‘My dearest Clara … my dear friend’ – Personal Names and direct address in Mary Hamilton’s private correspondence

Abstract

Abstract In the eighteenth century, a period dominated by linguistic correctness, propriety and etiquette, appropriate forms of address are a customary feature in correspondence and a key means by which individuals are able to construct their social identity in light of their relationships with others. In this context, and framed within the fields of historical sociolinguistics and historical sociopragmatics, this paper explores the role of direct address as a socially-governed linguistic practice and as an index of politeness, and the focus lies in intra-speaker variation in the use of personal names and honorifics in the opening, body and subscription parts of the letter. The study is based on a set of 170 private letters written by Mary Hamilton (1756–1816), courtier, diarist and a member of the Bluestocking circle, and the analysis considers notions traditionally connected with pragmatic language use such as distance, power and politeness, bearing in mind other content-dependent factors as well. Overall, the research presented here aims to contribute to a growing body of literature which understands ego-documents as providing a window onto language and society.