SOCIOLINGUISTIC VARIATION IN HISTORICAL LEGAL TEXTS FROM BRITAIN: AN INTERNATIONAL WORKSHOP
Place: University of Lausanne, Switzerland, Anthropole, Room 3185
Dates: 6-7 October 2023
Plenary speakers: Dr. Peter Grund (Yale) and Prof. Merja Stenroos (Stavanger)
Organisers: Prof. Anita Auer (Lausanne) and Prof. Olga Timofeeva (Zurich)
Description:
Legal and administrative texts punctuated the history of the English language from the earliest period, e.g. Æthelberht’s code (c.600 AD), Domesday Book (1086), Magna Carta (1215), Provisions of Oxford (1258), etc. The development of the legal system over time has led to the creation of new text types that can serve as sources for the field of English historical (socio)linguistics, e.g. writs, treatises, law codes, depositions, etc. Although a great amount of attention has already been paid to specific text types from different historical periods, e.g. the role of legal texts in the standardisation processes of Late Medieval and Early Modern English, a more comprehensive discussion on legal text types across periods as sources for linguistic research has not taken place to date. Therefore, this two-day international workshop aims to bring together scholars working on legal texts in the history of the English language and to provide a platform for sharing recent research findings and for facilitating discussions on different text types, methods, and frameworks.
Contributions focusing on the following themes are particularly welcome:
- theoretical approaches to historical legal texts;
- evolution of legal institutions and legal practices;
- evolution of legal text types and genres;
- inter-/intra-speaker variation in historical legal texts;
- regional and social variation in historical legal texts;
- code-switching in historical legal texts;
- supralocalisation, standardisation processes;
- scribes, offices and communities of practice participating in the legal domain;
- templates and manuals in historical legal writing.
PROGRAMME:
| Friday, 6 October 2023 | |
| 9-9.30h | Arrival and Coffee |
| 9.30-10h | Welcome / Setting the Scene |
| 10-11h | Plenary talk by Merja Stenroos (Stavanger) ‘As y shal onswere byfore god & man’: Late and Post-medieval Legal Statements as Sociolinguistic Evidence |
| 11-11.35h | Olga Timofeeva (Zurich): Women’s Wills in Old English and Their Sociolinguistic Context |
| 11.35-12.10h | Kathryn Lowe (Glasgow): Too Late to Innovate? Copying Practices in a Monastic Community |
| 12.10-14h | Lunch break |
| 14-14.35h | Annina Seiler Rübekeil (Zurich): Orthography and Code-switching in Anglo-Saxon Charters |
| 14.35-15.10h | Kjetil V. Thengs (Stavanger): Linguistic Identity in Late Medieval Oxford Churchwardens’ Accounts |
| 15.10-15.45h | Coffee break |
| 15.45-16.20h | Joanna Kopaczyk (Glasgow): The Transition from Manuscript to Print and Its Effects on a Legal Text |
| 16.20-16.55h | Jana Kozubíková Šandová (South Bohemia): Relativisers in Early Modern English Witness Depositions |
| 19h | Dinner in Lausanne |
| Saturday, 7 October 2023 | |
| 9-10h | Plenary talk by Peter Grund (Yale) Know Thy Text: Genre, Community, and Witness Depositions in the History of English |
| 10-10.30h | Coffee break |
| 10.30-11.05h | Anita Auer (Lausanne): Pauper Letters and the English Poor Laws: A Historical Sociolinguistic Perspective |
| 11.05-11.40h | Moragh S. Gordon (Leiden): Legal Literacy in a Layman’s Context: Exploring Legal Language in 19th-Century Scottish Pauper Letters |
| 11.40-12.15h | Final Discussion |
| 12.15h-14h | Lunch break |
| from 14h | Social Programme |
If you want to attend the workshop, please send an email to Anita Auer (anita.auer[@]unil.ch) and Olga Timofeeva (olga.timofeeva[@]es.uzh.ch) by 2 October 2023.