30th - AEDEAN, Huelva 2006 | Conferences in history

Program Structure / PLENARY SPEAKERS

Manfred Krug, University of Bamberg

«Modern Methodologies and Changing Standards in English Linguistics»

This paper initially surveys the resources that linguists studying the English language have tapped in the past. I will go on to argue that for a thorough understanding of language and language change, we need to consider in particular regional variation in present-day English. A number of case studies will subsequently be provided. A study on the use of existential there in such sentences as There’s lots of cars in the street will turn out to be illuminating in various respects. I shall present a cognitively motivated syntactic model for existential and other non-canonical BE constructions like It’s me! The model presented can account for constructions that are left unexplained (or simply considered as ungrammatical) by previous models.

Some important caveats notwithstanding, one conclusion of this paper is that the internet can serve as a useful research resource for mid- and low-frequency constructions, especially those that are part of more informal registers. If we make use of this resource carefully, that is, if we apply rigorously the empirical methods that were developed in the past by historical linguists and sociolinguists, then it will be a useful data source that should help us come one step closer to a unified approach to language variation and change.

On a more general level, this paper discusses the role played by prescriptivism in linguistics and language teaching, as well as the implications of changing conventions for the notion of ‘standard English’.