Can’t see the wood for the trees?

Corpora and the study of Late Modern English

Joan C. Beal | University of Sheffield

This paper provides an overview of the effect of what we might call the “corpus revolution” on Late Modern English (LModE) studies, transforming it from the “Cinderella” of historical linguistic study to the exciting and innovative field that it is today. In acknowledging what has been gained from this turn to corpora, it also discusses whether this is restricting the kinds of research questions being asked and the fields in which research takes place. More specifically, it demonstrates how phonology, which used to dominate historical language studies, has been sidelined due to the lack of searchable corpora or databases of phonological evidence from the LModE period. Finally, it outlines how a corpus of LModE phonology might be created.

Published online: 11 April 2012
https://doi.org/10.1075/scl.50.04bea

Cited by

Cited by 6 other publications

Beal, Joan C.

2013. The place of pronunciation in eighteenth-century grammars of English. Transactions of the Philological Society 111:2 ► pp. 165 ff.

BEAL, JOAN C., SUSAN FITZMAURICE & JANE HODSON

2012. Special issue: selected papers from the fourth International Conference on Late Modern English. English Language and Linguistics 16:2 ► pp. 201 ff.

BEAL, JOAN C., RANJAN SEN, NURIA YÁÑEZ-BOUZA & CHRISTINE WALLIS

2020. Special issue on studies in Late Modern English historical phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP): introduction. English Language and Linguistics 24:3 ► pp. 471 ff.

Markus, Manfred

2021. Joseph Wright’s sources in the English Dialect Dictionary: evidence of spoken English from EDD Online. Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 29:1 ► pp. 77 ff.

Ní Mhurchú, Aoife

2018. What’s Left to Say About Irish English Progressives? “I’m Not Going Having Any Conversation with You”. Corpus Pragmatics 2:3 ► pp. 289 ff.

YÁÑEZ-BOUZA, NURIA

2020. ECEP: historical corpora, historical phonology and historical pronouncing dictionaries. English Language and Linguistics 24:3 ► pp. 475 ff.

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