Since the nineteenth century, when it set sail as a new academic discipline, History of the English Language (HEL) has grown to encompass a wide range of fields to the extent that, currently, “a HEL course may incorporate material from history, geography, lexicography, philology, literature, grammar, and linguistics, the last of which includes the subfields of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics” (p. 3). No university course will ever manage to tackle thoroughly and in detail all such fields in the limited span of time awarded to HEL, generally a semester. Yet teachers can still structure their lessons in such a way as to allow their students to grasp the versatility of this discipline, along with its value, which largely trespasses the realms of linguistics and literature. Approaches to Teaching the History of the English language helps instructors of HEL to do just that, by viewing the discipline from a variety of perspectives in order to identify the challenges, answer the questions, and fit the needs of both teachers and students. The result is a book featuring 28 contributions by long-standing academics from different parts of the world, who make ample use of their personal experiences, provide practical suggestions and reproducible exercises, and offer different pedagogical approaches to the discipline itself.
Review of Mary Hayes and Allison Burkett (eds.) "Approaches to teaching the history of the English language. Pedagogy in practice".
Roberta Facchinetti
2018-01-01
Abstract
Since the nineteenth century, when it set sail as a new academic discipline, History of the English Language (HEL) has grown to encompass a wide range of fields to the extent that, currently, “a HEL course may incorporate material from history, geography, lexicography, philology, literature, grammar, and linguistics, the last of which includes the subfields of phonology, morphology, syntax, semantics, pragmatics, and sociolinguistics” (p. 3). No university course will ever manage to tackle thoroughly and in detail all such fields in the limited span of time awarded to HEL, generally a semester. Yet teachers can still structure their lessons in such a way as to allow their students to grasp the versatility of this discipline, along with its value, which largely trespasses the realms of linguistics and literature. Approaches to Teaching the History of the English language helps instructors of HEL to do just that, by viewing the discipline from a variety of perspectives in order to identify the challenges, answer the questions, and fit the needs of both teachers and students. The result is a book featuring 28 contributions by long-standing academics from different parts of the world, who make ample use of their personal experiences, provide practical suggestions and reproducible exercises, and offer different pedagogical approaches to the discipline itself.
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