Language and style of international agreements of wessex

Abstract

The article is concerned with a complex study of the specific features of international agreements in the aspect of functional stylistics and text linguistics. The linguistic evidence has been collected in the Old English texts of international agreements made in the late 9th century by the Wessex kings Alfred the Great, Eadward and the chief of Danes Guthrum as testified by the late 11th – early 12th century manuscript. The present article is intended to make some scientific contribution by trying to solve a number of functional style problems of a specific text type in diachrony, i. e. to consider linguostylistic features of international documents in the historical aspect. It has been found out that lexical, grammar, structural-syntactic and compositional features of the text type in question emerged at the early stage of its existence and are still functional now. The research also proceeds to various language levels, in particular the textual one, to reveal and describe the specific features of Old English international treaties which are no longer inherent in modern formal papers of the same type. As a result of analyzing the linguistic evidence, a conclusion is made that there has been effected some linguostylistic change in the course of formation of the given text type, which, however, can hardly be desribed as drastic.