Benjamin Franklin’s English

Iyeiri, Yoko. 2025. Benjamin Franklin’s English: Form to Function Analyses. Abingdon: Routledge.

This book focuses on linguistic aspects of Benjamin Franklin’s (1706-1790) writings. As one of the founding fathers of the United States, Benjamin Franklin left a bulk of documents, including letters and autobiography. Using The Papers of Benjamin Franklin, I have compiled a dataset of his writings for my research, on which the present book is based. I would like to express my thanks once again to the Benjamin Franklin project team at Yale University.

The introduction sets up the research questions by examining recent trends in historical sociolinguistics and discusses the data and methodology in detail. Chapters 2 and 3 adopt a form-based approach, with Chapter 2 focusing primarily on a sociolinguistic perspective. Chapter 3 addresses various linguistic phenomena from both diachronic and synchronic viewpoints.

The final chapter, Chapter 4, serves as the conclusion but places significant emphasis on reevaluating the topics discussed in Chapters 2 and 3 from the perspective of function.

This book is not only relevant for those studying 18th-century English but also serves as a valuable resource for exploring themes related to English from other historical periods.