Guest lecture by Prof. Dr. Raymond Hickey: Examining ‘Bad Data’: Ego Documents in the History of English

Date:	06/21/2022, 6:15 PM - 8:00 PM
Category:	Startseite
Location:	Hubland Süd, Geb. PH1 (Philosophiegebäude), HS 2 und online
Organizer:	Lehrstuhl für Englische Sprachwissenschaft & Irish Studies Würzburg

In cooperation with Irish Studies Würzburg (ISWÜ) the department of English Linguistics cordially invites you to a guest lecture by

Prof. Dr. Raymond Hickey (University of Limerick / University of Duisburg and Essen):

Examining ‘Bad Data’: Ego Documents in the History of English

June 21, 2022, 6-8pm c.t. (CET)
Philosophiegebäude, HS 2

Attendance online (via Zoom) also possible!
https://uni-wuerzburg.zoom.us/j/95707647339?pwd=ampqSW02Sk8wS0ZCWG5aVUkvT0syUT09
Meeting-ID: 957 0764 7339
Passwort: 281542

Historical data sources and text types available for linguistic investigations depend on the literacy rates, and the text production, of the English-speaking population in different time periods. As education opportunities and therefore literacy acquisition were socially stratified until the Elementary Education Act, written language use before 1870 will have varied greatly.

A text category that can be found across the entire social spectrum of those who could write are so-called ego documents – including autobiographies, diaries, or letters. The lecture will consider ego documents as a data source for historians of the English language, with the main focus on Irish emigrant letters.

Raymond Hickey is Adjunct Professor at the University of Limerick and Professor Emeritus of English Linguistics at the University of Duisburg and Essen. His main research interests are varieties of English, Late Modern English and general questions of language contact, variation and change. His most recent book publications include Keeping in Touch. Emigrant Letters across the English-speaking World (John Benjamins, 2019), The Handbook of Language Contact (Wiley-Blackwell, 2020) and Irish Identities – Sociolinguistic Perspectives (co-edited with Carolina P. Amador-Moreno, de Gruyter Mouton, 2020). For further information, see https://www.uni-due.de/~lan300/HICKEY.htm