Upon My Going into a Coffee-House Yesterday, and Lending an Ear to the Next Table. A Corpus-Based Exploration of Coffee House Dialogues and Their Discursive Practices in Late 17th and Early 18th Century England (1662–1712)

This research presents a corpus-based study which examines various speech-related written genres from the period 1662–1712. The collected texts, comprising transcribed coffeehouse dialogues, plays, poems, and trial proceedings, reflects the popularity of public coffeehouses in England, renowned as social spaces where people gathered news and debated ideas on politics, religion, science, literature, travel and other matters. Although coffeehouses have been studied from the historical, social theorist point of view (Habermas, 1989), this research adds linguistic insight into the experience of these public spaces. Hence, the aim of the study is to explore linguistic features relevant to the socio-historical and pragmatic aspects of the texts, focusing on speech acts, politeness strategies, conversation principles, hedging and assertive utterances. Data retrieved so far reveal a significant tension in the supposed discursive practices. The idea of the coffeehouse as a peaceful place of rational and reasoned argumentation contrasts sharply with linguistic evidence which shows coffeehouse conversations as not always so civil.