historical present


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historical present

n.
The present tense used in the narration of events set in the past.
Our Living Language When telling stories about past events, people often switch into present tense, as in I was walking home from work one day. All of a sudden this man comes up to me and says.... This phenomenon, called the historical present, has a long history in English and is found in numerous other languages, both ancient and modern. Linguists have sometimes suggested that the historical present makes stories more vivid primarily by bringing past actions into the immediate present. However, it has been noted that, no matter how exciting stories are, the speakers never use present tense verbs exclusively—even when relating the most crucial events. In addition, past and present tense alternations tend to occur only between events that are markedly different. In other words, tense alternation usually does not occur when two verbs are viewed as belonging to one larger event. For example, two verbs joined by and that share the same subject tend to share the same tense as well, especially when the subject appears only once, just before the first verb, as in Those two people came in and sat down. It seems, then, that the historical present serves more to separate events within stories than to bring stories to life. One interesting exception to this is the verb say: its tense alternations do not seem regular; in addition, its third person present form says is also used in nonstandard narration with I, as in So I says to the guy, I says....

historical present

n
(Linguistics) the present tense used to narrate past events, usually employed in English for special effect or in informal use, as in a week ago I'm walking down the street and I see this accident

histor′ical pres′ent


n.
the present tense used in narrating a past event.
[1960–65]
ThesaurusAntonymsRelated WordsSynonymsLegend:
Noun1.historical present - the use of the present tense to describe past actions or states
present tense, present - a verb tense that expresses actions or states at the time of speaking
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References in periodicals archive ?
One of the great features of Gourley's work is how he effectively utilizes historical present tense to put his readers into the time period.
Crucible of Faith & Freedom: Baptists and the American Civil War
Rohrbach's argument articulates both historical/intellectual contexts and existential/temporal horizons in a distinctive series of readings that underline the role of aesthetic form in responding to and reshaping Romanticism's historical present along with its attendant ethical and political possibilities.
Emily Rohrbach. Modernity's Mist: British Romanticism and the Poetics of Anticipation
Wolman offers this critical exploration of the historical present roles of currency arguing for the conclusion that cash is soon to become obsolete.
The End of Money: Counterfeiters, Preachers, Techies, Dreamers -- and the Coming Cashless Society
I have myself experienced the scholarship and friendship of Ianziti, having had many fruitful discussions with him concerning the origins of modern historiographical patterns (on which now see the challenging observations of Walter Kudrycz, in his The Historical Present, Medievalism and Modernity, 2011).
Callisen, Christian Thorsten, ed., Reading and Writing History from Bruni to Windschuttle: Essays in Honour of Gary Ianziti
The last article takes note of Thomas Aquinas's amazingly Constructivist-friendly notion 'that in God there is no composition' ('Iconicity', in Historical Present, 209-28, esp.
Electric icon: Joseph Masheck situates Dan Flavin's early icon works but gives the spotlight to more recent works by Stephen Antonakos
While the ostensible premise of sci-fi rests on some imagined future, its "deepest subject may in fact be our own historical present," displaced by our inability to come to terms with it, as Fredric Jameson has written.
9th Mercosul Biennial
Berlant trains her critical eye on both the historical present and the ordinary.
Precarious attachments
While such re-negotiations continue to provide counter-hegemonic inspiration, the essays in Living Fanon maintain that we can only refine our understanding by paying much closer attention to the peculiarities of geo-political, economic, ideological, and cultural contexts, both in relation to the period from which the original texts emerge and in terms of the peculiar dynamics of the historical present.
Living Fanon: Global Perspectives
Among grammatical features, the historical present is characterized in several studies as a feature associated with key events, turning-points and vividness.
Peak-marking strategies in Old English narrative prose
B: In Cruel Optimism I claim that the historical present makes itself available to its occupants first as a serious affective disturbance in the reproduction of life.
Affect and the political
to the winter of 2006"), to the choice of verbs ("he uses the historical present so beloved of the empathy school of historians"), and to the fact that Wolff produced "for the most part, a sympathetic account [of the Murdoch clan].
My two cents
Conversely, they make an excessive and conscious effort to avoid using the Historical Present (HP) in order to match the tense, which can be interpreted as a sign of hypercorrection of the linguistic specific features in the L2.
Interlanguage Pragmatics Study of Indirect Complaint among Japanese ESL Learners

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