Developments in English: Expanding Electronic Evidence (Studies in English Language)

The history of the English language is a vast and diverse area of research. In this volume, a team of leading historians of English come together to analyse 'real' language, drawing on corpus data to shed new light on long-established issues and debates in the field. Combining synchronic and diachronic analysis, the chapters address the major issues in corpus linguistics – methodological, theoretical and applied – and place special focus on the use of electronic resources in the research of English and the wider field of digital humanities. Topics covered include polemical articles on the optimal use of corpus linguistic methods, macro-level patterns of text and discourse organisation, and micro-features such as interjections and hesitators. Covering Englishes from the past and present, this book is designed specifically for graduate students and researchers working in fields of corpus linguistics, the history of the English language, and historical linguistics.

Irma Taavitsainen is Professor Emerita of English Philology at the University of Helsinki.

Merja Kytö is Professor of English Language at Uppsala Universitet, Sweden.

Claudia Claridge is Professor of English Linguistics at Universität Duisburg–Essen.

Jeremy Smith is Professor of English Philology at the University of Glasgow.