English Historical Linguistics

Edited by Laurel J. Brinton, this is the first volume of a massive two-volume international handbook on English historical linguistics. It is designed mainly for scholars of historical linguistics, with subsidiary use by scholars in fields such as history and cultural studies where English usage and its history is significant. The essays in both volumes are designed to be cross-disciplinary, international, and theory-neutral, to give a comprehensive overview, and to refer readers to in-depth specialist information as needed. The first volume deals with lower-level concerns, and is consistent with Neogrammarian and Structuralist approaches. It gives overviews of the recognized periods of English, and the linguistic levels (including such issues as prosody, discourse, orthography, and so on, as well as the traditional phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics). There are detailed descriptions of each historical period of English, with specific areas in each time period, such as the Great Vowel Shift, chosen for detailed study. Standardization is covered with reference to the development of printed books and dictionaries, and the last sections cover the effects of newspapers, radio, television, and the Internet. Annotation c2013 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)

Alexander Bergs, University of Osnabruck, Germany; Laurel Brinton, University of British Columbia, Vancouver, Canada.