Metalinguistic Labelling in John Florio’s : A Worlde of Wordes (1598)

This essay seeks to provide a historical linguistics and lexicographical analysis of the usage labels employed in the first edition of John Florio’s Italian-English dictionary, A Worlde of Wordes (1598). While the use of metalinguistic labels to indicate restrictions on word usage, contextual appropriateness, or register variation is a prevalent feature in modern lexicography, such practices were relatively uncommon in early modern lexicography. By examining Florio’s usage labels, this study explores the development of metalinguistic practices in lexicography and provides insight into the metalanguage used to discuss languages and linguistic phenomena during the early modern period. The core argument is that an analysis of Florio’s labelling practices offers valuable insights into contemporary notions of language, its variability, and its pragmatics; as a writer renowned for his linguistic sophistication, Florio serves as an exemplary case study in this regard. This research, part of a larger project on the history of English linguistic metalanguage from 1500 to 1700, conducts a taxonomic analysis of Florio’s usage labels, in order to understand his conceptualisation of register variation and of the semantic and pragmatic dimensions of lexicon.