English Language
Linguistic theory, historical linguistics and language variation as applied to the English language
Edinburgh has a long and illustrious history of investigating the linguistics of English and Scots, both synchronic and diachronic. Researchers in Edinburgh benefit from an enormous body of collectively-available knowledge about these areas.
We consider how linguistic theory can be developed in relation to English and how English can be better understood through the insights offered by linguistic theory, and we work on aspects of historical and variationist linguistics.
Some of this work has been carried out under the umbrella of the Angus McIntosh Centre for Historical Linguistics (previously the Institute for Historical Dialectology).
People
Staff working in this area include:
| Name | Research interests |
|---|---|
| Dr Claire Cowie | World Englishes; language contact; morphogical productivity; pragmatics |
| Professor Nikolas Gisborne | Syntax, particularly dependency theory and word grammar; events and event structure; lexical semantics; language change |
| Dr Lauren Hall-Lew | Sociolinguistics; sociophonetics; phonetic methods; English variation and change; language and ethnicity; language and tourism |
| Professor Caroline Heycock | Syntactic theory; syntactic variation and change; Germanic; Japanese; syntax of Scottish varieties |
| Dr Patrick Honeybone | Phonological theory; historical phonology; variation in English in Northern England |
| Dr Pavel Iosad | Theoretical phonology; phonological interfaces; historical phonology; Celtic languages; Germanic languages |
| Professor Bettelou Los | Historical syntax; early Germanic; Old English; history of English; Information Structure/Discourse Structure |
| Dr Warren Maguire | Dialectology; varieties of English and Scots; phonetic and phonological variation and change. |
| Dr Benjamin Molineaux | Phonology; historical linguistics; prosody; morphology |
| Dr Michael Ramsammy | Experimental and theoretical phonology; phonological change; Creole Englishes; articulatory phonetics |
| Professor Graeme Trousdale | Constructional approaches to variation and change in English |
| Dr Linda van Bergen | History of English (especially Old and Middle English); English historical syntax |
You can also see what our current and recent postgraduate students are studying.
Current and recent postgraduate students
Postgraduate study
Meetings
The English Language Research Group runs a regular research seminar series, and members are all active in publishing their research, and in organising and presenting at conferences. We regularly attract visiting scholars, who benefit from and contribute to the research environment.