Authority and Direction in Late Modern English Instructive Writing: The Case of According to and Directive See

Abstract

This article examines how Late Modern English women writers calibrate authority and guide readers through two compact resources: the prepositional phrase according to and the directive verb see. Using CoWITE18 (1700-1799) and CoWITE19 (1800-1899), this study combines function-first coding with distributional profiling. According to overwhelmingly realises parameterisation and norm-alignment rather than named attribution; directive see shows a nineteenth-century rise of navigational and supervisory frames. We interpret these patterns within historical pragmatics (function in context and diachrony), Systemic Functional Linguistics SFL (interpersonal and textual metafunctions), evidentiality and stance, and metadiscourse/engagement. Findings suggest a stable ethos of calibrated guidance, anchoring procedures in situational variables, accompanied by stronger textual scaffolding and reader management in the nineteenth century.