The Diachronic Usage of Exclamation Marks across the Major Book of Mormon Editions

by Scott L. Howell, Brooke Anderson,, Lareina Hingson, Lanna D. McRae, Jesse Vincent

Overview

Abstract: The usage of the exclamation mark has changed over time but continues to serve as an important textual interpretation aid. Punctuation itself has not been a permanent fixture in English, rather it was slowly introduced to English documents with changing standard usages after the invention of the printing press. Here we highlight the use of the exclamation mark across major editions of the Book of Mormon and document the presence of the exclamation mark in a reference table.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940186785569
Publisher:	Interpreter Foundation
Publication date:	11/03/2022
Series:	Interpreter: A Journal of Latter-day Saint Faith and Scholarship , #53
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	389 KB

About the Author

Scott L. Howell is an assistant teaching professor for the graduate Department of Instructional Psychology and Technology at Brigham Young University. He holds a doctoral degree in Instructional Science from BYU and is a former administrator for the university’s Division of Continuing Education. He lives in Spanish Fork, Utah, and he and his wife, Lori, are the parents of seven children.

Brooke Anderson has a master’s degree in Linguistics from Brigham Young University. Her thesis is entitled “Exclamation Marks in the Book of Mormon: A Linguistic Analysis.”

LaReina Hingson is a visiting faculty member in Linguistics at BYU where she works on discourse analysis in religion, law, and sign language linguistics. She has lived in ten different states, visited three different continents, and served in three different temples. A retired competitive dancer, she continues to be physically active by teaching aerial arts.

Lanna McRae is a senior at BYU studying Linguistics with a minor in Russian and TESOL. Her primary research interests are second-language acquisition and sociolinguistics.

Jesse Vincent is a text analysis specialist in the Office of Digital Humanities at Brigham Young University. He assists scholars in creating textual corpora that they need for their research. He also develops WordCruncher, software designed to search, study, and analyze digital texts for discovering insights. Jesse graduated with a BA in Linguistics in 2019 and has been married since 2020 to his sweetheart from Germany. Together, they speak a total of ten languages.

Brandon Torruella is an undergraduate student at Brigham Young University. He studies Linguistics, as well as Computer Science, Scandinavian Studies, and Arabic. His academic interests are historical and computational linguistics.