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Summary

This chapter sets out the book’s aim: an attempt to map the changing lexicons of Christian expression in the English language from the end of the Middle Ages to the early Victorians. It is thus a contribution to historical theolinguistics, drawing on the one hand on corpus linguistics and, on the other, the history of the many varieties of English Christianity that existed during this period. The methodology to be adopted in the body of the book is then illustrated with reference to two contrasting groups of female writers active in the middle of the seventeenth century, a period of exceptional religious turmoil: Fifth Monarchists and Quakers. The special analytic tools and resources harnessed include the Oxford English Dictionary, Semantic EEBO, Glasgow’s Historical Thesaurus of English, UCREL’s Log-Likelihood Calculator, and Sheffield’s Linguistic DNA. The remainder of the chapter defines notions and addresses issues that will recur later in the book: notions of register and genre, and questions to do with the handling of corpora, and with the structuring of religious ‘communities of practice’.

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Chapter 1 - Introduction

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Chapter 1 - Introduction

Summary