Using corpora to track changing thought styles: evidentiality, epistemology, and Early Modern English and German scientific discourse

Richard J Whitt

doi:10.15388/klbt.2016.10376

Abstract

Most research on evidentiality has focused on classifying evidential systems synchronically; meanwhile, diachronic studies on evidentiality seem to have focused on the development of specific items into evidential markers with little regard to discourse context. This paper begins to fill this gap by presenting the results of a corpus-based study of evidential markers in Early Modern scientific discourse in English and German. The Early Modern period witnessed the transition from scholastic-based models of science to more empirical models of enquiry; this study demonstrates a decrease in the use of markers of mediated information and an increase in the use of markers of direct observation and inference accompanying these sociohistorical developments.

Highlights

In this contribution I shall discuss the linguistic changes that accompany profound epistemological changes in Early Modern (1500–1800) “science”1 and scientific writing, in the domain of evidentiality
The Early Modern period witnessed the transition from scholastic-based models of science to more empirical models of enquiry; this study demonstrates a decrease in the use of markers of mediated information and an increase in the use of markers of direct observation and inference accompanying these sociohistorical developments
The normalized aggregate frequencies of the different types of evidentials – information from a learned authority in the tradition of Scholasticism, information mediated through a contemporary of the author or through hearsay, or information acquired via direct observation and/or logical processes of inference – used in English- and Germanlanguage scientific writing are presented in Figures 1 and 2: Figure 1

Summary

Introduction

In this contribution I shall discuss the linguistic changes that accompany profound epistemological changes in Early Modern (1500–1800) “science” and scientific writing, in the domain of evidentiality. Since the scholastic tradition favored the use of classical authorities such as Aristotle, Hippocrates, and Galen as sources of information, whereas later empirical modes of enquiry place a premium on observation, experiment, and reasoning, it is predicted that the use of markers indicating mediated (or reported) information would decline, and this decline would be accompanied by a rise in the use of markers indicating observation and inference. The paper is structured as follows: Section 2 provides an overview of the sociohistorical context of knowledge and learning during the Early Modern period, with the domain of medicine serving to show how a specific field was shaped by the scholastic tradition.

Science and Knowledge in Early Modern Europe

Data and Methodology

Results

Concluding Remarks