a causal link between abstract things and events.It renders the cause and effect of the event abstract.The causal circumstantial relational process functions to explain the cause-and-effect relations between two abstract things.This type of process is widely used in expository discourses of science,geography and economics.Through the analysis we find that Bury's discourse highlights explanation through the language that makes the discourse resemble discourse of modern science in terms of the metaphoric expressions of causality.Holinshed's discourse has a higher distribution of modal verbs of epistemic probability,appearance verbs,extra-posed clause,first person singularâ… and second person you.By contrast,Bury's discourse has a higher distribution of modal verbs of epistemic necessity,modal adjuncts as hedges to seek precision and protect author from potential criticism,nominalized modal expressions,research verbs and first person plural we and imperative sentence with hidden you.The shift in expressions of modality and person shows a contrast between Holinshed's and Bury's stance in writing history. Some tentative conclusions can be made as follows.We can say that in comparison with Holinshed,Bury has more certain knowledge of the past.Bury makes conclusions more through logical deductions than conjectures.Bury substantiates his claims and draws conclusions more from evidences,analysis,data,facts than from outside sources.Bury seeks more precision in his claims of the historical facts and at the same time avoids making statements too categorical.Despite the fact that Bury highlights explanation,it is found that he makes efforts to make his voice implicit as much as possible.This research made a comparative linguistic study of changes in Holinshed's and Bury's historical discourses.It tentatively reveals the discursive changes in the modern historical discourse under the changing context of the modern historiography.Since the historical methods,thoughts and professions in the 19^th century gain more upon those of the natural sciences,they work together to have impacts on the discursive changes. Through the use of certain linguistic expressions,the 19^th century historical discourse is characterized with high level of abstraction,generalization,explanation,precision and objectivity.The lexicogrammar of the historical discourse is close to the scientific and academic discourses.