Chapter published in:
Processes of Change: Studies in Late Modern and Present-Day English
Edited by Sandra Jansen and Lucia Siebers
[Studies in Language Variation 21] 2019
► pp. 95–114

Scotland’s contribution to English vocabulary in Late Modern times

This chapter discusses some nineteenth-century Scottish authors, lexicographers, and periodicals that are frequently cited as sources in the Oxford English Dictionary, in order to assess their role in the expansion of English vocabulary that occurred throughout Late Modern times. As these citations concern the first instances of both new lexical items and of new meanings, their proportion is analyzed paying special attention to the former. Literary sources are considered on account of their relative popularity at different points in time, but the article also discusses periodicals and dictionaries, which could have a greater or lesser encyclopaedic approach to the vocabulary they collected. The study shows that the complexity of lexical accretion in Late Modern times requires the study of a broad range of materials in the cultural framework in which they were produced and received.
Keywords: Late Modern English, Scotland, Scots, Scottish English, lexicography, lexical borrowing, cultural history
Published online: 13 August 2019
https://doi.org/10.1075/silv.21.06dos
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