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83 results in History of the English language

Page 1 of 5

The New Cambridge History of the English Language
  • Britain, Ireland and Europe
  • Volume 4
  • Edited by Raymond Hickey
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    February 2026
    Print publication:
    28 February 2026

The New Cambridge History of the English Language

The New Cambridge History of the English Language
  • Transmission, Change and Ideology
  • Volume 3
  • Edited by Joan C. Beal
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    31 October 2025

The New Cambridge History of the English Language
  • Context, Contact and Development
  • Volume 1
  • Edited by Laura Wright, Raymond Hickey
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2025
  • This volume investigates the Indo-European and Germanic background to the English language, looking at how inherited elements of phonology and morphology survived into the Old English period. It then considers various kinds of contact between the first speakers of English and speakers of Celtic, Latin and Scandinavian, under different sociolinguistic circumstances. The manner in which initial standardisation of English took place, with considerable code-switching, and the structural changes which the language underwent in this early period are discussed. The various analytical methods used to examine the available data are considered in a dedicated chapter on philology. The volume also contains a set of longer chapters. These take a detailed look at various levels of language from phonology, morphology, syntax through to semantics and pragmatics, and include reviews of historical sociolinguistics and onomastics.

The New Cambridge History of the English Language
  • Documentation, Sources of Data and Modelling
  • Volume 2
  • Edited by Merja Kytö, Erik Smitterberg
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    January 2026
    Print publication:
    30 September 2025
  • This volume considers the various kinds of text which document the history of the English language. It looks closely at vernacular speech in writing and the broader context of orality along with issues of literacy and manuscripts. The value of text corpora in the collection and analysis of historical data is demonstrated in a number of chapters. A special focus of the volume is seen in the chapters on genre and medium in the textual record. Various types of evidence are considered, for instance, journalistic work, medical writings, historiography, grammatical treatises and ego documents, especially emigrant letters. A dedicated section examines the theories, models and methods which have been applied to the textual record of historical English, including generative and functionalist approaches as well as grammaticalisation and construction grammar. In addition, a group of chapters consider the English language as found in Beowulf and the writings of Chaucer and Shakespeare.

The English Language

Conversations on Dictionaries
  • The Universe in a Book
  • Edited by Ilan Stavans
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    September 2025
    Print publication:
    30 September 2025

Reflections on English Word-Formation
  • Laurie Bauer
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    August 2025
    Print publication:
    31 August 2025
  • We are all familiar with coming across a new word, whether it has just been invented or whether we have just not met it before. How do we invent new words? How do we understand words that we have never heard before? What are the limits on the kinds of words we produce? How have linguists and grammarians dealt with the phenomenon of creating new words, and how justified are their ways of viewing such words? In this concise and compelling book, Professor Bauer, one of the world's best-known morphologists, looks back over fifty years of his work, seeking out overlooked patterns in word-formation, and offering new solutions to recurrent problems. Each section deals with a different morphological problem, meaning that the book can either be read from start to finish, or alternatively used as a concise reference work on the key issues and problems in the field.

The Emergence and Development of American English
  • William A Kretzschmar, Jr.
  • Coming soon
  • Expected online publication date:
    July 2025
    Print publication:
    31 July 2025
  • This book tells the fascinating story of American English, tracing its emergence in the colonial period through to the present day. Written by a leading scholar, and drawing on data from the Linguistic Atlas Project, it explores how and why American English differs from British English, how it has been standardized, and how the USA's global political power has influenced its prominent status around the world. Illustrated with copious examples of language in use, it also surveys the various dialects of American English, including African American English, and explores social and cultural variation between English and other languages spoken in the United States. Each chapter explains the relevant terms and concepts from linguistics, and provides computer-based exercises. The author also introduces the basics of complexity science, showing how complex systems shape development and change in American English. Authoritative yet accessible, it will be essential reading for researchers and students alike.

Verbal Medicines
  • The Curative Power of Prayer and Invocation in Early English Charms
  • Leslie K. Arnovick
  • Published online:
    29 November 2024
    Print publication:
    07 November 2024
  • Religious texts played a central role in Early English, and this innovative book looks in particular at how medieval Christians used prayers and psalms in healing the sick. At first glance, the variety and multiplicity of utterances, prayers, exorcistic formulas, and other incantations found in a single charm may seem to be random and eclectic. However, this book shows that charms had distinct, logical linguistic characteristics, as well performative aspects that were shaped by their usage and cultural significance. Together, these qualities gave the texts a unique role in the early development of English, in particular its use in ritual and folklore. Arnovick identifies four forms of incantations and a full chapter is devoted to each form, arranged to reflect the lived experiences of medieval Christians, from their baptism in infancy, to daily prayer and attendance at Church celebrations, and to their Confession and anointing during grave illness.

Intensifiers in Late Modern English
  • A Sociopragmatic Approach to Courtroom Discourse
  • Claudia Claridge, Ewa Jonsson, Merja Kytö
  • Published online:
    15 March 2024
    Print publication:
    28 March 2024
  • The development of intensifiers has long been identified as an area of vibrant change in Late Modern English. This groundbreaking book provides the first comprehensive study of intensifiers in this period, and shows how they have changed over time. It uses speech-based and interactive data from the Old Bailey courthouse in London, enriched by extralinguistic information in the Old Bailey Corpus, to investigate an unprecedented range of intensifiers, including downtoners, boosters, and maximizers. The courtroom acts as a social microcosm of the period, providing unique insights on gender, class, and courtroom roles, and their effects on language use. The usage of intensifiers is illuminated from a lexico-grammatical angle, focusing on their formal and semantic features, as well as those of the items they modify. These perspectives are linked to temporal developments from 1720 to 1913, to offer a complete picture of variation and change in the intensifier area.

Methods in Historical Corpus Pragmatics
  • Epistemic Stance in Early Modern English
  • Daniela Landert
  • Published online:
    22 February 2024
    Print publication:
    29 February 2024
  • Based on an extensive corpus-based study, this revealing book explores how epistemic stance is expressed in the early modern period, and in doing so, presents new methodologies for using corpora to investigate issues in historical pragmatics. It provides a new, corpus-driven method for the analysis of pragmatic functions that rely on context-dependent interpretations. By retrieving passages that include a high-density of the pragmatic function under investigation, the subsequent analysis can reveal previously neglected forms and context-dependent factors. It includes four empirical studies that apply the method to the analysis of epistemic stance in four Early Modern English corpora, the result of which emphasise the importance of context for the expression of stance. It also includes an appendix with inventories of Early Modern English stance expressions, offering starting points for further research studies. It is essential reading for researchers and students in historical pragmatics and corpus pragmatics.

Pragmatics in the History of English
  • Laurel J. Brinton
  • Published online:
    28 September 2023
    Print publication:
    12 October 2023
  • How were you and thou used in Early Modern England? What were the typical ways of ordering others in Early Medieval England? How was the speech of others represented in the nineteenth-century novel? This volume answers these questions and more by providing an overview of the field of English historical pragmatics. Following introductory chapters which set out the scope of the field and address methods and challenges, core chapters focus on a range of topics, including pragmatic markers, speech representation, politeness, speech acts, address terms, and register, genre, and style. Each chapter describes the object of study, defines essential terms and concepts, and discusses the methodologies used. Succinct and clear summaries of studies in the field are presented and are richly illustrated with corpus data. Presenting a comprehensive and accessible yet state-of-the-art introduction to the field, it is essential reading for both students and academic researchers.

Borrowings in Informal American English
  • Małgorzata Kowalczyk
  • Published online:
    31 August 2023
    Print publication:
    14 September 2023
  • What do 'bimbo,' 'glitch,' 'savvy,' and 'shtick' all have in common? They are all expressions used in informal American English that have been taken from other languages. This pioneering book provides a comprehensive description of borrowings in informal American English, based on a large database of citations from thousands of contemporary sources, including the press, film, and TV. It presents the United States as a linguistic 'melting pot,' with words from a diverse range of languages now frequently appearing in the lexicon. It examines these borrowings from various perspectives, including discussions of terms, donors, types, changes, functions, and themes. It also features an alphabetical glossary of 1,200 representative expressions, defined and illustrated by 5,500 usage examples, providing an insightful and practical resource for readers. Combining scholarship with readability, this book is a fascinating storehouse of information for students and researchers in linguistics as well as anyone interested in lexical variation in contemporary English.

Consonantal Sound Change in American English
  • An Analysis of Clustered Sibilants
  • Wiebke H. Ahlers
  • Published online:
    10 August 2023
    Print publication:
    24 August 2023
  • Research on sound change often focuses on vowels, yet consonantal sound change also offers fascinating insights into language development and variation. This pioneering book provides a detailed investigation of consonantal sound change in English, by analyzing a large corpus of specifically designed field recordings from Austin, Texas. It offers one of the most in-depth analyses of /str/-retraction to date, drawing comparisons with studies of change in the distinguishing phonetic features of other varieties of English, and with studies of /str/-retraction in other Germanic languages. It further deepens our understanding of sound change by including qualitative data to position the sound change in the social reality of Austin, showing that specific sound changes are universally driven by age, gender and ethnicity. The results provide a testing ground for models of sociolinguistic and sound change, and highlight the importance of the social fabric of language in modeling language change.

The Long Journey of English
  • A Geographical History of the Language
  • Peter Trudgill
  • Published online:
    25 May 2023
    Print publication:
    08 June 2023
  • English is one of the most widely-spoken languages in the world, with native-speaking communities at the furthest ends of the earth. However, just three thousand years ago, the language-which-became-English was not spoken anywhere in Britain. Trudgill, one of the foremost authorities on the English language, takes us on a remarkable journey through the history of English to show how it grew to become the global phenomenon that we know today. Over ten short, easily digestible chapters, he traces its development and global spread, starting with the earliest genesis of English five thousand years ago, exploring its expansion in the British Isles, and finishing with an overview of how the language looks today, including its use in an increasingly digital world. Particular attention is paid to the native-speaker varieties of English from all around the world, and the relationship between colonial varieties of English and indigenous languages.

Transitional Morphology
  • Combining Forms in Modern English
  • Elisa Mattiello
  • Published online:
    13 December 2022
    Print publication:
    08 December 2022
  • Combining Forms (CFs) are a major morphological phenomenon in Modern English, yet while they have been discussed in some morphological literature, no full-length study has been devoted to this topic so far. This pioneering book addresses that gap by providing a framework in which CFs are marked as distinct from their neighbouring categories such as abbreviations and blending. It splits CFs into four distinct categories – neoclassical (e.g. bio-therapy, zoo-logy), abbreviated (e.g. e-reader, econo-politics), secreted (e.g. oil-gate, computer-holic) and splinters (e.g. docu- from documentary in docudrama). It shows that the notion of CF spans a wide spectrum of processes, from regular composition to abbreviation, from blending to analogy, and schema. Modern and emerging English CFs are analysed by adopting a corpus-based approach, and measuring their realised, expanding, and potential productivity. Comprehensive yet accessible, it is essential reading for researchers and advanced students of morphology, English historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, and lexicography.

Genre in English Medical Writing, 1500–1820
  • Sociocultural Contexts of Production and Use
  • Edited by Irma Taavitsainen, Turo Hiltunen, Jeremy J. Smith, Carla Suhr
  • Published online:
    13 October 2022
    Print publication:
    13 October 2022
  • Written by an interdisciplinary team of scholars, this book offers novel perspectives on the history of medical writing and scientific thought-styles by examining patterns of change and reception in genres, discourse, and lexis in the period 1500-1820. Each chapter demonstrates in detail how changing textual forms were closely tied to major multi-faceted social developments: industrialisation, urbanisation, expanding trade, colonialization, and changes in communication, all of which posed new demands on medical care. It then shows how these developments were reflected in a range of medical discourses, such as bills of mortality, medical advertisements, medical recipes, and medical rhetoric, and provides an extensive body of case studies to highlight how varieties of medical discourse have been targeted at different audiences over time. It draws on a wide range of methodological frameworks and is accompanied by numerous relevant illustrations, making it essential reading for academic researchers and students across the human sciences.

Standardising English Spelling
  • The Role of Printing in Sixteenth and Seventeenth-century Graphemic Developments
  • Marco Condorelli
  • Published online:
    31 March 2022
    Print publication:
    07 April 2022
  • The standardisation of English spelling that resulted from the advent of printing is one of the most fascinating aspects of the history of English. This pioneering book explores new avenues of investigation into spelling development by looking at the Early Modern English period, when irregular features across graphemes became standardised. It traces the development of the English spelling system through a number of 'competing' standards, raising questions about the meaning of 'standardisation'. It introduces a new model for the analysis of large-scale graphemic developments from a diachronic perspective, and provides a new empirical method geared specifically to the study of spelling standardisation between the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries. The method is applied to four interconnected case studies, focusing on the standardisation of positional spellings, i and y, etymological spelling and vowel diacritic spelling. This book is essential reading for researchers of writing systems and the history of English.

Syntactic Change in Late Modern English
  • Studies on Colloquialization and Densification
  • Erik Smitterberg
  • Published online:
    19 November 2021
    Print publication:
    25 November 2021
  • Syntactic Change in Late Modern English presents a stability paradox to linguists; despite the many social changes that took place between 1700 and 1900, the language appeared to be structurally stable during this period. This book resolves this paradox by presenting a new, idiolect-centred perspective on language change, and shows how this framework is applicable to change in any language. It then demonstrates how an idiolect-centred framework can be reconciled with corpus-linguistic methodology through four original case studies. These concern colloquialization (the process by which oral features spread to writing) and densification (the process by which meaning is condensed into shorter linguistic units), two types of change that characterize Modern English. The case studies also shed light on the role of genre and gender in language change and contribute to the discussion of how to operationalize frequency in corpus linguistics. This study will be essential reading for researchers in historical linguistics, corpus linguistics and sociolinguistics.

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