Semantic traces of social interaction from antiquity to early modern times: historical conversation

There are many methods that use historical semantic analysis as the key to unlocking an understanding of past epochs, concepts in the humanities, and socio-historical events, including: conceptual history, lexicometry and socio-historical discourse semantics.

As diverse as these approaches are, stemming as they do from varying academic traditions, together they have proven that language is more than just a passive medium to transport meaning.

Words and their meanings on the one hand, and the changes in those meanings on the other, influence socio-cultural structures, orders of knowledge, ideologies and mentalities.