Discourse traditions, text linguistics and historical pragmatics

Both DT and HP address issues of language change within a textual perspective,the former by investigating mechanisms in the evolution of texts in relationto their sedimentation in specific genres, the latter by focusing on the role of co-textand context in change. The first part of the chapter explores the dual nature of textualmechanisms in diachrony: on the one hand, they are subject to evolution in time, andare thus diachronically variable; on the other hand, they are governed by diachronicallystable and generally universal principles, as they relate to general cognitive andcommunicative features. The second part of the study discusses issues in HP that arerelevant to DT research, illustrated by case studies in Romance languages. The finalsection draws some conclusions and highlights avenues for further research.