Search for research themes
Members of ISLE can choose to create a brief profile of their current research activities for publication on our website. Each profile may contain up to 5 'themes', and each theme may include any number of keywords.
We aim for this page to be a showcase of research in English Linguistics. It will enable members to get in touch with others working on related research topics.
(Socio)Linguistic Effects across Political Borders
Long neglected as "unimportant" variation, political borders that cut across older dialect zones reveal interesting linguistic and sociolinguistic features that are very "real" for speakers
- Website: https://ubc.academia.edu/StefanDollinger/Border-Studies
- Expires after: 01-01-2555
- Keywords: Dialectology,Historical Linguistics,Language Change,World Englishes,Variationist Linguistics
Broadcast English
I study the role of broadcast English on standardization of spoken language; in particular the role of the Advisory Committee on Spoken English of the BBC.
- Website: people.unil.ch/jurgschwyter/the-bbc-and-spoken-english/
- Expires after: 01-01-2525
- Keywords: Mass Media,Standardization,Socio-historical Linguistics
Standardization of the English language
The topic of my research is the history of normative English grammar, particularly its contacts with contemporary philosophy of language, rhetoric and poetics.
- Expires after: 01-01-2525
- Keywords: Standardization,Historical Linguistics,Historical Sociolinguistics,Language And Culture,Prescriptivism,Grammar Writing
19c grammars and grammar writing
I investigate British and American grammars, grammar writing and their influence on language change of the time, based on corpus studies and my collection of nineteenth-century grammars (CNG).
- Website: http://www.anglistik.uni-kiel.de/de/fachgebiete/linguistik/anderwald/cng-collection-of-nineteenth-century-grammar
- Expires after: 01-04-2036
- Keywords: Historical Linguistics,Grammar Writing,Language Change,Prescriptivism
Variation and Change in English
Grammatical and phonological variation in past and present varieties of English; functional conditioning; based on linguistic corpora and text databases; with a focus on quantitative methodologies.
- Expires after: 31-12-2030
- Keywords: Alternations,Constraints On Variation,Corpus Linguistics,Diachronic Variation,Historical Linguistics,Language Change,Phonology,Quantitative Methods,Variationist Linguistics,World Englishes,Grammar
Language contact and grammatical change in early English
How much is early English syntax shaped by contact with Celtic and Norse? My Konstanz inaugural lecture (see link) gives an overview of some of my work on this so far.
- Website: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6IATXBYKiow
- Expires after: 01-10-2028
- Keywords: Historical Syntax,Language Contact,Language Change,Old English,Middle English,Syntax,Historical Linguistics
Verb-second
When the verb does and doesn't come second.
- Website: walkden.space/research.html
- Expires after: 01-07-2028
- Keywords: Syntax,Historical Linguistics,Corpus Linguistics,Old English,Middle English,Historical Syntax,Grammar
Null subjects
Is the subject expressed, or not?
- Website: walkden.space/research.html
- Expires after: 01-07-2028
- Keywords: Syntax,Corpus Linguistics,Historical Linguistics,Old English,Historical Syntax,Grammar
Weak verbs in old Northumbrian
My PhD project investigates the old Northumbrian weak verbal paradigm, specifically the morphology of weak verbs 2. Data collected from the interlinear glosses to the Lindisfarne & Rushworth Gospels.
- Expires after: 30-04-2025
- Keywords: Old English,Language Contact,English Historical Linguistics,Diachronic Linguistics,Historical Sociolinguistics,Language Change,Mixed-Effects Modelling,Morphology,Middle English,History Of English,Philology,Sociolinguistics,Quantitative Methods
Social Network Analysis (with Tino Oudesluijs)
Using both letters between individuals and mentions in letters and diaries to reconstruct social network
- Website: https://www.maryhamiltonpapers.alc.manchester.ac.uk/about/
- Expires after: 01-01-2025
- Keywords: Socio-historical Linguistics,Statistical Analysis,Social Network Analysis,Historical Correspondence
Uses of the auxiliary be in The Mary Hamilton Papers (with Tino Oudesluijs)
BE is the auxiliary undergoing most change in the second half of the 18th century. Among structures of interest are the passival, the progressive in main clauses, untensed use of BE as semi-modal.
- Website: https://www.maryhamiltonpapers.alc.manchester.ac.uk/about/
- Expires after: 01-01-2025
- Keywords: Auxiliary,Grammaticalisation,Syntax,Historical Correspondence,Historical Linguistics
Historical sociolinguistic analysis of Australian English
With a particular focus on the small isolated settler population of 19th-century Western Australia, I am looking at evidence of early Australian English dialect formation in texts 'from below'
- Expires after: 31-01-2024
- Keywords: Historical Sociolinguistics,Historical Linguistics,Historical Pragmatics,History Of English,Diachronic World Englishes,Written Language