From Symptomes of Martirdome to Symptoms of Inclination An Investigation of Symptom in Non-medical Writing in Early Modern English

The signifier term symptom is strongly associated with the medical register, and its history in English medical writing has been studied quite extensively. This study contributes to our knowledge of the non-medical uses of symptom during the Early Modern period. Drawing on the 1.4-billion-word Early...

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Published inNordic Journal of English Studies Vol. 21; no. S2; pp. 108 - 137
Main Authors Tyrkkö, Jukka, Alkenäs, Pauline, Richardson-Owen, Esme, Widegren, Johannes
Format Journal Article
LanguageEnglish
Published Oslo Umeå University and Nordic Association of English Studies 2022
Goeteborgs Universitet, Engelska Institutionen
University of Oslo
Subjects
corpus
Diachronic linguistics
Early Modern
Early Modern English
Engelska med språkvetenskaplig inriktning
English
historical linguistics
lexicology
Linguistics
Lingvistik
medical humanities
Medical language
non-medical
Semantics
signifier term
symptom
Greece
United Kingdom
Netherlands
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Summary:The signifier term symptom is strongly associated with the medical register, and its history in English medical writing has been studied quite extensively. This study contributes to our knowledge of the non-medical uses of symptom during the Early Modern period. Drawing on the 1.4-billion-word Early English Books Online corpus, the study examines all extant occurrences of symptom and categorises their usage. The diachronic study shows that non-medical uses of symptom emerged almost immediately after the word came into common use, and that despite its semantic association with medical prognostication and ailments of various kinds, symptom has always been used to some extent as a signifier term referring to positive events and states of being.
ISSN:1654-6970
1502-7694
1654-6970
DOI:10.35360/njes.778