Senses of obligation in eighteenth-century England: language, culture and behaviour

Brenner, Maurice (2024) Senses of obligation in eighteenth-century England: language, culture and behaviour. Doctoral thesis, University of East Anglia.

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Abstract

The language of obligation was ubiquitous in eighteenth-century writing. References to obligation, duty, being obliged or being obliging were very widespread, with nearly 90% of eighteenth-century printed works utilising this language at least once; on average, it occurred around 20 times in each text. Such occurrences were more frequent than references to family, God, money, death, honour, trust, politeness or various other terms that communicated values and attitudes. Indeed, among the very many terms tested for this study, only references to love and friendship occurred more frequently.

This thesis demonstrates that the language of obligation was a particular feature of eighteenth-century English discourse, exploring the many meanings that these terms could take, how they were used both to discuss moral, cultural and social issues but also to oil the wheels of social exchange, each use implying the bonds that tied people together. It suggests that this language reflected both a growing emphasis on the importance of interpersonal and social relationships and an increasing interest in the responsibilities and benefits of communal society.

The second focus of the thesis concerns how language meaning and use can be studied, particularly whether such historical enquiries can be conducted with sufficient rigour to yield reliable findings. It employs a mode of scepticism that seeks not only to illustrate a hypothesis but also to determine the representativeness of the studied behaviour within its historical context, scrutinising its research methodology at each stage. By applying computational linguistics to a large and comprehensive corpus of eighteenth-century texts, the study effectively 'opinion polls' eighteenth-century society to generate detailed data about how the language of obligation was used and the wide range of nuanced meanings that it took. These data allow hypotheses to be formulated about attitudes and opinions which are then critically examined using the traditional approaches of cultural and social history.

The thesis provides a comprehensive overview of the meanings of obligation in eighteenth-century writing and provides a significant insight into how obliged and obliging behaviour was understood and experienced in everyday life.

Item Type:	Thesis (Doctoral)
Faculty \ School:	Faculty of Arts and Humanities > School of History
Depositing User:	Chris White
Date Deposited:	19 Dec 2024 10:58
Last Modified:	19 Dec 2024 10:58
URI:	https://ueaeprints.uea.ac.uk/id/eprint/98033
DOI:

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