21.02.2023Lecture Series: “Variation and change in the history of the English lexicon” Convenors: Olga Timofeeva & Annina Seiler

This lecture series brings together leading international scholars to discuss historical lexicology (study of words), historical semantics (study of meanings) and historical lexicography (study of dictionaries) of the English language. The lectures follow three interrelated tracks of enquiry: 1) Lexis in dictionaries (historical lexicography, dictionaries of historical and regional varieties of English, history of lexicography and dictionaries, lexical wars and policy-making); 2) Semantic fields (histories of specific lexical items and semantic fields, myths and truths about specialized vocabulary, semantic change and lexical death); 3) Lexical sociolinguistics (lexical focusing, permeation and selection of lexical items, competition between native and borrowed vocabulary).

Schedule

21.Feb Kory Stamper: "Our Vernacular Tongue": Noah Webster, Joseph Worcester, and the Creation of American Dictionary Culture
28.Feb Joanna Kopaczyk: Scottish, northern, obsolete – navigating the overlaps between the Oxford English Dictionary and the Dictionary of the Scots Language
07.Mar John Considine: Variation and Change as Seen by Seventeenth-Century Lexicographers
14.Mar Stephen Pelle: The DicLonary of Old English and Methods of Historical Lexicography
21.Mar Ursula Lenker: Meanings and Functions of -lic(e)/-ly in the History of English
28.Mar Laura Wright: Lexical Sociolinguistics: Networks and Fireworks
04.Apr Richard Ingham: Borrowing and Polysemy: French Loans in Middle and Early Modern English
18.Apr Stefan Dollinger: “Is it really all in the data?” The case of anti-colonial lexicography in Canadian English, in comparison with Austrian German
25.Apr Louise Sylvester: Reinvestigating the Impacts of French Borrowing on the Vocabulary of Middle English
02.May Justyna Robinson: Concept-led Approach to Semantic Change
09.May Olga Timofeeva: Lexical focusing and lexical norms in Middle English
16.May Annina Seiler: The mannes privy membris & here parties: Let’s talk about sex in Middle English
23.May Kathryn Allan: Exploring the lexicalization of antonyms in the history of English
30.May Philip Durkin: Tracking loanwords in English using dictionaries: techniques, possibilities, and challenges
06.Jun Exam