LLAS Centre for Languages, Linguistics and Area Studies

Vivian Law essay prize announced

In memory of Dr Vivien Law (1954-2002), and thanks to her generosity, a prize has been established for the best essay submitted on any topic within the history of linguistics. The closing date for submissions is 30 September.

Spanish: From the caves to modern graffiti

This is a specialist language course for students with an advanced knowledge of Spanish.The materials cover the history of the Spanish language from pre-history to modern times. Language artefacts are taken from disciplines such as archaeology, anthropology, history, historical linguistics and popular media. The course looks into geographical and social varieties of Spanish from a historical as well as from a linguistic perspective.

Sociolinguistic variation

This article outlines the main methodological and theoretical issues within research on sociolinguistic variation. It covers the origins of the subject, data collection, quantification and the linguistic variable, correlations of social and linguistic variation and language change. It ends by considering recent social constructionist approaches to variation and change. A bibliography is included.

Phonological change
This article provides an overview of the issues involved in teaching sound change at undergraduate and graduate level.

Methodology of historical linguistics
The article addresses issues of good practice in teaching the methodology of historical linguistics (including reconstruction, classification, variation and change and corpus-based work) at undergraduate and graduate level.