Lexical choices in Early Modern English devotional prose

Abstract Religious controversy in English has always been marked by ideologically charged lexicons. Developments the analysis of machine-readable corpora have enabled more robust conclusions to be drawn about nature these vocabularies, relating particular usages confessional orientations. In this paper, part a long-term research project on history religious vocabulary, an attempt is made identify “keywords” characteristic presbyterian, puritan and high Anglican communities practice within Church England. addition, paper addresses some methodological theoretical issues involved such research, historical pragmatics.