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. In turn, socio-political achievements, ideological orientation, novel ways of thinking, and modifications of scientific knowledge and cultural practices inform and change the way words are used, leading to neologisms and semantic shifts as well as to expanded or narrowed meanings. Tracing the changes in the meaning of conversatio and its modern language derivatives, this book illustrates the productivity of historical semantic analysis for cultural studies.
