“I have come to the conclusion that you must die”

Abstract This paper explores the linguistic realisation of threats in a corpus of threatening letters discussed in Late Modern English ( lm od e ) criminal trials at the Old Bailey. After investigating how trial participants ascribe the action of “threatening” to the utterance in question, I examine which aspects are repeatedly addressed in the letters and which linguistic patterns are employed to perform the threat. The results show that speakers routinely address the preparatory and sincerity conditions of commissives to negotiate whether a letter is threatening. Compared to present-day threats, lm od e threats are considerably less speaker-focussed, and more threats explicitly specify threatener, target, and type of harm to be carried out. Linguistically, lm od e threatening letters contain a greater amount of taboo language and more non-conditional and retaliative threats.