My Analysis of 5 Love Letters: Pragmatics

            I have taken the five love letters our group has gathered, and analysed them as thoroughly as I can in terms of their pragmatics, that is, what notions/ ideals about love and relationships, and more specifically, love letters themselves, are presented in the language used by the writers. I have found a number of patterns and interesting features, as noted below.

N.B:  Whilst conducting my analysis, I found that my findings overlapped somewhat with things Meg may have noticed for lexis, and Lauren for Social context. In the notes below, I have tried not to include these. When it comes to comparing findings and readying them for presentation, we can combine all of our findings and condense any points that appear in more than one topic.

• ·      Love letters from present day or recent decades (the 80s) include some features which are typical of older love letter writing conventions, which suggests that, as love letter writing is not such a common thing today, writers look for help from past examples to give them a guideline. In the letter from the 1980s, the writer had included a sender’s address in the top corner, even though he probably posted the letter through the receiver’s door himself (given the context). Mat’s present day love letter features phrase ‘look upon the stars   and know that I am looking back doing the same wherever I’ll be’ – suggests influence of older romantic writing/romantic films as star-gazing isn’t a common pastime for young couples today. This is the kind of reference Beethoven might have used.     

• ·      There is little to no mention of physical love in any of the letters (only reference being ‘see you in a minute for my peck’), the pragmatics of this being that talk of physical love isn’t (generally speaking) a feature of love letters.

• ·      The letters from M (60s) and Mt (present) are the only ones which reference events/people outside of the relationship. M says ‘hope everyone is well’ and ‘maybe I will send… [my parents]… a telegram]’ and Mt says ‘keep tabs with my mom’. M’s letter is also rather like a postcard/diary entry – she spends much of it talking about things she’s done, whilst Mt spends some of his letter referencing war in Afghanistan. Pragmatics of this: That more modern couples have a more practical attitude to ‘courting’ than love letter writers of the past. Henry and Beethoven’s letters have one theme only – themselves and their lovers. Love letters of the past sound much more self-involved, as if the lovers are the only ones who exist.

• -       Following on from this idea, M’s 1960s letter suggests a more realistic, level-headed view of love. She says things like ‘oh it was a great laugh’ of her holiday, showing she’s still able to have fun without her significant other. All four other letters give the impression happiness is hard or impossible without lover, eg. Mt: ‘we both know how hard this will be’, Beethoven: ‘I can only live, either altogether with you or not at all’ and Henry: ‘the anguish of absence is so great’. The inclusion of such declarations of sorrow suggests another key feature of love letters is the expression of sorrow at separation from the recipient. The writer of the 1980s love letter also expresses sadness: ‘I'm too lonely for words’, though this may have been written to purposely mimic style of older love letters (suggested by the fact this line appears next to the more comedic ‘I'm going to snooze land’, and that the lovers aren’t far removed from each other).

• -       Theme of practicality in modern is continued in Mt’s present day letter: ‘I leave on this mission to try and make a difference in this world, knowing full well that I am risking my life doing so’ and ‘no matter what unfolds for us, know I loved you every single second we spent together’ (both emphasising fact they may never be reunited). Pragmatics: Many modern day love letters are written by soldiers, so we could assume that many will express harsher realities than the love letters of eg. Beethoven (although Beethoven and Henry are both separated from their loves, they don’t focus on the negative external forces behind their separation).

• ·      One of the general pragmatics of writing a love letter at all is that the writer is hoping to remind the recipient of their existence and maintain the relationship they have in the only way they really can when separated for a long time. As a result, most of these love letters suggest the writer is looking for reassurance that the recipient still loves them, or providing reassurance for the recipient eg.:

- ‘please don’t give up on us even if times get hard, please know I won’t let go, I won’t give up on us’ (present day)

- ‘I hope the same from you’ (1500s)

- ‘never doubt the faithfullest heart of your beloved’ (1700/1800s)

Henry talks of providing Anne with bracelets featuring his picture, further suggesting the need to remind their loved-ones of their relationship.

• ·      Emphasis on faithfulness a feature of all five love letters.

• ·      Henry, Beethoven and Mt all make references to the celestial, suggesting their love is something ‘out of this world’. The fact these letters are all from very separate eras also implies that the celestial is something which has always had romantic connotations, and probably always featured quite heavily as a reference in love letters.

I have attached below my annotated copies of the love letters, which feature a few more minor points I picked up on and demonstrate my workings. As we proceed with our project, I will condense the findings outlined above, to create a concise outline of the pragmatic features of love letters from different eras, how they differ, and any similarities they share.