The Pragmatics of Poverty in the Essex Pauper Letters, 1731\u20131837

Abstract

This paper discusses the way early nineteenth century English paupers used language for the pragmatic purpose of securing charitable relief. The paper is based on two historical sources: (1) The Essex Pauper Letters (Sokoll in Essex pauper letters, 1731–1837, Oxford University Press, Oxford, 2001), which consists of letters written by paupers applying for charitable relief, and (2) the Mayhew Corpus, a corpus of interviews with the destitute of London carried out by Sir Henry Mayhew in the 1850s. The paper focuses on certain grammatical differences between the language of the pauper letters and the language in the Mayhew Corpus. From this analysis, it emerges that the pauper writers made markedly less use of certain vernacular features than speakers in the Mayhew Corpus. The features not used to any great extent in the pauper letters but present in the Mayhew Corpus are: vernacular relative pronouns (as and what); vernacular preterites and past participles; a-prefixing; and non-standard verbal ‘s’ ending. It is argued that the infrequency of these features in the pauper letters indicates that the pauper writers were orienting towards the emergent notion of Standard English. However, in contrast to this argument, we find that multiple negation, a low prestige vernacular feature, occurs with similar frequency in both The Essex Pauper Letters and the Mayhew Corpus. The main argument of the paper, in the light of this apparent contradiction, is that, in some cases, the pauper writers’ attempts to orient towards prestige forms faltered as they were dealing with the emotive issues of health, welfare and money.