The English Language(s): Cultural & Linguistic Perspectives

by members of the 
Graduate Department of English,

University of Toronto

edited by C.E. Percy (Associate Professor, Department of English, University of Toronto)

and desperately in need of a web designer!

2000-present. Last updated September 5, 2008.

 

Diachronic topics - theory

• The descent of English: New evolutionary models of language change (Daniel Newman)

Diachronic topics - grammar

• From Grammatical to Natural Gender (Jesse Archibald-Barber)
• Development of the Second-Person Pronoun (Sara Malton)
• The Historical Rise of the English Phrasal Verb (George J.M. Lamont)
• Does Anyone Know How We Did That? The Evolution of the Periphrastic Do (Jason Aho)
• The Progress of English Verb Tenses and the English Progressive (George J.M. Lamont)
• That or Which? The that’s that of which is which (Soojin Lee)

Diachronic topics - vocabulary (see also specific periods)

• Born still: Euphemism and the double taboo of women's bodies and death (Allison Crawford)
• Military terminology and the English language (Adele Wilson)
• Dolce far niente: A comparative and theoretical study of Anglo-Italian Borrowing (Marco Avolio)

Old English

• Celtic Influence on Old English (Claire Lovis)
• Christian Terminology in the OE Lexicon before the Christianization Period (Rosa Corradi)
• The Function of the Futhorc Before Christianization and the Introduction of the Roman Alphabet in Old English (Susan Hesemeier)
• Roman Script and the Function of the Futhorc in Anglo-Saxon England (Rohanna Green)
• The Influence of Latin on Old English (Edward Moore)
• Anglo-Saxon Study of Language (Sarah Crellin)
• Early History of the Dictionary in England (Joanna Sobala)
• Translators and Translations of the Bible (Ian Williams)
• The Anglo-Saxon School Curriculum (Nathalie Foy)
• King Alfred's Literacy Program (Erich Guthrie)
• Manuscript Production and Distribution (Nikki Hessell)
• The Study of Latin and Old English at Winchester (Charles Stone)
• Problems with the Language of Anglo-Saxon Poetry (Jonathan Newman)
• Non-Medical "Science Writing" and Plant Nomenclature in Anglo-Saxon England (Sheetal Lodhia)
• Plant Names in Old and Middle English: Problems and Trends in Taxonomy (Andrew K. Yang)

Middle English

• Middle English as Creole? (Brandy Ryan)
• Linguistic "Standards" in Middle English: the Case of the Ancrene Wisse (Shannon Donaldson)
• French as a Mother-Tongue in Medieval England (Jacquie Heys)
• "Un faus franceis sai d'Angleterre:" The Teaching of French in the Medieval English Period (Shannon MacRae)
• Arabic in Middle English (Jessica Wilson)
• Quaint Clitter: Chaucer’s Qualified Use of Profanity in The Canterbury Tales (Ira Wells)
• John Wycliffe and the English Language (Erin Russell)
• English Language Change and the Advent of Printing (Elizabeth Dickens)
• Editing Middle English (Wm. Paul Meahan)

ME Semantic field studies

• Medical Terminology in Middle English: the Body (Erin Ellerbeck)
• Mental Illness Terminology in Middle English (Amelia DeFalco)
• Rime and metre, what else is there? Middle English Poetic Terminology (K. L. Hainer)
• Medical Terminology in Middle English: Disease (Irena Pochop)
• Nautical Terminology in Middle English  (Kendall Shields)
• More Garbage, Anyone? Eating and Cooking Meat in Medieval England (Rosalie Taylor)  

 Early Modern English

• Latin in English, 1500-1800 (Andrea Di Giovanni)
• Legal Language, Early Modern English, and their Relationships (Dale Barleben)
• Milton's Latinisms (Zach Pickard)
• The Influence of French on English in the Early Modern Period (Dane Jurcic)
• Spanish Influence on the English Language Prior to 1800 (Rebecca Schwarz)
• Manuals for Teaching English as a Foreign Language in the 15^th and 16^th Centuries (Alan J. Corrigan)
• Printers, Orthoepists, and Standardized English (Susana Llamas Olague)
• Gender and Language Change: the Case of Early Modern Women (Suzanne Grégoire)
• The Second Person Pronoun in Early Modern English (Cheratra Yaswen)
• Performative Language in Renaissance Performance (Laura Estill)
• Shakespeare’s Mature Style: Language as Drama (David Reibetanz)
• William Tyndale: The Father of English Prose (Tim Ward)
• Englishing the Word of God. The King James Bible: a Legacy of Heritage (Jacqueline B. Wylde)
• "Strange accents or ill shapen sounds": Dialect in Early Modern Drama (Erin Reynolds)
• "A pet-vice among us": Swearing in the eighteenth century (Erin Parker)
• Fixing language forever: eighteenth-century proposals for an English academy (Michael Raby)

Later Modern English

• Those who thee and thou: the Second Person Pronoun after 1800 (Cheratra Yaswen)
• Sic Transit Gloria Mundi: Gloria Threw up on the Bus on Monday? (Or, Latin Awareness since 1800) (Andrea Di Giovanni)
• Prescriptivism and ‘Cockney’ Letters in the Nineteenth Century (Elizabeth Bohnert)
• Correcting the Grammar of God: Noah Webster’s 1833 Bible (C. Dowdell)
• English Translations of the Roman Catholic Bible in the 20^th century (Marianna Ricciuto)
• Varieties of nostalgia: Victorian and Modernist romances with etymology (Glenn Clifton)
• Ezra Pound and the Chinese Written Language (Zach Pickard)
• The rise, reign, and (declining?) reputation of Received Pronunciation (Melanie East)
• Christianese: ‘Low’ Church Jargon in Contemporary North America (Amanda Baker)
• The Prison-House and Language: Modern American Prison Argot (Patrick Ellis)
• The Plain English Movement and Present-Day English Registers (Dale Barleben)
• High-tech money producing high-tech words: The history of e- and i- (Brandon McFarlane)
• "I'm just googling Frappuccino": Non-literal language and the "Corporatization" of Speech (Sarah Henderson)
• Loanwords and Mascots: American Indianisms in the English Language (Kyle C. Wyatt)
• Towards New Dialects: Spanglish in the United States (Susana Olague)
• Africanisms: Racial Attitudes as Reflected in African Loan Words (Tim Ward)

Diasporic Englishes

• Global English: Lingua Franca or Hegemony? (Rebecca Schwarz)
• Hiberno-English: the English Language in Medieval Ireland (Áine McGlynn)
• Segregation and variation in 1970s Belfast: a study of phonological variation in Belfast Urban vernacular (Sarah McLoughlin)
• The Story of Older Scots: the Rise and Fall of a Regional Variety (Fiona Coll)
• Robert Burns the Scottish Bard: prescriptivism, poetic primitivism and the status of Scots in the eighteenth century (Jennifer R. McDermott)
• English in Wales (Jeremy Martin)
• English in Maine: the mythologization and commodification of a dialect (Lindsay Ann Reid)
• English, Maori, and Maori English in New Zealand (Heather Ladd)
• Textualizing Dub Poetry: a literature review of Jamaican English from Jamaica to Toronto (Katherine McLeod)
• Problematic Pidginizations: Who Can Accept Ghanaian English? (Esther de Bruijn)
• Attitudes, ambitions, and the language of education: debates on the language of instruction in the Ghanaian education system (Melinda Sellers)
• The English language and Nigerian prose fiction (Alisha R. Walters)
• English as a marker of Southern Sudanese nationalism: social history, politics ,and language in the Sudan (Muhammad Sid-Ahmad)
• English Usage in Mauritius (Eugene Chiba)
• (Post)colonial language: English, Sinhala, and Tamil in Sri Lanka (Barton M. Saunders)
• More English, Less Islam? An overview of English language functions in the Arabian/Persian Gulf (Andrea Charise)
• Si, Parliamo Itangliano, Baby! Italian English revisited (Tania Botticella)
• The functionalist account of English in China: a sociolinguistic history (Stewart Cole)
• Language, culture, and pedagogy: an overview of English in South Korea (Brendan Flattery)
• ELT in China and a "China English" model (Mingjun Lu)

Canadian English

• Canadian English (Dane Jurcic)
• Codifying Canadian English (Nicholas Koppel)
• Eh is Canadian, Eh? Usage, Functions, and the Identity Crisis of Eh (Kailin Wright)
• Place Naming and the History of Toponomy in Nova Scotia (J.A. Bland)

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