The words of history – Phraseology as a key to historical argument

Over the last twenty years, the interest in the disciplinary practices of history has been documented by a wide array of works. However, in spite of the inspiring nature of these rich accounts, only tangentially have scholars become interested in the inherently textual dimension of historical argumentation. In an attempt to bridge some of the gaps left by existing research, this paper calls for phraseology as a suitable candidate for the study of the argumentative peculiarities of historical prose. The qualitative and quantitative study of recurrent phraseology in a synchronic corpus of research articles from a set of specialised journals provides evidence that historians appear to be keenly observant of the practice of speculating about their own job in terms of either a successful quest for research answers or its potential dead ends. Moreover, data show that historians position themselves as disciplinary experts at a variety of levels, as they attempt to establish their credentials in the eyes of their intended readership: first, when they compare sources and thereby carve out a niche of expertise from their interpretation of them; secondly, when they proceed to singling out what they see as a key-moment in the historical processes under investigation; and finally, in the act of shaping their discourse from the viewpoint of an omniscient narrator.