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All Outputs (19)

Viewpoint in Eighteenth-Century Birthing Narratives: A Survey of Midwifery Manuals (2025)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2025). Viewpoint in Eighteenth-Century Birthing Narratives: A Survey of Midwifery Manuals. Women's Writing, https://doi.org/10.1080/09699082.2024.2447192

This article provides a literary linguistic analysis of narrative viewpoint in a selection of eighteenth-century midwifery manuals. The eighteenth century is when the medicalisation of childbirth gained pace and the obstetric surgeon (known as the “... Read More about Viewpoint in Eighteenth-Century Birthing Narratives: A Survey of Midwifery Manuals.

The Poetics of Sexual Violence in Three African-American Women's Neo-Slave Narratives: Margaret Walker's Jubilee, Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Toni Morrison's Beloved (2024)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. (in press). The Poetics of Sexual Violence in Three African-American Women's Neo-Slave Narratives: Margaret Walker's Jubilee, Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Toni Morrison's Beloved. Journal of Literary Semantics, 54(1),

This paper focuses on the representation of sexual violence in the neo-slave narratives of Margaret Walker, Octavia E. Butler and Toni Morrison. Through an exploration of mind-modelling in three key scenes, a range of linguistic techniques are employ... Read More about The Poetics of Sexual Violence in Three African-American Women's Neo-Slave Narratives: Margaret Walker's Jubilee, Octavia E. Butler's Kindred and Toni Morrison's Beloved.

Schemata of estrangement in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed (2024)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2024). Schemata of estrangement in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed. Language and Literature, 33(2), 111-129. https://doi.org/10.1177/09639470241240923

Ursula Le Guin’s novel The Dispossessed (1974) is the first literary treatment of anarchic utopianism, presenting the society on the moon Anarres as operating on social principles lacking any sort of State or governmental oversight (known in the nove... Read More about Schemata of estrangement in Ursula K. Le Guin’s The Dispossessed.

Satire in Eighteenth-Century Medical Discourse: Elizabeth Nihell, Tobias Smollett and the Advent of Man-Midwifery (2023)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2023). Satire in Eighteenth-Century Medical Discourse: Elizabeth Nihell, Tobias Smollett and the Advent of Man-Midwifery. English Studies, 104(8), 1-18. https://doi.org/10.1080/0013838x.2023.2266232

This paper examines Tobias Smollett’s scathing assessment in the Critical Review of Elizabeth Nihell’s midwifery treatise, Treatise on the Art of Midwifery (1760), a polemic against the use of instruments in childbirth and the increasing popularity o... Read More about Satire in Eighteenth-Century Medical Discourse: Elizabeth Nihell, Tobias Smollett and the Advent of Man-Midwifery.

Trauma, Mind Style, and Unreliable Narration in Toni Morrison’s Home (2023)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2023). Trauma, Mind Style, and Unreliable Narration in Toni Morrison’s Home. Style, 57(2), 187–204. https://doi.org/10.5325/style.57.2.0187

This article provides a twofold reading of Toni Morrison's novel Home. In the first instance, the stylistic representation of post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is explored in relation to Frank's mind style; this is done through a focused examinat... Read More about Trauma, Mind Style, and Unreliable Narration in Toni Morrison’s Home.

Irma Taavitsainen, Turo Hiltunen, Jeremy J. Smith and Carla Suhr (eds.), Genre in English medical writing, 1500–1820: Sociocultural contexts of production and use (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. xviii + 322. ISBN 9781009108683. (2023)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2023). Irma Taavitsainen, Turo Hiltunen, Jeremy J. Smith and Carla Suhr (eds.), Genre in English medical writing, 1500–1820: Sociocultural contexts of production and use (Studies in English Language). Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2022. Pp. xviii + 322. ISBN 9781009108683. English Language and Linguistics, 27(3), 629-633. https://doi.org/10.1017/S1360674322000429

Epistemic space and key concepts in early and late modern medical discourse: an exploration of two genres (2023)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. (2023). Epistemic space and key concepts in early and late modern medical discourse: an exploration of two genres. English Language and Linguistics, 27(2), 241-269. https://doi.org/10.1017/s136067432200034x

This article provides a corpus-driven overview of the ‘epistemic space’ surrounding the use of two lockwords of Early and Late Modern writings on midwifery and childbirth, child and uterus. Rather than searching for epistemic stance markers themselve... Read More about Epistemic space and key concepts in early and late modern medical discourse: an exploration of two genres.

Expressions of knowledge in early modern English- and German-language midwifery and gynaecological texts (ca. 1500-1700): on the use of pronominal subjects and that- complement clauses (2019)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. (2019). Expressions of knowledge in early modern English- and German-language midwifery and gynaecological texts (ca. 1500-1700): on the use of pronominal subjects and that- complement clauses. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen, 120(1), 83-109

This paper presents the results of a corpus-based study of that-complement clauses and their pronominal subjects in early modern English- and German-language midwifery and gynaecological texts published from circa 1500 to 1700. These two centuries wi... Read More about Expressions of knowledge in early modern English- and German-language midwifery and gynaecological texts (ca. 1500-1700): on the use of pronominal subjects and that- complement clauses.

“And all this is spoken of the naturall byrth . . .”: Metadiscourse in The Birth of Mankind and its German source text, Rosengarten (2018)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2018). “And all this is spoken of the naturall byrth . . .”: Metadiscourse in The Birth of Mankind and its German source text, Rosengarten. English Text Construction, 11(2), 225-255. https://doi.org/10.1075/etc.00010.whi

This paper provides an examination of the use of metadiscourse in the two versions of The Birth of Mankind, the first midwifery manual to be printed in English during the sixteenth century. It is a translation of a Latin text, which itself is a trans... Read More about “And all this is spoken of the naturall byrth . . .”: Metadiscourse in The Birth of Mankind and its German source text, Rosengarten.

Evidentiality and propositional scope in early modern German (2018)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2018). Evidentiality and propositional scope in early modern German. Journal of Historical Pragmatics, 19(1), 122–149. https://doi.org/10.1075/jhp.00013.whi

This paper provides an overview of verbal markers of evidentiality in Early Modern German (1650-1800) in light of Boye’s propositional scope hypothesis. The markers under investigation include the semi-auxiliary scheinen ‘to shine, appear, seem’ and... Read More about Evidentiality and propositional scope in early modern German.

Using corpora to track changing thought styles: evidentiality, epistemology, and Early Modern English and German scientific discourse (2017)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2017). Using corpora to track changing thought styles: evidentiality, epistemology, and Early Modern English and German scientific discourse. Kalbotyra, 69, https://doi.org/10.15388/Klbt.2016.10376

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 discou... Read More about Using corpora to track changing thought styles: evidentiality, epistemology, and Early Modern English and German scientific discourse.

Evidentiality in early modern English medical treatises (1500-1700) (2016)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2016). Evidentiality in early modern English medical treatises (1500-1700). Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics, 2(2), 235-263. https://doi.org/10.1515/jhsl-2016-0014

This study investigates diachronic trends in the use of evidential markers in Early Modern English medical treatises (1500-1700), with data drawn from the Corpus of Early Modern English Medical Texts. The state of medical thought and practice in Earl... Read More about Evidentiality in early modern English medical treatises (1500-1700).

The development of the würde + infinitive construction in Early Modern German (1650–1800) (2016)
Journal Article
Durrell, M., & Whitt, R. J. (2016). The development of the würde + infinitive construction in Early Modern German (1650–1800). Beiträge zur Geschichte der deutschen Sprache und Literatur, 138(3), https://doi.org/10.1515/bgsl-2016-0028

This paper presents a corpus-based analysis of the evolution of the würde + infinitive construction in German during the Early Modern period (1650– 1800), using newly available data from the GerManC-corpus. We demonstrate how this construction occupi... Read More about The development of the würde + infinitive construction in Early Modern German (1650–1800).

On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen" (2015)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. J. (2015). On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen". Interdisciplinary Journal for Germanic Linguistics and Semiotic Analysis, 20(2),

This paper provides an account of inferential evidential meaning in English and German, realized by seem and scheinen, respectively. The focus is on the grammaticalization of these verbs into semi-auxiliaries that take infinitive complements, a proce... Read More about On the grammaticalization of inferential evidential meaning: English "seem" and German "scheinen".

(Inter)Subjectivity and evidential perception verbs in English and German (2010)
Journal Article
J. Whitt, R. (2011). (Inter)Subjectivity and evidential perception verbs in English and German. Journal of Pragmatics, 43(1), 347-360. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.pragma.2010.07.015

The verbs of perception—verbs denoting sight, sound, touch, smell, and taste—are often used to express evidential meaning. That is, they indicate that speakers or writers have perceptual evidence for particular propositions. Although it has been take... Read More about (Inter)Subjectivity and evidential perception verbs in English and German.

Auditory Evidentiality in English and German: The Case of Perception Verbs (2009)
Journal Article
Whitt, R. (2009). Auditory Evidentiality in English and German: The Case of Perception Verbs. Lingua, 119(7), 1083-1095. https://doi.org/10.1016/j.lingua.2008.11.001

Evidentiality, the linguistic encoding of speaker's information source, is an understudied phenomenon in languages such as English and German, which do not encode evidential meaning in the grammar. However, there are several lexical means by which sp... Read More about Auditory Evidentiality in English and German: The Case of Perception Verbs.