Jonathan Culpeper

Merja Kytö

Language is largely comprised of face-to-face spoken interaction; however, the method, description and theory of traditional historical accounts of English have been largely based on scholarly and literary writings. Using the Corpus of English Dialogues 1560-1760, in this book Culpeper and Kytö offer a unique account of the linguistic features in several speech-related written genres, comprising trial proceedings, witness depositions, plays, fiction and didactic works. The volume is the first to provide innovative analyses of several neglected written genres, demonstrating how they might be researched, and highlighting the theories which are needed to underpin this research. Through this, the authors are able to create a fascinating insight into what spoken interaction in Early Modern English might have been like, providing an alternative perspective to that often presented in traditional historical accounts of English.

Spoken Interaction as Writing

Early Modern English Dialogues

Matti Rissanen

Kirsi Heikkonen

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

Studies of Long-term Developments in English

Grammaticalization at Work

Mats Rydén

Erik Smitterberg

This volume of Studies in English Language focuses on the nineteenth century, an important period of both stability and change for the English language. Through ten detailed case studies, it highlights the relationships between English, its users, and nineteenth-century society, looking particularly at gender differences and variation across genres. It also discusses major structural aspects of nineteenth-century English, such as nouns, verbs and adjectives, and Germanic vs. Romance vocabulary. Although the nineteenth century is often viewed as a relatively stable period in the development of the language, this volume shows the 1800s to be a time of significant change, some of which continued into the twentieth century. By making comparisons possible with both earlier and later periods, it makes an important contribution to our overall understanding of the history of the English language.

Stability and Change

Nineteenth-Century English

Päivi Pahta

English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.

The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics

Corpus-based Studies in Linguistic Variation and Genre Styles

English in Transition

This book analyses speech-related genres in Early Modern English, providing ideas of what spoken interaction in earlier times might have been like.

Merja Kytö

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