Richard Dance – författare

The most rigorous description ever undertaken of the Scandinavian influence on the vocabulary of a major Middle English text, and a new model for the collection and analysis of Norse loans in any English source. A new survey of the etymological evidence for nearly 500 words in one of the most famous and important Middle English poemsConducted in accordance with a groundbreaking new system of etymological classification, and with references to all relevant previous scholarship going back to the nineteenth centuryContains new insights into the etymologies, forms, meanings and textual interpretation of hundreds of Middle English wordsIncludes a new introduction to the scholarly study of the Old Norse influence on English vocabulary, including a detailed discussion of methodologies

The fourteen essays presented here discuss the development of English during the Middle English period: how the language developed from Old English, linguistic innovations, and the loss and abandonment of certain words and constructions. A common theme is variation and variability – dialectal, social, temporal, stylistic and idiolectal – with much work fitting under the heading of historical pragmatics. Some of the essays also shed light on everyday life, customs, culture and religious practices during the period. Collectively, the essays make it clear that searchable computerized corpora have become indispensible tools of the discipline, with several contributors describing new corpora created to their own specifications.