Transatlantic Perspectives on Late Modern English: (4 Advances in Historical Sociolinguistics)

The volume presents an innovative approach to studies in Late Modern English by giving attention to variation and change in varieties of English on both sides of the Atlantic. As new corpora become available, scholarly interests broaden their horizons to encompass varieties, the history of which has only just begun to be investigated, and which are likely to yield significant findings. The contributors, whose long experience in the field of English historical linguistics ensures in-depth investigations, employ state-of-the-art tools for the analysis of specific phenomena and to set these in the light of a more encompassing framework concerning different text types and sociolinguistic considerations. While usage guides and dictionaries prove remarkable in their contribution to the definition of what is (not) acceptable in specific social circles, the language of ordinary users also takes centre stage in studies of correspondence, journals and travelogues. The volume is expected to appeal to scholars and students interested in the linguistic history of English as seen in contexts on which – until now – relatively little light has been shed.

Table of Contents:
1. Acknowledgements; 2. Introduction (by Dossena, Marina); 3. Studying real-time change in the adverbial subjunctive: The value of the Bank of Canadian English (by Brinton, Laurel J.); 4. Political perspectives on linguistic innovation in independent America: Learning from the libraries of Thomas Jefferson (1743-1826) (by Percy, Carol); 5. Five Hundred Mistakes Corrected: An early American English usage guide (by Tieken-Boon van Ostade, Ingrid); 6. Transatlantic perspectives on late nineteenth-century English usage: Alford (1864) compared to White (1871) (by Busse, Ulrich); 7. "Provincial in England, but in common use with us": John R. Bartlett's Dictionary of Americanisms and the English Dialect Dictionary (by Ruano-Garcia, Javier); 8. "Across the ocean ferry": Point of view, description and evaluation in nineteenth-century narrations of ocean crossings (by Dossena, Marina); 9. Legitimising linguistic devices in A Cheering Voice from Upper Canada (1834) (by Alonso-Almeida, Francisco); 10. Nineteenth-century institutional (im)politeness: Responses of the Colonial Office to letters from William Parker, 1820 settler (by Wlodarczyk, Matylda); 11. '[B]ut sure its only a penny after all': Irish English discourse marker sure (by Amador-Moreno, Carolina P.); 12. Assigned gender in a corpus of nineteenth-century correspondence among settlers in the American Great Plains (by Guzman-Gonzalez, Trinidad); 13. Index

Review :
All in all, the volume offers an interesting overview of a range of topics related to variation and change in LModE varieties on both sides of the Atlantic. The topics enable zooming in on the emergence of new varieties; the volume’s main achievement lies in the fact that the contributions add to our general knowledge of the early stages of the various extraterritorial Englishes. For rather pragmatic reasons, deriving in large part from the accessibility of materials and the kinds of questions being pursued, this book is mostly about 19th-century English rather than Late Modern English as a whole, but this does not reduce its effectiveness or its relevance. The contributions are well executed — each accomplishes what it sets out to do — and new insights on transatlantic differences, shared usages and ideologies are gained. This is a valuable read for corpus linguists and English historical linguists alike.