The volume contributes to historical pragmatics an important chapter on what has so far not been paid adequate attention to, i.e. historical metapragmatics. More particularly, the collected papers apply a meta-communicative approach to historical texts by
1. Preface and acknowledgements, pvii-viii; 2. Introduction (by Hubler, Axel), p1-16; 3. Part 1. Metacommunicative profiles of communicative genres; 4. 1.1 Cross-sectional studies; 5. Sociability: Conversation and the performance of friendship in early