Gender variation in the requestive behaviour of Early Modern Scottish and English letter-writers? A study of private correspondence

Abstract

Abstract This study applies the methods of variational pragmatics, a discipline situated at the intersection of pragmatics and variationist sociolinguistics, to historical data to explore the effect of the macro-social factors gender and region on request choices in Scottish and English private letters written between 1570 and 1700. It specifically examines gender variation regarding the choice of request strategies and of internal downgrading modification, e.g. the use of modal auxiliaries or hedges. Overall, the analysis only finds limited evidence for gender differences in the private correspondence data. The requestive behaviour of Scottish and English female and male letter-writers displays similar directness levels and both genders also employ mitigating modifiers to a similar degree. It is shown that the requestive style of women and men is determined by the situational circumstances of a letter rather than by gender. Moreover, when zooming in on the level of direct realisation strategies, the analysis provides evidence that the macro-social factor region has a greater impact on the choice of realisation strategies than gender.