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Juan Camilo Conde Silvestre is Full Professor in English at the University of Murcia. He has mainly lectured on Medieval English Literature, Old English and the History of the English Language (Middle English, Early and Late Modern English), as well as a variety of courses for postgraduate students on Beowulf, the Old English Elegies, the History of English and Research Methods in (Socio)Historical Linguistics. He was Honorary Research Fellow at the University of Manchester ( academic year 1992) and at the Centre for Medieval Studies at Toronto University (from May to September 2019). He has also been visiting scholar and lecturer at several Spanish and British universities (Sevilla, León, Oviedo, Vigo, Málaga, Jaén, Castellón, Exeter, Essex and Chester). His main research interests are Historical Sociolinguistics, the History of the English Language (mainly Middle English dialectology) and Old English literature.
He has been actively involved in the diffusion of Medieval English Studies in Spain as a member of SELIM (the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature). He was Executive Director of the society between 2002 and 2008, and Chair from 2008 to 2012 and from 2014 to 2018. He is member of the advisory board of the following journals: International Journal of English Studies (U. Murcia), Selim. Journal of the Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature, Cuadernos de Turismo (U. Murcia), Miscelanea. A Journal of English and American Studies (U. Zaragoza), Labor Historico (U. Federal do Rio de Janeiro, Brasil). He has also acted as external advisor for the panels “Historical linguistics” and “Medieval and Renaissance Studies” of AEDEAN conferences, for Servicio de Publicaciones de la Universidad de Vigo, for the Swiss National Science Foundation, for Cambridge University Press and for the journals Myrtia, Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development, Estudios Románicos, etc. In 2015 I was appointed as General Editor of Atlantis. Journal of the Spanish Association of Angloamerican Studies (ISSN: 0210-6124 / e-ISSN 1989-6849). From 2018, he is coeditor (with Dr. Javier Calle) of the series Middle and Early Modern English Texts published by Peter Lang.
A presentation of historical sociolinguistic research: scope, methodology and case studies
A presentation of historical sociolinguistic research: scope, methodology and case studies
From its inception in the 1980s, the historical sociolinguistic approach has been a source of original and novel interpretations of linguistic change and variation in the past. These processes are now contemplated no only in connection with systemic, internal factors, but also with the inter- and intra-personal peculiarities of users of languages in the past, with socio-cognitive factors as well as with a range of external circumstances —institutional, ideological, national, colonial— that transcend the individual. The increase of publications in the field, especially from the 2000s, involving different languages and varieties has contributed to the methodological consolidation of the discipline, overcoming the procedural difficulties of early research. In my presentation, I will first review some of the principles and tenets of the discipline which have contributed to solve its methodological quibbles. Then I will focus on the main areas privileged in the last years: (a) approaches based on the sociology of language, (b) variationist approaches and (c) ethnographic or third-wave approaches. Some case studies will be deployed to illustrate their scope and results. I will finally advocate the relevance of an interdisciplinary approach that accommodates the findings of sociologists, sociolinguists and ethnographers of communication in favour of a holistic interpretation of linguistic variation and change in the past.
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