Developments in English

Researchers have studied the history of English from many angles for a long time. This collection gathers contributions from specialists in the field who examine authentic language use through corpus data, revisiting questions that have long been argued over. The chapters look at English both over time and at a single moment, and they cover methods, theory and practical application in corpus linguistics. A strong emphasis falls on electronic resources and their role in English studies and the wider digital humanities. Subjects range from opinion pieces on how corpus methods ought to be applied, to large-scale patterns in how texts and discourse are organised, to small features such as interjections and hesitation markers. The text spans Englishes of earlier periods and of today.

The volume grew out of a meeting of the International Association of University Professors in English, held in Malta from 19 to 23 July 2010. There, the corpus linguistics and history of English sections were merged into a conference within a conference that ran for several days. The editors found the presentations so stimulating that they decided to turn them into a book.

It is written for graduate students and scholars in corpus linguistics, the history of the English language, and historical linguistics.