Dr Tatiana Bochkareva
Moscow State University
The Paston Letters: a private epistolary tradition and its influence on the national standard of English
The focus of my current research is an interdisciplinary study of a 15th-century epistolary corpus, known as the Paston letters. My major interest lies in tracing the ways in which the corpus, consisting of several generations of family letters, illustrates linguistic, sociological, political and cultural changes in the English society. One of the most fascinating aspects of such changes is reflected in the influence of this private epistolary tradition on the emerging national standard of English in the 15th century. The outcome of my research project I envisage in a monograph, augmented with a selection of the original letters, their translation into Russian and commentaries in the appendix, making them ready accessible both to the specialists and to the general public.
Although English literary language developed in London, its dialectal base was not that of South or South-East, but of the Midlands, particularly of East Anglia. The Pastons were based in East Anglia, dwelling at times in Norwich and at times in their mansions scattered across Norfolk. The family was concerned with quality education, sending its male members to Oxford or Cambridge and then to London to study law. Subsequently they spent long periods in London, defending their interests in London courts, most notably William Paston, his elder son John and John’s sons. There they grew accustomed to the rules and style of written English cultivated in the royal scriptoria and law corporations.
When these men wrote private letters home they followed London standard and never used the local dialect. Those, however, who constantly lived in Norfolk, avoided imitating the London style, adhering to the local Norwich tradition, which was strong and certainly greatly valued. Such letters provide numerous examples of the spelling better reflecting pronunciation than in the official correspondence, where conventional rules already dominated, which has been commented on in the scholarly literature. What remains unexplored in the word usage and syntax, especially the French influence thereupon. Historical usage and its evolution are unfortunately generally neglected by linguists, despite it being an extremely promising field, unveiling how various phrases and expressions appeared and developed in English. From this point of view the Paston letters provide a unique if not ideal material since a great part of them was composed by people who generally ignored rules of rhetoric and composition, otherwise unavoidable in official correspondence.
The Pastons and their peers contributed to the national standard of English no less than did Geoffrey Chaucer, John Wyclif and William Caxton, although in a different manner. They set an example for their neighborhood and for the next generations of how to express themselves ‘in plain English’, which became an important part of the literary norm.
