Rights statement: This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Gillen. J. (2013) Writing Edwardian Postcards. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17 (4) 488-521, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josl.12045/abstract. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
Accepted author manuscript, 776 KB, PDF document
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
Research output: Contribution to Journal/Magazine › Journal article › peer-review
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TY - JOUR
T1 - Writing Edwardian postcards
AU - Gillen, Julia
N1 - This is the peer reviewed version of the following article: Gillen. J. (2013) Writing Edwardian Postcards. Journal of Sociolinguistics 17 (4) 488-521, which has been published in final form at http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/josl.12045/abstract. This article may be used for non-commercial purposes in accordance With Wiley Terms and Conditions for self-archiving.
PY - 2013/9
Y1 - 2013/9
N2 - The Picture Postcard was an extraordinarily popular innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe, enabling writers to send brief, multimodal messages through a cheap communications channel, in a ‘culture of speed’ (Keep 2001). With several deliveries a day, this could be experienced as closer to the synchronicity of the digital communications than vernacular written communications in the intervening period. I examine the writing of ten British Edwardian picture postcards from a collection of three thousand. Analysis of the writing, writtenness and multimodality (Lillis and McKinney this volume) of the postcards is combined with historical investigations of public records. Through this innovative approach to the construction of text histories, I demonstrate the value of applying the ethnographic sensibility of Literacy Studies to these communications that accomplished diverse and rich purposes and explore connections with claims made about contemporary digital practices.
AB - The Picture Postcard was an extraordinarily popular innovation at the beginning of the twentieth century in Europe, enabling writers to send brief, multimodal messages through a cheap communications channel, in a ‘culture of speed’ (Keep 2001). With several deliveries a day, this could be experienced as closer to the synchronicity of the digital communications than vernacular written communications in the intervening period. I examine the writing of ten British Edwardian picture postcards from a collection of three thousand. Analysis of the writing, writtenness and multimodality (Lillis and McKinney this volume) of the postcards is combined with historical investigations of public records. Through this innovative approach to the construction of text histories, I demonstrate the value of applying the ethnographic sensibility of Literacy Studies to these communications that accomplished diverse and rich purposes and explore connections with claims made about contemporary digital practices.
KW - literacy practices
KW - writing
KW - multimodality
KW - early twentieth century
KW - postcards
U2 - 10.1111/josl.12045
DO - 10.1111/josl.12045
M3 - Journal article
VL - 17
SP - 488
EP - 521
JO - Journal of Sociolinguistics
JF - Journal of Sociolinguistics
SN - 1360-6441
IS - 4
ER -