Linguistics & History of the English Language

This is an introductory bibliography of Linguistics and the History of the English Language. It is meant for beginners and especially for students in an HEL course.

Reference Works

• Allen, Harold Byron, ed. Linguistics and English Linguistics (A Bibliography). New York: Appleton-Century-Crofts, 1966.
• Collinge, Neville E., ed. An Encyclopaedia of Language. London; New York: Routledge, 1990.
• Craigie, William A., Sir and James R. Hulbert. A Dictionary of American English on Historical Principles. Chicago, Ill.: The University of Chicago press, 1940-44.
• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Crystal, David. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Language. Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1987.
• Crystal, David. A Dictionary of Linguistics and Phonetics. 4th ed. Oxford, UK; Cambridge, Mass.: Blackwell, 1997.  (there is an older version of this work at W&L)
• Hogg, Richard M., gen. ed. The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 1: The Beginnings to 1066. Ed. Richard M. Hogg. Vol. 2: 1066-1476. Ed. Norman F. Blake. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1992.
• McArthur, Tom, ed. The Oxford Companion to the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Mathews, Mitford M., ed. A Dictionary of Americanisms on Historical Principles. Chicago, University of Chicago Press, 1951.
• Oxford English Dictionary. 2nd Edition (OED2). Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1989.
• Pei, Mario, and Frank Gaynor. A Dictionary of Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library 1954.
• Pei, Mario. Glossary of Linguistic Terminology. New York: Columbia University Press, 1966.

Standard Works and Classic Early Studies

• Bloomfield, Leonard. Language. New York: H. Holt and Company, 1933; 1961.
• Bloomfield, Leonard. A Leonard Bloomfield Anthology. Ed. Charles F. Hockett. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1970.
• Hayden, Donald E., E. Paul Alworth, and Gary Tate, eds. Classics in Linguistics. New York: Philosophical Library, 1967.
• Jakobson, Roman. On Language. Linda R. Waugh and Monique Monville-Burston, eds. Cambridge, Mass.: Harvard University Press, 1990
• Jespersen, Otto. Essentials of English Grammar. New York: H. Holt and Company, 1933.
• Jespersen, Otto. Growth and Structure of the English Language. 9th ed. Garden City, N.Y.: Doubleday, 1955.
• Jespersen, Otto. Language: Its Nature, Development and Origin. London: G. Allen & Unwin; New York : Holt, 1922, 1923.
• Sapir, Edward. Language, An Introduction to the Study of Speech. New York: Harcourt, Brace, 1921.

By and About Saussure and Chomsky

• Chomsky, Noam. Chomsky: Selected Readings. J. P. B. Allen and Paul Van Buren, eds. London, New York: Oxford University Press, 1971.
• Chomsky, Noam. Language and Problems of Knowledge: The Managua Lectures. Cambridge, Mass.: MIT Press, 1988.
• George, Alexander, ed. Reflections on Chomsky. Oxford; New York : Blackwell, 1989.
• Harris, Roy. Reading Saussure: A Critical Commentary on the Cours De Linguistique Générale. La Salle, Ill.: Open Court, 1987.
• Holdcroft, David. Saussure : Signs, System, and Arbitrariness. Cambridge; New York : Cambridge University Press, 1991. [ W&L]
• Otero, Carlos P., ed. Noam Chomsky: Critical Assessments Vols. 1-4. London; New York: Routledge, 1994.
• Saussure, Ferdinand de. Course in General Linguistics. Charles Bally and Albert Reidlinger, eds. Wade Baskin, trans. New York: Philosophical Library, 1959.
• Smith, Neil, and Deirdre Wilson, eds. Modern Linguistics: The Results of Chomsky’s Revolution. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1979.

Miscellaneous Recent or Specialized Studies

• Allan, Keith, and Kate Burridge. Euphemism and Dysphemism: Language Used as Shield and Weapon. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Armstrong, David F., William C. Stokoe, and Sherman E. Wilcox. Gesture and the Nature of Language. Cambridge ; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1995.
• Bailey, Richard W., Manfred Görlach, eds. English as a World Language. Ann Arbor: University of Michigan Press, 1982.
• Blake, Norman F. The English Language in Medieval Literature. London: Methuen, 1977.
• Bloomfield, Morton W. & Leonard Newmark. A Linguistic Introduction to the History of English. New York: Knopf, 1963.
• Burnley, J. David. History of the English Language: A Sourcebook. New York: Longman, 1992.
• Deacon, Terrence W. The Symbolic Species: The Co-Evolution of Language and the Brain. New York: Norton, 1997.
• Fouts, Roger, and Stephen Tukel Mills. Next of Kin: What Chimpanzees Have Taught Me About Who We Are. New York: Morrow, 1997.
• Görlach, Manfred. Einführung ins Frühneuenglische (English: Introduction to Early Modern English). Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1991.
• Graddol, David, Jenny Cheshire, and Joan Swann. Describing Language. 2nd ed. Open University Press, 1994.
• Hymes, Dell, ed. Language, Culture and Society: A Reader in Linguistics & Anthropology. NY: Harper & Row, 1964.
• Joos, Martin. Readings in Linguistics I; The Development of Descriptive Linguistics in America, 1925-56. [Prepared for the Committee on Language Programs of the American Council of Learned Societies]. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1968.
• Kaplan, Jeffrey P. English Grammar: Principles and Facts. Englewood Cliffs, N.J.: Prentice Hall. 1st ed 1989; 2nd ed 1995.
• Labov, William. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia: U. of PA Press, 1972.
• Labov, William. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: U. of PA Press, 1973.
• Lippi-Green, Rosina. English with an Accent: Language, Ideology, and Discrimination in the United States. London; New York: Routledge, 1997.
• Machan, Tim, and Charles Scott, eds. English in its Social Contexts: Essays in Historical Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.
• Millward, Celia M. A Biography of the English Language. New York: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1989.
• Moore, Terence, and Christine Carling, eds. Understanding Language: Towards a Post-Chomskyan Linguistics. London: Macmillan, 1982.
• Nixon, Graham, and John Honey, eds. An Historic Tongue: Studies in English Linguistics in Memory of Barbara Strang. London: Routledge, 1988.
• Pinker, Steven. The Language Instinct. New York: W. Morrow and Co., 1994.
• Pullum, Geoffrey K. The Great Eskimo Vocabulary Hoax, and Other Irreverent Essays on the Study of Language. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1991.
• Rumbaugh, Duane, ed. Language Learning by a Chimpanzee: The Lana Project. New York: Academic Press, 1977.
• Savage-Rumbaugh, E. Sue. Ape Language: From Conditioned Response to Symbol. New York: Columbia University Press, 1986.
• Savage-Rumbaugh, E. Sue, and Roger Lewin. Kanzi: The Ape at the Brink of the Human Mind. New York: John Wiley, 1994.
• Sebeok, Thomas Albert. A Sign Is Just a Sign. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1991.
• Starnes, DeWitt T. The English dictionary from Cawdrey to Johnson, 1604-1755. Chapel Hill: The University of North Carolina press, 1946.
• Velichkovsky, Boris M., and Duane M. Rumbaugh, eds. Communicating Meaning : The Evolution and Development of Language. Mahwah, N.J. : L. Erlbaum, 1996.

Advertisement