English historical linguistics : approaches and perspectives Written by an international team of leading scholars this engaging textbook on the study of English historical linguistics is uniquely organized in terms of theoretical approaches and perspectives. Each chapter features textboxes case studies suggestions for further reading and exercises enabling students to understand the strengths and weaknesses of each approach and guiding them on undertaking further research. The case studies and exercises guide students in approaching and manipulating empirical data providing them with hands on experience of conducting linguistic research. An extensive variety of approaches from traditional to contemporary is treated including generative approaches historical sociolinguistic and pragmatic approaches psycholinguistic perspectives grammaticalization theory and discourse based approaches as well as perspectives on standardization and language variation. Each chapter applies the concepts discussed to data from the history of English and a glossary of key terms enables easy navigation and quick cross referencing. An essential resource for advanced undergraduate and graduate students of the history of English linguistics The generative approach which took hold in the mid twentieth century shifted attention from the history of individual languages to the study of more abstract principles of language; initially its focus was rigidly synchronic. But by 1970 generativists began to turn their attention to language change seeing it as the result of sudden changes or reanalyses (later understood as changes in parameter settings) and to incomplete or imperfect transmission of grammatical structure during language acquisition Machine generated contents note: 1. The study of English historical linguistics Laurel J. Brinton; 2. The scope of English historical linguistics Raymond Hickey; 3. Generative approaches Cynthia L. Allen; 4. Psycholinguistic perspectives Martin Hilpert; 5. Corpus based approaches Marianne Hundt and Anne Christine Gardner; 6. Approaches to grammaticalization and lexicalization Lieselotte Brems and Sebastian Hoffman; 7. Inferential based approaches Maria Jose Lopez Couso; 8. Discourse based approaches Claudia Claridge; 9. Sociohistorical approaches Peter J. Grund; 10. Historical pragmatic approaches Laurel J. Brinton; 11. Perspectives on standardization Ingrid Tieken Boon van Ostade; 12. Perspectives on geographical variation Merja Stenroos; 13. Perspectives on language contact Edgar W. Schneider