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Faculty & Courses

• Donka Minkova (University of California, Los Angeles)
• Olga Fischer (University of Amsterdam)
• Elly van Gelderen (Arizona State University)
• Nikolaos Lavidas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
• Alexander Bergs (University of Osnabrück)

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• Old and Middle English Phonology and Meter
  Donka Minkova (University of California, Los Angeles)
  This seminar offers an introduction to the phonological features relevant to understanding early English versification. The changing metrical principles are examined both in relation to internal linguistic structure and as a reaction to external cultural factors.

  We will read and discuss recent proposals concerning (1) the metrical structure of Beowulf and other Old English alliterative compositions, including Ælfric’s “rhythmical prose”, (2) the alliterative innovations and constraints in Middle English alliterative verse, (3) the emergence and the evolution of rhyme and syllable-counting in English prior to Chaucer, and (4) the iambic pentameter: metrical rules and violations in Chaucer, Wyatt, Milton, Shakespeare.

• Old and Middle English Morphosyntax
  Olga Fischer (University of Amsterdam)
  The idea of the course is to read together a number of Old and Middle English texts and take note of the variation to be found in morpho-syntactic constructions/structure especially with regard to word order. We will discuss our findings in the light of the patterns, constraints and principles that have been distinguished or established in the various theoretical frameworks such as generative and discourse models and the various explanations for the developments given there.

  Useful background reading providing an overview of the morphosyntactic changes taking place in the history of English will be Chapter 3 (and part of Chapter 2) in R. Hogg and D. Denison, eds. (2006), A History of the English Language. CUP.

• Old and Middle English through Manuscripts
  Elly van Gelderen (Arizona State University)

  
  

  This course takes manuscript images from Old and Middle English and examines their linguistic characteristics line by line using traditional grammatical terminology, such as case, agreement, auxiliaries, finite verb, etc. Online and facsimile versions make the reader aware of the spelling and punctuation conventions, the frequent lack of a distinction between main and subordinate sentences, the contractions, and the abbreviations. The texts/authors examined are Orosius, Wulfstan, Lindisfarne and Rushworth glosses, West Saxon Bible, Wife’s Lament, Wanderer, Peterborough Chronicle, Katerine, Owl & Nightingale, Bestiary, Richard Rolle’s Psalter, Cleanness, Astrolabe, and Margery of Kempe.

• Old and Middle English in Contact
  Nikolaos Lavidas (Aristotle University of Thessaloniki)
  This course examines language contact in Old and Middle English from a formal perspective. We will analyze the role of contact in language change, the patterns that have driven both lexical and grammatical borrowing in Old and Middle English, the different types of contact influence from Celtic, Latin, Old Norse, Norman French and Greek. We will consider principles (for instance, economy or imperfect L2 learning) that operate in language contact and change, the relationship between internal developments of the language and contact-induced changes, and the role of the contrast between learned and vernacular language. We will also investigate the differences between contact of a written (for instance, with translation texts) and an oral nature. In the process, we will explore, among other phenomena, the hypotheses of Celtic substratal influence in toponymic borrowings as well as in the case of verbal nouns, of the Old Norse impact on northern Middle English varieties with regard to the ‘verb-second’ constraints, of the impact of Latin on the new infinitival constructions.

• Old and Middle English in Context
  Alexander Bergs (University of Osnabrück)
  This course supplements the more structural approaches offered by the other seminars in that it focuses on the historical speakers in their individual contexts. What do we know about their sociolinguistic background? What kind of evidence do we have for language variation and change in connection with different social groups? And what kind of conclusion can we draw on that basis? What can we say about the sociology of language, including aspects such as standardization, perceptual dialectology, language ideology and the like? What do we know about pragmatics and language use in Old and Middle English? For example, how did people in Anglo-Saxon England insult each other? How did they apologize? What politeness strategies did Chaucer use? Why were speakers so afraid of curses?

  We will explore these and other related questions on the basis of primary texts from the periods and by reading some of the milestones in historical sociolinguistics/sociology of language, historical pragmatics, and general (social) history.

 

Summer School Elearning platform: https://elearning.auth.gr/course/index.php?categoryid=205

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Course schedule

 

Certificate of attendance will be awarded to all participants plus certification of the 6-9 ECTS gained.

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