The Introduction to Volume II begins by situating the volume within the New Cambridge History of the English Language. The topics of documentation, sources of data and modelling are then introduced. Part I addresses aspects of the textual record and its documentation, from inscriptions via manuscripts and prints to computerised corpora; special attention is paid to the relationship between speech and writing and to diachronic aspects of the English lexicon. Part II focuses on three key works or authors that have been central sources of data in historical studies: Beowulf, Chaucer and Shakespeare. Part III provides detailed accounts of a selection of text categories and their value as sources of data, including a chapter dedicated to texts by women, who are underrepresented in the historical record. Part IV, finally, discusses several important theoretical and methodological approaches to modelling historical language data, including generative, functional, cognitive and psycholinguistic approaches as well as construction grammar, grammaticalisation and advanced statistical treatments. Connections between aspects of the documented historical record, the data scholars can retrieve from it, and the models they apply to their data are highlighted.

The lexicalised use of the term ‘bad data’ in present-day sociolinguistics refers to fragmentary material which is the only data for a certain source, for example a historical stage of a variety/language. Although far from ideal, such data can nonetheless yield significant insights if examined and assessed judiciously. In this chapter two quite different cases are considered to illustrate how one can proceed with such data. The first considers the development of Voice Onset Time in Received Pronunciation, embodied in the recorded speeches of English monarchs, while the second looks at how supraregional accents of Irish English changed between the late nineteenth and the mid twentieth century by appraising the changes in pronunciation across generations of speakers, which resulted from shifts in political and cultural status and which were subsequently mirrored by shifts in linguistic identity.