Additional data to the pragmatics of requests – based on a personal letter from the 16th century

Abstract

In this short study I analyze a request told in a personal letter in the 16th century from the view of historical sociopragmatics. After the general pragmatic overview of the request I demonstrate some aspects of text analysis including the critical presentation of the practice till now. The knowledge of correspondence of the given time period influences the evaluation of the formulas used and an emphasis is put to the presentation of the social and relational contacts of the participants in the correspondence. On the basis of the enquiry it becomes obvious that the way of telling the request, the linguistic elements used and the procedures applied do not differ essentially from today’s practice, however, the argumentation technique as it appears in the 16th century as live speech seems to be redundant today. Familiarity with the relations of the time period (repayment of debt and the practice of recovery of possessions given on credit) makes a meaningful evaluation of seemingly redundant phrases possible.