Choose an area of language change that interests you, and conduct an independent study of one or more changes in Modern English.
you must use at least two of the primary sources have been covered (this can include databases or corpora, or texts such as dictionaries, grammars, literary texts etc).
Essays must be not more than 2500 words, including footnotes and quotations but excluding bibliography and any diagrams or tables.
Your study should include:
- A clear indication of the topic(s) you have selected.
- A critical survey of the primary sources you have used to conduct your investigation.
- A brief outline of your methodology.
- A presentation of your results.
- Use of secondary reading to show previous research on the topic, and to contextualise and explain your results.
-You may analyse your results using qualitative and/or quantitative methodology.
-You should avoid significant duplication of material across any of your assessments.
Resources of the databases or corpora, or texts such as dictionaries, grammars, literary texts:
•Oxford English Dictionary
•Chronological English Dictionary*
•Old Bailey Online
•Eighteenth Century English Grammar database
•Dialect in British Fiction 1800-1836 database
•Survey of English Dialects (also Millennium Memory Bank, BBC Voices)
•DECTE (Tyneside English)
•BNC
•ECCO
–Pronouncing dictionaries
–Standard dictionaries
–Cant dictionaries
–Grammars
–Literary works e.g. plays
•EEBO (Early English Books Online – books pre-1700)
•Pauper letters
•Wright: English Dialect Dictionary*
•Orton: Survey of English Dialects*
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This link will take you to Varieng’s searchable corpus finder:
http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/CoRD/index.html