This Master course (MA, MPhil) offers a unique opportunity to work with material from two current research projects in this Faculty: the Dutch so-called Sailing letters from the National Archives in Kew, which form the basis of the “Brieven als Buit” project (van der Wal), and English letters that are used as a source for the VICI project “The Codifiers and the English Language” (Tieken). The main research question we will address is how to analyse this important material in order to gain insight into the language of the period as it was used throughout society at the time, by people from all social classes, educated as well as uneducated, men and women alike. To this end, we will make use of current research models from modern sociolinguistics, such as Social Network Analysis developed by L. Milroy and Labov’s social stratification model, which was adapted for the Early Modern English period by Nevalainen and Raumolin-Brunberg but that is also currently used within Dutch and German historical linguistics. The material will be analysed with the help of methods from corpus linguistics, for which we will make use of the concordancing program Wordsmith. On the one hand we will work with so-called representative corpora, while on the other we will use focussed corpora which will enable us to make detailed analyses of the language of individual authors. The methodology dealt with will also be of interest to students of languages other than Dutch and English.
Rooster
Onderwijsvorm
Two-hour seminar per week.
A la carte- en contractonderwijs
Available as modular course: no a la carte.
Leerdoelen
By analysing eighteenth-century letters, Dutch as well as English, as well as reading the relevant background literature students will gain insight into the sociolinguistic diversity of the language of the period as well as into linguistic changes which occurred on all linguistic levels. In doing so they will gain experience in the use of current research methods relevant for the study of historical sociolinguistics, including corpus linguistics. The course will be supported with a Blackboard module.
Literatuur
· Marina Dossena & Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (2008) (eds.), Studies in Late Modern English Correspondence: Methodology and Data_. Bern: Lang.
· Additional background reading.
Toetsing
Active course participation, including a presentation, and a written essay.
Informatie
English Department, P.N. van Eyckhof 4, room 102c, tel. 071-5272144 english@hum.leidenuniv.nl
Blackboard/webpagina
This course is supported by Blackboard.