Contact, Variation, and Change in the History of English

Studies in Language Companion #159

by Simone E. Pfenninger (Editor), Olga Timofeeva (Editor), Anne-Christine Gardner (Editor)

The papers in this volume aim at facilitating exchange between three fields of inquiry that are of great importance in historical language change, (socio)linguistic research on variation, and contact linguistics. Drawing on a range of recently-developed methodological innovations, such as methods for quantifying the linguistic variation (that is a prerequisite for language change) or new corpus-based methods for investigating text-type variation, the contributors are able to trace linguistic change in different periods and contact situations, demonstrate how variation occurs, and in how far language change results out of this variation. Thus, the chapters go beyond core issues of language variation and change, focusing on the boundary between word and grammar, discourse and ideology in the history of the English language.

Genres: Linguistics

332 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2014

About the author

Simone E. Pfenninger is Assistant Professor at the University of Salzburg. Her principal research areas are multilingualism, psycholinguistics and individual differences (e.g. the age factor) in SLA, especially in regard to quantitative approaches and statistical methods and techniques for language application in education. Recent books include Beyond Age Effects in Instructional L2 Learning: Revisiting the Age Factor (2017, co-authored, Multilingual Matter), The Changing English Language: Psycholinguistic Perspectives (2017, co-edited, CUP), and Future Research Directions for Applied Linguistics (2017, co-edited, Multilingual Matter). She is co-editor of the Second Language Acquisition book series for Multilingual Matters.