The Linguistic Economies of Labouring Families in England and New South Wales during the Early Nineteenth Century

This thesis conceives and reveals a hitherto unconceptualized aspect of plebeian life: linguistic economies. It defines and demonstrates linguistic economies as an historical phenomenon, and a conceptual tool for historical analysis. Employing this concept, the thesis analyses how labouring families used, exchanged, and adapted language in England and New South Wales (NSW) in the early nineteenth century. It compares petitions for pardon from England and NSW, in which prisoners and their advocates petitioned the king, home secretary, or governor of NSW for relief from criminal sentences. Interrogating these sources, as well as convict love tokens, this thesis shows that plebeians’ linguistic economies were relational and participatory. It reveals how labouring people used language to reflect and shape social relationships, contribute to imperial expansion, and sometimes even change their own fates. It illuminates the range of rhetorical strategies used in petitions from both locations, how these worked, and how patterns of use changed according to petitioners’ social status and location. By situating labouring language in its social, geographic, and relational contexts, this thesis transforms the historiographical landscape. By arguing that labouring people’s linguistic economies were embedded in, and contingent on, their circumstances, this thesis challenges current depictions of plebeian agency as largely unfettered and self-fashioning. It also reconciles the methodologically estranged notions of representation and reality, demonstrating how plebeians’ strategic texts reveal their lived experiences of family relationships and social networks. By embedding labouring writing in its context, this thesis probes the content, characteristics, limits, and power of plebeian language.

Name dc:type.qualificationname

Doctor of Philosophy (PhD)

Level dc:type.qualificationlevel

Doctoral

Grantor dc:publisher.institution

University of Cambridge

Year dc:date.issued

2023

Author dc:creator

• Adams, Caitlin

Advisor dc:contributor.advisor

• Williams, Samantha

• British Empire
• England
• Language
• New South Wales
• Nineteenth Century
• Petitions
• Plebeians
• Social History

Licence

• https://www.repository.cam.ac.uk/bitstreams/82247446-664f-4099-ba58-9b8fc76abbac/download
• https://www.rioxx.net/licenses/all-rights-reserved/

Language dc:language

eng

DOI dc:identifier.doi

https://doi.org/10.17863/CAM.108436

OAI identifier oai:identifier

oai:www.repository.cam.ac.uk:1810/368107