Leading scholars examine the history of linguistics from ancient origins to the present. They consider every aspect of the field from language origins to neurolinguistics, explore the linguistic traditions in different parts of the world, examine how work in linguistics has influenced other fields, and look at how it has been practically applied

Volume two of this set covers the Middle English Period, approximately 1066-1476, and describes and analyses developments in the language from the Norman Conquest to the introduction of printing.

This authoritative and wide-ranging book, first published in 2003, examines the history of western linguistics over a 2000-year timespan, from its origins in ancient Greece up to the crucial moment of change in the Renaissance that laid the foundations of modern linguistics. Some of today's burning questions about language date back a long way: in 1400 BC Plato was asking how words relate to reality. Other questions go back just a few generations, such as our interest in the mechanisms of language change, or in the social factors that shape the way we speak. Vivien Law explores how ideas about language over the centuries have changed to reflect changing modes of thinking. A survey chapter brings the coverage of the book up to the present day. Classified bibliographies and chapters on research resources and the qualities the historian of linguistics needs to develop, provide the reader with the tools to go further.

This volume offers a ground-breaking investigation into women's contribution to the description, analysis, and codification of languages across a wide range of linguistic and cultural traditions. The chapters explore a variety of spheres of activity, from the production of dictionaries and grammars to language teaching methods and language policy.

Uniquely organized in terms of theoretical approaches, this is an advanced textbook on the study of English historical linguistics.

This 1981 book is a general introduction to linguistics and the study of language, intended particularly for beginning students and readers with no previous knowledge or training in the subject. There is first a general account of the nature of language and of the aims, methods and basic principles of linguistic theory. John Lyons then introduces in turn each of the main sub-fields of linguistics: the sounds of language, grammar, semantics, language change, psycholinguistics: the sounds of language, grammar, semantics, language change, psycholinguistics, language and culture. Throughout the book he emphasizes particularly those aspects of the discipline that seem fundamental and most likely to remain important. He stresses throughout the cultural at least as much as the biological context of human language, and shows how the linguist's concerns connect productively with those of the traditional humanities and the social sciences. Each chapter has a wide-ranging set of discussion questions and revision exercises, and extensive suggestions for further reading. The exposition is marked throughout by the author's characteristic clarity, balance and authority.

Discusses all aspects of language change as a dynamic process against a background of the differing approaches of the structuralist, neogrammarian and transformational generative schools.

Roger Lass offers a critical survey of the foundations of the art of historical linguistics.

Offers a contemporary approach to the study of language. The engaging, thought-provoking discourse of this book makes it accessible to all learners.

English historical linguistics is a subfield of linguistics which has developed theories and methods for exploring the history of the English language. This Handbook provides an account of state-of-the-art research on this history. It offers an in-depth survey of materials, methods, and language-theoretical models used to study the long diachrony of English. The frameworks covered include corpus linguistics, historical sociolinguistics, historical pragmatics and manuscript studies, among others. The chapters, by leading experts, examine the interplay of language theory and empirical data throughout, critically assessing the work in the field. Of particular importance are the diverse data sources which have become increasingly available in electronic form, allowing the discipline to develop in new directions. The Handbook offers access to the rich and many-faceted spectrum of work in English historical linguistics, past and present, and will be useful for researchers and students interested in hands-on research on the history of English.