Irma Taavitsainen

History of Englishes : new methods and interpretations in historical linguistics

The future of English linguistics as envisaged by the editors of Topics in English Linguistics lies in empirical studies which integrate work in English linguistics into general and theoretical linguistics on the one hand, and comparative linguistics on the other. The TiEL series features volumes that present interesting new data and analyses, and above all fresh approaches that contribute to the overall aim of the series, which is to further outstanding research in English linguistics.

English in Finland: globalisation, language awareness and questions of identity

THIS ARTICLE discusses present trends in the use of English in Finland, paying attention to the specific sociohistorical character of the country with its long history of Finnish-Swedish bilingualism. It has been argued that the other Nordic countries are developing from EFL to ESL countries; is Finland heading the same way? If so, at what stage is the process? We shall first give a brief overview of the theoretical background and of the historical development of the language situation in Finland. The present state of the use of English is outlined next, with the focus on education and on areas where the danger of domain loss is most imminent. At the end we discuss the ongoing changes in terms of the identity-forming function of language and the present diffusion in which the national language does not necessarily play a traditional role.

Changing Conventions of Writing: The Dynamics of Genres, Text Types, and Text Traditions

(2001). Changing Conventions of Writing: The Dynamics of Genres, Text Types, and Text Traditions. European Journal of English Studies: Vol. 5, No. 2, pp. 139-150.

Placing Middle English in context

This collection of articles reflects the present state of the art in Middle English linguistics. Internal processes of linguistic change are assessed in their context in relation to sociohistorical, sociocultural, textual, situational, as well as regional and contact-based factors causing variation in language. Many articles combine two or more approaches to analysis and tackle questions of change through the new methodological tools offered by corpora, thesauri, and atlases. A systematic use of these sources for linguistic evidence will add to our knowledge of the variable character of Middle English and enable us to revise our earlier views of the developments at this stage of the English language.

Vernacularisation of medical writing in English: a corpus-based study of scholasticism.

This article proposes a model for linguistic analysis of scientific thought-styles, combining quantitative and qualitative analyses in the variationist frame and focusing on writings of the scholastic period. The first part of the article considers factors that led to the vernacularisation of scientific writings in fifteenth-century England and the sources, underlying traditions and audiences of these writings. The empirical part focuses on two features typical of scholasticism: references to authorities and the use of prescriptive phrases. The results show statistical differences between varieties of writing. A close semantic analysis reveals a pattern which is related to the underlying layers of tradition and to the sociohistorical background of the texts. The material comes from a computer-readable Corpus of Early English Medical Writing 1375-1750, which the authors are compiling at the University of Helsinki.

Methods in historical pragmatics

The studies in this collection represent the critical convergence of different traditions of reading and analyzing discourse. They expose key questions about the methods and the outcomes of historical pragmatic approaches to the study of the history of the English language. The volume will interest scholars in English historical linguistics, literary history, philology, and discourse analysis.

From global language use to local meanings: English in Finnish public discourse

In 2002, Tom McArthur, then editor of English Today , visited Helsinki and asked Irma Taavitsainen and Paivi Pahta whether the use of English in Finland was becoming more like its Nordic neighbours. In an article in ET76 they answered with a cautious ‘yes’. Now the authors provide us with an update, with examples of how English is currently used in Finnish public communication.

The pragmatics of knowledge and meaning: Corpus linguistic approaches to changing thought-styles in early modern medical discourse

Pilot studies on the new specialized corpora with comprehensive materials, Middle English Medical Texts 1375-1500 and Early Modern English Medical Texts 1500-1700, have already shown that the lines of development in the medical register are diversified, and a dynamic picture emerges. This study relates to the dissemination of knowledge and the negotiation of meaning across a wide selection of early modern medical texts. References to authorities with specific details are typical of the top genres of teaching and research in scholasticism and continue in the early modern period, but become adapted to new functions in more popular texts. In contrast, general references marking vagueness in medieval texts and occurring more frequently in texts for heterogeneous audiences acquire special meanings connected with the rising importance of discourse communities in the top genres of the seventeenth century. My approach is connected with historical pragmatics and historical discourse analysis. Corpus linguistic methods are applied to detect the overall trends and to locate relevant passages for qualitative analysis. For a more detailed microstudy, a keyword analysis is employed, with the frequencies of proper names as the prime point of interest.

Developments in English : expanding electronic evidence

1. English in the digital age. General introduction Irma Taavitsainen, Merja Kyto, Claudia Claridge and Jeremy Smith Part I. Linguistic Directions and Crossroads: Mapping the Routes Merja Kyto: 2. Corpus-based and corpus-driven approaches to linguistic analysis: one and the same? Charles F. Meyer 3. Quantitative corpus approaches to linguistic analysis: seven or eight levels of resolution and the lessons they teach us Stefan Th. Gries 4. Profiling the English verb phrase over time: modal patterns Bas Aarts, Sean Wallis and Jill Bowie Part II. Changing Patterns Claudia Claridge: 5. On the functional change of desire in relation to hope and wish Minoji Akimoto 6. From medieval to modern: on the development of the adverbial connective considering (that) Matti Rissanen 7. Spoken features of interjections in English dialect (based on Joseph Wrights English Dialect Dictionary) Manfred Markus Part III. Pragmatics and Discourse Irma Taavitsainen: 8. Interjection-based delocutive verbs in the history of English Laurel J. Brinton 9. Uh and um as planners in the Corpus of Historical American English Andreas H. Jucker 10. Religious discourse and the history of English Thomas Kohnen Part IV. World Englishes Jeremy Smith: 11. History, social meaning and identity in the spoken English of postcolonial white Zimbabweans Susan Fitzmaurice 12. Singapore weblogs between speech and writing Andrea Sand 13. Mergers, losses and the spread of English Raymond Hickey 14. Complex systems in the history of American English William A. Kretzschmar, Jr.

Late Modern English Medical Texts 1700-1800: A corpus for analysing eighteenth-century medical English

Late Modern English Medical Texts 1700-1800 : A corpus for analysing eighteenth-century medical English