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Newspapers, Politics, and Canadian English
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Newspapers, Politics, and Canadian English

A Corpus-based Analysis of Selected Linguistic Variables in Early Nineteenth-century Ontario Newspapers

Reuter, David

Anglistische Forschungen, Bd. 457

2017

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Zusätzliche Informationen

Bibliografische Daten

Publisher Name
Universitätsverlag Winter
ISBN
978-3-8253-7714-4
DOI
https://doi.org/10.33675/978-3-8253-7714-4
Auflage
1
Sprache
Englisch
Seiten
231
Kollektionen
Universitätsverlag Winter: Alle eBooks des Verlages 
Fachgebiete

Historische und vergleichende Sprachwissenschaft
Kanada
Kanadisches Englisch
19. Jahrhundert (1800 bis 1899 n. Chr.)

Abstract

The study systematically analyzes the influence of political affiliation on early 19th-century Canadian English. By correlating the political allegiances of Canadian newspapers from this period with their usage of selected linguistic variables, a political dimension is added to the existing body of research on real-time diachronic studies on the development of Canadian English. In order to verify the linguistic assumptions postulated on the basis of the Language-external political history, this study employs a corpus of early 19th-century Ontario newspapers (CENCONE) which is stratified along political lines into Tory and Whig papers with a temporal division into three years (1810, 1835, and 1860). These years have been selected with major political events in mind that most decisively shaped the history of the former British colony: the ‘War of 1812ʼ, the ‘Rebellion of 1837/38ʼ and the ‘Canadian Confederationʼ of 1867.

Inhaltsverzeichnis

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Cover Cover
Titel 3
Imprint 4
Acknowledgments 5
Table of Contents 7
List of Figures 9
Figure 2.1: Extracts from "The York Gazette" of 1 February1810 28
Figure 2.2: Tarring and feathering of a British Loyalist by American rebels (taken from Mika and Mika 1976: 38) 32
Figure 2.3: Development of newspaper numbers in Upper Canada (based on Kesterton 1984: 11 and McNairn 2000: 19,130) 41
Figure 2.4: Development of the combined number of newspaper copies per issue in Upper Canada (based on Kesterton 1984: 24, McNairn 2000: 130, and Fetherling 1990: 11) 41
Figure 2.5: 1837 Proclamation for the arrest of W. L. Mackenzie (taken from Robertson 1894: 261) 47
Figure 2.6: Photo of Robert Harris’ 1884 painting "The Fathers of Confederation" (taken from "Library and Archives Canada", MIKAN no. 3194982) 51
Figure 3.1: Period overlap of CENCONE, CONTE, CONCE, ARCHER-2, and CNNE 58
Figure 3.2: Front page of the first issue of the "UC Gazette", 18 April 1793 61
Figure 3.3: Upper part of the front page of "The York Gazette", 21 November 1810 63
Figure 3.4: Pamphlet announcing the publication of the "Kingston Gazette", 20 June 1810 64
Figure 3.5: Upper part of the front page of the "Kingston Gazette", 25 September 1810 65
Figure 3.6: Upper part of the front page of the "UC Guardian", 22 January 1808 66
Figure 3.7: Upper part of the front page of "The Canada Constellation", 9 August 1799 68
Figure 3.8: Upper part of the front page of the "Upper Canada Gazette", 1 January 1835 69
Figure 3.9: Plaque marking the historical site of publication for the "Niagara Gleaner" 70
Figure 3.10: Upper part of the front page of the "Niagara Gleaner", 4 July 1835 71
Figure 3.11: Upper part of the front page of the "Correspondent and Advocate", 5 March 1835 72
Figure 3.12: Upper part of the front page of the "Brockville Recorder", 9 January 1835 73
Figure 3.13: Upper part of the front page of "The Mail", 4 April 1860 75
Figure 3.14: Upper part of the front page of the "News of the Week", 5 January 1860 76
Figure 3.15: Upper part of the front page of "The Globe", 3 January 1860 77
Figure 3.16: Upper part of the front page of "The Union", 18 January 1860 78
Figure 3.17: Advertisement in "The Globe", 16 July 1860 81
Figure 3.18: Formality levels of text-types in CENCONE 84
Figure 3.19: Calculation of the formality index for the 1810 "Kingston Gazette" 85
Figure 3.20: Development of average formality indices in Tory and Whig papers 86
Figure 4.1: Title page of "Murray’s English Reader" from 1815 (13th ed.; taken from Parvin 1965: 14) 100
Figure 4.2: Percentages and raw frequencies of -OUR and -OR spellings in individual CENCONE newspapers 110
Figure 4.3: Percentages and raw frequencies of -OUR and -OR spellings in stem words in individual CENCONE newspapers 111
Figure 4.4: Percentages and raw frequencies of -OUR and -OR spellings in derivatives in individual CENCONE newspapers 111
Figure 4.5: Percentages of -OUR spelling in CENCONE and CONTE 115
Figure 4.6: BrE SHALL from ME to EModE 124
Figure 4.7: Diachronic variation of 1st person SHALL in CanE, BrE and AmE letters 129
Figure 4.8: Percentages and raw frequencies of SHALL and WILL in CENCONE newspapers 132
Figure 4.9: Percentages and raw frequencies of SHALL and WILL in CENCONE newspapers (, and articles excluded) 134
Figure 4.10: Percentages and raw frequencies of 1st person SHALL and WILL in CENCONE 135
Figure 4.11: Percentages and raw frequencies of 3rd person SHALL and WILL in CENCONE 136
Figure 4.12: Diachronic development of SHALL in CENCONE and CONTE 138
Figure 4.13: Diachronic development of 1st person SHALL in CENCONE and CONTE 138
Figure 4.14: Diachronic development of 3rd person SHALL in CENCONE and CONTE 139
Figure 4.15: Diachronic development of SHALL in CENCONE and CNNE 141
Figure 4.16: Diachronic development of 1st person SHALL in CENCONE and CNNE 141
Figure 4.17: Diachronic development of 3rd person SHALL in CENCONE and CNNE 142
Figure 4.18: Diachronic development of 1st person SHALL in CENCONE, CONTE, CNNE, ARCHER-1 (BrE letters) and ARCHER-1 144
Figure 4.19: Normalized progressive frequencies in Tory papers and Whig papers 158
Figure 4.20: Normalized progressive frequencies in individual newspapers 158
Figure 4.21: Normalized progressive frequencies in CENCONE and CONTE 162
Figure 4.22: Normalized progressive frequencies in CENCONE, CNNE, CONCE, and ARCHER-2 164
Figure 4.23: Present-tense and past-tense progressives in Tory papers and Whig papers 166
Figure 4.24: Percentages of past-tense progressives in CENCONE and CONTE 168
Figure 4.25: Percentage of present-tense progressives in CENCONE, CONCE and ARCHER-2 170
Figure 4.26: Percentages of perfect progressives in Tory papers and Whig papers 171
Figure 4.27: Percentages of perfect progressives in individual newspapers 171
Figure 4.28: Normalized progressive frequencies and percentages of perfect progressives in CENCONE newspapers 172
Figure 4.29: Percentages of perfect progressives in CENCONE, CONCE, and ARCHER-2 174
Figure 4.30: Development of raw frequencies of different main verbs in CENCONE 180
Figure 4.31: Development of the number of different main verbs per progressive verb phrase in CENCONE 180
Figure 4.32: Percentages of progressives with inanimate subjects in Tory papers and Whig papers 187
Figure 4.33: Distribution of progressives across animate and inanimate subjects in individual CENCONE newspapers 188
Figure 4.34: Percentages of progressives with inanimate/non-agentive subjects in CENCONE, CONCE, ARCHER and ARCHER-2 189
Figure 4.35: Percentages of progressives in main clauses in CENCONE 192
Figure 4.36: Distribution of progressives across main clauses and subordinate clauses in individual CENCONE newspapers 192
Figure 4.37: Percentages of progressives in main clauses in CONTE and CENCONE 194
Figure 4.38: Percentage of progressives in main clauses in CENCONE, CONCE, and ARCHER-2 195
List of Tables 13
Table 2.1: Stages of the UC press development 30
Table 2.2: Listed occupations for J. Willcocks and G. Tiffany in the DCBO 38
Table 3.1: Newspapers in CENCONE 59
Table 3.2: The printers of the "UC Gazette" 62
Table 3.3: Word-counts and number of issues for the CENCONE newspapers 80
Table 3.4: Text-type tags in CENCONE 82
Table 3.5: Formality indices of CENCONE newspapers 85
Table 4.1: -OUR/-OR stem words and derivatives used in the CENCONE analysis 90
Table 4.2: Books used in Norfolk County schools in 1828 99
Table 4.3: Spellers used in Common Schools by District in 1838 101
Table 4.4: Raw frequencies of -OUR and -OR spellings in CNNE 117
Table 4.5: The Wallis Rules for declaratives 122
Table 4.6: Raw frequencies and percentages of SHALL and WILL in CONTE letters 137
Table 4.7: Raw frequencies and percentages of SHALL and WILL in CNNE newspapers 140
Table 4.8: Raw progressive frequencies in CENCONE 153
Table 4.9: Databases of studies on the progressive 154
Table 4.10: Normalized progressive frequencies in CENCONE 157
Table 4.11: Formality indices and normalized progressive frequencies of individual CENCONE newspapers 160
Table 4.12: Development of normalized frequencies (per 10,000 words) in CONTE, CONCE and ARCHER-2 letters 163
Table 4.13: Percentages of past-tense progressives and text-types with narrative concern in CENCONE newspapers 167
Table 4.14: Present-tense progressives in CONTE letters and CONCE letters 169
Table 4.15: Raw frequencies and percentages of perfect progressives in CONTE letters, CENCONE papers, and CONCE letters 173
Table 4.16: Raw frequencies and percentages of active progressives, passive progressives and passivals in CENCONE 177
Table 4.17: Passivals in CENCONE 178
Table 4.18: Raw frequencies and percentages of active progressives, passive progressives and passivals in CONCE 178
Table 4.19: The 13 most frequent main verbs in progressive verb phrases in CENCONE 181
Table 4.20: The five most frequent main verbs in progressive verb phrases in CENCONE per period 182
Table 4.21: The five most frequent main verbs in progressive verb phrases in CONTE letters 183
Table 4.22: The most frequent main verbs in progressive verb phrases in CENCONE and CONCE 185
Abbreviations 15
1 Introduction 17
2 Newspapers in early Ontario: a short history 27
2.1 Setting the stage: early printers and the development of the political newspaper 30
2.2 Taking sides: Upper Canadian newspapers in the center of political warfare 39
2.3 Coming to terms: the party press on its way to Confederation 45
2.4 The important role of newspapers in the early Canadian society 52
3 The Corpus of Early Nineteenth-Century Ontario Newspaper English (CENCONE 55
3.1 CENCONE periodization 55
3.1.1 The year 1810 56
3.1.2 The year 1835 56
3.1.3 The year 1860 57
3.1.4 Periodization: additional considerations 58
3.2 Newspapers in CENCONE 59
3.2.1 Selected newspapers for the year 1810 60
3.2.1.1 The York Gazette (Tory) 60
3.2.1.2 Kingston Gazette (Tory) 63
3.2.1.3 Upper Canada Guardian (Whig) 65
3.2.1.4 The Canada Constellation (Whig) 67
3.2.2 Selected newspapers for the year 1835 68
3.2.2.1 Upper Canada Gazette (Tory) 68
3.2.2.2 Niagara Gleaner (Tory) 69
3.2.2.3 Correspondent and Advocate (Whig) 71
3.2.2.4 Brockville Recorder (Whig) 72
3.2.3 Selected newspapers for the year 1860 74
3.2.3.1 The Mail (Tory) 74
3.2.3.2 News of the Week (Tory) 75
3.2.3.3 The Globe (Whig) 76
3.2.3.4 The Union (Whig) 77
3.3 Method of compilation 78
3.4 Corpus size and sampling 80
3.5 Text-types in CENCONE newspapers 82
3.5.1 Text-type tags 82
3.5.2 Text-type and formality 84
4 Analysis of linguistic variables in CENCONE 87
4.1 -OUR vs. -OR spelling 88
4.1.1 A brief history of -OUR vs. -OR spelling in Canada 90
4.1.2 -OUR and -OR spelling in CENCONE 108
4.1.2.1 Results from the CENCONE analysis 110
4.1.2.2 CENCONE newspapers vs. CONTE letters: an inner-Canadian genre comparison 114
4.1.2.3 CENCONE vs. CNNE newspapers: a cross-variety comparison 117
4.1.3 Summary 118
4.2 SHALL vs. WILL 120
4.2.1 Prescriptivism and change from below: SHALL and WILL from OE to ModE 121
4.2.2 SHALL and WILL in CENCONE 130
4.2.2.1 Results from the CENCONE analysis 132
4.2.2.2 CENCONE newspapers vs. CONTE letters: an inner-Canadian genre comparison 137
4.2.2.3 CENCONE vs. CNNE newspapers: a cross-variety comparison 140
4.2.3 Summary 143
4.3 The progressive 145
4.3.1 The development of the progressive from OE to ModE 147
4.3.2 The progressive in CENCONE 153
4.3.2.1 Frequency development of the progressive 157
4.3.2.2 Present-tense vs. past-tense progressives 165
4.3.2.3 Perfect progressive 170
4.3.2.4 Voice 175
4.3.2.5 Main verbs 179
4.3.2.6 Subject-type 186
4.3.2.7 Clause-type 190
4.3.3 Summary 195
5 Conclusion 199
5.1 Political affiliation and language choices in early Canadian newspapers 200
5.2 Canadian newspapers vs. Canadian letters: a genre comparison 202
5.3 Canadian newspapers vs. British newspapers: a cross-variety comparison 203
5.4 Summary and outlook 204
Appendices 207
Appendix 4.1.A: -OUR/-OR spelling in CENCONE 207
Appendix 4.1.B: -OUR/-OR spelling in CONTE (letter section) 208
Appendix 4.2.A: SHALL and WILL in CENCONE 209
Appendix 4.3.A: The Progressive in CENCONE (part 1) 210
Appendix 4.3.A: The Progressive in CENCONE (part 2) 211
Appendix 4.3.B: The Progressive in CONTE (letter section) 212
Bibliography 213
Deutsche Zusammenfassung der Arbeit 221
Backcover 232

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