Aspects of the idiolect of Queen Elizabeth I : a diachronic study on sociolinguistic principles

My study investigates aspects of the idiolect of Queen Elizabeth I using a sociolinguistic
framework. My source material for Elizabeth's idiolect is an electronic corpus which I have
compiled from transcripts of the best-authenticated examples of Elizabeth's own
compositions in letters, speeches and translations. My investigation analyses nine
morpho syntactic variables in the corpus and I chart their distribution and development
diachronically. I also provide the first detailed analysis of Elizabeth's spelling, assessing
developments in forms and the level of consistency in their use. For each linguistic feature, I
compare her idiolect with macro-level linguistic data in order to contextualise her usage
within previously established statistical norms of Early Modern English. I conduct a detailed
analysis of social, stylistic, interactive and systemic factors to assess their potential influence
on the frequency patterns in her idiolect.
There are three key outcomes of my study. Firstly, I offer a new perspective on
Elizabeth's writing by considering how the linguistic developments in her idiolect reflect and
relate to her biographical experiences. I re-evaluate the emphasis historians have placed on
her accession, and identify other biographical events that appear to have an impact on her
language-use. I also consider how far Elizabeth's role in language change (where she is often
a leader and frequently comparable in usage to her male contemporaries) affects current
accounts of her socio-political role as a female monarch. Secondly, I evaluate the
applicability of my idiolectal data to questions of authorship in the canon of Elizabeth's
writings, considering the theoretical merits of morpho syntactic and spelling data before
testing its application with four case studies. Thirdly, I reflect on the role of the idiolect in
historical sociolinguistics, and demonstrate how my findings can test existing sociolinguistic
accounts, and help to expand our understanding of the processes involved in language change.