Nuria's site: Bio - Research - Teaching - Admin

Biography in brief

I work as Senior Lecturer (Profesora Titular) in the Department of Filología Inglesa, Francesa y Alemana at the University of Vigo (March 2019-), following a tenure-track Lectureship in the said department (Profesora Titular Interina). Previous to that, I held two Senior Research Fellowships: "Investigadora Distinguida" ("Distinguished Research Fellow", University of Vigo), from February to December 2017, and "Investigadora Ramón y Cajal" (Ministerio de Economía y Competitividad de España) from 2012 to 2017. In February 2017 I was appointed Honorary Research Fellow by the University of Manchester (UK), Linguistics and English Language Division.

Before moving to Vigo, from 2007 to 2012 I held a full-time position as Lecturer in English Language in the Department of Linguistics and English Language at Manchester, with specialisation in the history of English. Manchester is the University where I completed my PhD thesis (2007), supervised by Prof. David Denison (Preposition Stranding and Prescriptivism in English from 1500 to 1900: A Corpus-based Approach) and my MA studies in English Studies (2004). My predoctoral studies were financially supported by various grants from the Xunta de Galicia, Caixa Galicia and the Arts and Humanities Research Council.

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Research

My main research interest is the history of the English language, in particular eighteenth-century normative linguistics and historical sociolinguistics from 1500 to 1900, with a focus on the grammar writing tradition and pronouncing dictionaries. I am particularly interested in the long eighteenth century from a sociolinguistic perspective. I am currently exploring letter-writing practices and social networks in the late Georgian period. I have worked on John Dryden's language, the history of book printing in the eighteenth century, paratext in eighteenth-century grammar books, historical register variation (with a focus on diaries, journals and private letters), the double object construction, the apostrophe, and educational linguistics with regard to the teaching of English grammar in late twentieth-century schools.

I am actively involved in the compilation of a number of (mostly historical) corpora and databases (cf. 'projects' and 'corpus work' below).

Projects and collaboration

• Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers (c.1740-c.1850). Project co-investigator with David Denison (Manchester), Sophie Coulombeau (York), Hannah Barker (Manchester, PI), in collaboration with the John Rylands Research Institute and Library, Manchester. Arts and Humanities Research Council major research grant 2019-2023. This is a follow-up to the project Image to Text.
• Image to Text, on Mary Hamilton Papers (c.1750-c.1820). Project Coordinator with David Denison (University of Manchester), in collaboration with the Digitisation Strategy of the Centre of Heritage Imaging and Collection Care, The John Rylands Library (since Spring 2011); and the John Rylands Research Institute, Seedcorn Grant November 2016 to June 2017.
• APU. 'The art of writing English': A corpus of schoolchildren's writings. Principal Investigator, with Victorina González-Díaz (University of Liverpool). Funded by Xunta de Galicia, Consellería de Cultura, Educación e Ordenación Universitaria (May 2014 - November 2016).
• ARCHER. A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers. Project Coordinator since 2008, with David Denison (University of Manchester). The latest version ARCHER 3.2 (2013) has been (partially) supported by the British Academy Small Research Grant Scheme (June 2010 - June 2012).
• ECEG: Eighteenth-Century English Grammars database. Principal Investigator. Project with María E. Rodriguez-Gil (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria); (partially) funded British Academy Research Grant (July 2008 - December 2010) and School Research Support Fund (March 2010 - July 2011). Online application since February 2020 by the Instituto Universitario de Análisis y Aplicaciones Textuales  (IATEXT).
• ECEP: Eighteenth-Century English Phonology database. Project leader Prof. Joan Beal (University of Sheffield), in collaboration with Ranjan Sen and Christine Wallis (Sheffield). Funded by the British Academy Small Research Grant Scheme (2014-2016), with IT support from the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield (now The Digital Humanities Institute).
• Paratext in 18th-century grammars of English: language and society. Project leader Dr. Alicia Rodríguez-Álvarez (University of Las Palmas de Gran Canaria). 2012-2015.
• The GerManC project: A representative historical corpus of German 16500-1800. Project leader Prof. Martin Durrell, University of Manchester. 2006-2007, member of the advisory board.
• I supervised students who contributed to the In the bigynnyng project on Middle English manuscripts at The John Rylands Library, Deansgate, Manchester.

Publications - see below.

Research activities

Study visits at the universities of Leuven, Helsinki, Liverpool, Philadelphia, Sheffield, Uppsala, Zurich, amongst others. In 2009 I spent two months on 'fieldwork' during which I consulted eighteenth-century grammar books in libraries around England and Wales.

Talks at research seminars in Helsinki, Liverpool, Madrid, Manchester, Oslo, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Sheffield, Vigo, Zürich. Keynote speaker in Salamanca 2022 and plenary speaker at the 7th Prescriptivism Conference in Aix-en-Provence (2024).

Honourable Mention to the best paper by a young researcher, ICAME conference 2009, Lancaster.

Organisation of events: ICAME45 (Vigo, 2024), 6^th Prescriptivism Conference (Vigo, 2021), BICLCE 7, Biennial International Conference on the Linguistics of Contemporary English (Vigo, 2017); SELIM 28, annual conference of the Spanish Society for Medieval English Language and Literature (Vigo, 2016); Englishes today: Theoretical and methodological issues (Vigo, 2013); ARCHER Symposium (Manchester, 2012); Syntax Past and Present (Manchester, 2010); 11th Triangle Colloquium (Manchester, 2010); 9th Triangle Colloquium (Manchester, 2008); Directions in English Language Studies (DELS, Manchester, 2006); Workshop on Diachronic and Synchronic Corpus Linguistics (2005). I ran the Langwidge Sandwidge research seminar on English Language and Linguistics at Manchester from 2006 to 2011.

Research Supervision

• Mar Nieves-Fernández. Title: Huntin', shootin' and fishin': The development of the velar nasal in eighteenth-century English. In progress, University of Vigo. (Jointly with Esperanza Rama-Martínez, University of Vigo)
• Sara Albán-Barcia. Manuscripts of 'Prick of Conscience': Variation in Late Middle English Palaeography. University of Vigo, 2023.
• Celia Veiga-Pérez. Perception and production skills in Spanish university EFL learners: The role of the learning context. University of Vigo, 2023. (Jointly with María del Pilar García Mayo, University of the Basque Country)
• Noelia Castro-Chao. Changes in argument structure: The impersonal construction in Middle English and Early Modern English with special reference to the verbs of Desire. A corpus-based study. University of Santiago de Compostela, 2020. (Jointly with Prof. Teresa Fanego, University of Santiago de Compostela)
• Marije van Hattum. A corpus study of Irish English verbal constructions from the 14th to the 20th centuries.University of Manchester, 2012. (Jointly with Prof. David Denison, University of Manchester)
• Ayumi Miura. Verbs of emotion and impersonals in Old and Middle English: A diachronic study in the syntax-semantics interface. University of Manchester, 2011. (Jointly with Prof. David Denison, University of Manchester)
• Rob Drummond. The influence of local accent on the pronunciation of non-native English speakers in Manchester , University of Manchester, 2010. Member of the Doctoral Research Panel. 

I have experience in supervising MA dissertations and undergraduate dissertations, mostly in the field of historical sociolinguistics, attitudes to language and Middle English manuscripts.

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Teaching

I have taught a variety of modules including History of the English Language, Middle English Language, Attitudes to Language, World Englishes, Fundamental Issues in the Study of Language and Study Skills, in addition to courses on English as 'lengua instrumental'. I have also convened the final-year dissertation module. In June 2010 I received the distinguished award The University of Manchester Teacher of the Year (Faculty of Humanities).

I have been invited to teach at undergraduate and/or postgraduate level at the universities of Lancaster, Liverpool (UK); Leuven (Belgium); Padeborn, Trier (Germany); Uppsala (Sweden), Turku (Finland), Zurich (Switzerland); Cantabria, Madrid, Las Palmas de Gran Canaria, Santiago de Compostela, Seville (Spain).

Once an Erasmus student myself (at Queen Mary and Westfield College, London), I enthusiastically take part in Erasmus exchange programmes with the universities of Manchester and Kent in the UK, and Vrije Brussels University in Belg.

Talks related to teaching: Workshop on Teaching the History of the English Language: Methods & Materials, organised by the English Subject Centre (Newcastle), Discover English Day (Manchester).

Publications related to teaching: Handbook of Study Skills (Manchester, 2009 - and later editions; 180pp).

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Admin

• Editorial Board: Cambridge Elements in the History of English (2023-), ICAME Executive Board Member (2021-), Board Member of the ICAME Journal (2019-).
• Book Review Editor for English Language and Linguistics (2022-), Managing Editor for SELIM Journal, Spanish Society for Mediaeval English Language and Literature (2016-2022).
• Annual contribution to the Year's Work in English Studies, chapter on "English Language: History of Linguistics" (2017-2020).
• Coordinator of the panel for Historical Linguistics at the annual AEDEAN conference (2016-2020).
• Chair of ICAME45 (2024, Vigo), Chair of the 6^th Prescriptivism Conference (2021, Vigo). 
• At the University of Vigo, I have served as Undergraduate Programme Director for the Grao en Linguas Estranxeiras (Modern Languages Degree, 2015-2020) and Department Academic Secretary (2019-2020). 
• At the University of Manchester (2007-2012) I served as Exams Officer, Library coordinator, Erasmus coordinator, Dissertation convenor, Member of Appointment Committees, Member of Curriculum Reform Working Parties.

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Publications

Monographs

• (2015) Grammar, Rhetoric and Usage in English: Preposition Placement 1500-1900. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Studies in English Language Series.)

Edited books/Special journal issues

• (in preparation, expected 2025) Mary Hamilton and Her Networks: Gender, Sociability, and Manuscript, c.1740-c.1850. [With Sophie Colombeau and David Denison, foreword by Hannah Barker]

• (2024) New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research. Bristol: Multilingual Matters. [First editor, with María E. Rodríguez-Gil and Javier Pérez-Guerra]

• (2020) Studies in Late Modern English Historical Phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP). Special issue in English Language and Linguistics 24(3), 471-606. [Second editor, with Joan C. Beal, Ranjan Sen, and Christine Wallis]
• (2019) Categories, Constructions, and Change in English Syntax. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. (Studies in English Language Series) [First editor, with Emma Moore, Linda van Bergen, and Willem B. Hollmann, and with the assistance of Ayumi Miura]
• (2013) New Insights into Eighteenth-Century Grammar Writing. Special issue in Transactions of the Philological Society 111(2). [First editor, with María E. Rodríguez-Gil]
• (2006) Papers in Linguistics of the University of Manchester (PLUM). Proceedings of the 14th Postgraduate Conference of Linguistics at the University of Manchester, 4 March 2005. Manchester: Department of Linguistics and English Language.
• (2005) Papers in Linguistics of the University of Manchester (PLUM). Proceedings of the 13th Postgraduate Conference of Linguistics at the University of Manchester, 20 March 2004. Manchester: Department of Linguistics & English Language. 

Journal Articles

• (ms 2024) ‘Nuances of sociability and closing forms of address: Sociopragmatic strategies in Bluestocking female correspondents’.

• (2024) ‘My dearest Clara … my dear friend – Personal names and direct address in Mary Hamilton’s correspondence’. Journal of Historical Sociolinguistics 10(1), 31-62.

• (2023) ‘By Miranda, Mary Hamilton, Mrs Dickenson – Self-reference in Late Modern English private correspondence’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 124(2), 220-254.
• (2023) ‘Constructing identities and negotiating relationships in late eighteenth-century England: Mary Hamilton and her correspondents at work’. International Journal of English Studies 23(2), 15-40. [with Tino Oudesluijs]

• (2023) ‘The velar nasal in thing vs think: Evidence from Thomas Spence’s (1775) pronouncing dictionary for the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database’. Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 44(1), 55-90. [First author, with Mar Nieves-Fernández]

• (ms) ‘ing as in loving’: the velar nasal in Thomas Spence’s (1775) pronouncing dictionary. [with Mar Nieves-Fernández]

• (2022) 'Methodological approaches to the study of codification, prescription, and prescriptivism'. Studia Neophilologica 94(3), 334-364.

• (2020) 'ECEP: historical corpora, historical phonology, and historical pronouncing dictionaries'. English Language and Linguistics 24(3), 475-492.

• (2020) 'En[dj]uring [ʧ]unes or ma[tj]ure [ʤ]ukes? Yod-coalescence and yod-dropping in the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database'. English Language and Linguistics 24(3), 493-526. [with Joan C. Beal, Ranjan Sen, Christine Wallis].

• (2020) Special issue on studies in Late Modern English historical phonology using the Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP): introduction. English Language and Linguistics 24(3), 471-474. [with Joan C. Beal, Ranjan Sen, Christine Wallis].
• (2020) The Year's Work in English Studies 99(1), 13-23. Chapter I. English Language, Section 2 "History of English Linguistics".
• (2019) The Year's Work in English Studies 98(1), 13-23, Chapter I. English Language, Section 2 "History of English Linguistics".
• (2018) The Year's Work in English Studies 97(1), 19-35, Chapter I. English Language, Section 2 "History of English Linguistics".
• (2018) The Year's Work in English Studies 97(1), 1-19. Chapter I. English Language, Section 1 "General". [with Robert A. Cloutier]
• (2019) '‘he liked to read, write, and whatch televishon’ – The APU corpus of primary schoolchildren’s writing and reading'. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 34(2), 449-469. [First author, with Victorina GonzálezDíaz].

• (ms) ‘the mark of a Letters being cut off or left out’: The apostrophe, or lack thereof, in British English.

• (2018) ‘Proper' pro-nun-∫ha-∫hun in eighteenth-century English: ECEP as a new tool for the study of historical phonology’. Digital Scholarship in the Humanities 33(1), 203-227. [first author, with Joan C. Beal, Ranjan Sen, Christine Wallis]

• (2017) ‘Paratext, title-pages and grammar books’. Studia Neophologica 89(1), 41-66.

• (2016) ‘Daily jottings: Preposition placement in diaries and travel journals from 1500 to 1900’. Folia Linguistica Historica 37(1), 281-314

• (2016) ‘The title-page in eighteenth-century grammar books’. Forum for Modern Language Studies 52(4), 369-392. [First author, with María E. Rodríguez-Gil]

• (2016) ‘may depend on me sending it to you: Double objects in early grammars’. Journal of English Linguistics 44(2), 138-161.

• (2015) ‘Have you ever written a diary or a journal? Diurnal prose and register variation’. Neuphilologische Mitteilungen 116(2), 449-474.
• (2015) ‘Which comes first in the double object construction?’. English Language and Linguistics 19(2), 247-268. Special issue 'Sense of Place in the History of English'. [First author, with David Denison.]
• (2015) ‘Senses of grammar in the eighteenth-century English tradition’. English Studies 96(8), 913-943.
• (2013) ‘The ECEG-database’. In Yáñez-Bouza, Nuria & María E. Rodríguez-Gil (eds.), New Insights into Eighteenth-Century Grammar Writing. Special issue in Transactions of the Philological Society 111(2), 143-164. [First author, with María E. Rodríguez-Gil]
• (2012) ‘Grammar writing and provincial printing in the C18th British Isles’.  Transactions of the Philological Society 110(1), 34-63.
• (2011) ‘The ‘Glaring’ Place of Prepositions: Grammar, Rhetoric and Scottish Codifiers’. Historiographia Linguistica 38(3), 255-292.
• (2011) ‘Mapping eighteenth-century grammar-writers in the British Isles (and beyond).’ Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English (VARIENG) 7, edited by Terttu Nevalainen & Susan Fitzmaurice, ‘How to Deal with Data: Problems and Approaches to the Investigation of the English Language over Time and Space’. (See here)
• (2011) ‘ARCHER: past and present (1990-2010)’. ICAME Journal 35, 205-236.
• (2006) ‘Prescriptivism and preposition stranding in eighteenth-century prose.’ Historical Sociolinguistics and Sociohistorical Linguistics 6. (See here)

Book chapters

• (forthc.) ‘The history of English registers’. In Joan C. Beal (ed.), New Cambridge History of the English Language, Volume III: Change, transmission and ideology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [First author, with Javier Pérez-Guerra]

• (ms 2024) ‘Social conventions for subscription formulae in the long eighteenth century: Letter‑writing practices in model letters’.

• (2024) 'My dearest friend, ever yours, Mary Hamilton: Exploring forms of address in the late Georgian period'. In Javier Calle-Martín & Jesús Romero-Barranco (eds.), Corpora and language change in Late Modern English, 337-366. Bern: Peter Lang. [First author, with Tino Oudesluijs]

• (2024) 'Editing The Mary Hamilton Papers (c.1740 - c.1850)'. In Javier Calle-Martín & Jesús Romero-Barranco (eds.), Corpora and language change in Late Modern English, 109-128. Bern: Peter Lang. [Second author, with David Denison and Tino Oudesluijs]

• (2024) ‘Prescriptivism in language, literary texts and speech communities’. In Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, María E. Rodríguez-Gil and Javier Pérez-Guerra (eds.), New Horizons in Prescriptivism Research, 1-20. Bristol: Multilingual Matters.
• (2023) ‘Historiographical methods’. In Joan C. Beal, Morana Lukač & Robin Straaijer (eds.), The Routledge handbook of linguistic prescriptivism, 54-72. London: Routledge/Taylor & Francis.
• (2019) ‘Introduction: Analysing English syntax past and present’. In Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Emma Moore, Linda van Bergen & Willem B. Hollmann (eds.), Categories, constructions, and change in English syntax, 1-21. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• (2018) ‘Grammar writing in the eighteenth century’. In Terttu Nevalainen, Minna Palander-Collin & Tanja Säily (eds.), Patterns of change in 18th-century English: A sociolinguistic approach, 27-43. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.
• (2016) ‘Early and Late Modern English grammars as evidence in English historical linguistics’. In Merja Kytö & Päivi Pahta (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of English Historical Linguistics, 164-180. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
• (2009) ‘ECEG-database: A bio-bibliographic approach to the study of eighteenth-century English grammars’. In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade & Wim van der Wurff (eds), Current Issues in Late Modern English, 153-182. (Linguistic Insights.) Bern: Peter Lang. [Second author in alphabetic order, with María Esther Rodríguez-Gil]
• (2008) ‘To end or not to end a sentence with a preposition: An eighteenth-century debate.’ In Joan Beal, Carmela Nocera & Massimo Sturiale (eds.), Perspectives on Prescriptivism, 237-264. (Linguistic Insights 73). Bern: Peter Lang.
• (2008) ‘Preposition stranding in the eighteenth-century: Something to talk about.’ In Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (ed.), Grammars, Grammarians, and Grammar-Writing in Eighteenth-Century England, 251-278. (Topics in English Linguistics 59). Berlin and New York: Mouton de Gruyter.

Corpus work

• Unlocking the Mary Hamilton Papers (building on Image to Text: Mary Hamilton Papers). 2019-2023. With Hannah Barker, Sophie Colombeau, David Denison, Tino Oudesluijs, Cassie Ulp, Christine Wallis. https://doi.org/10.48420/21687809. See webpage. 
• Image to Text: Mary Hamilton Papers. 2011-2019. With David Denison (Manchester). See webpage and entry in CoRD.
• APU. A corpus of schoolchildren's writings (1979-1988). With Victorina González-Díaz (Liverpool). See webpage and entry in CoRD.
• ECEP. Eighteenth-Century English Phonology database. With Joan C. Beal, Ranjan Sen and Christine Wallis (Sheffield). Release date: 2015. See HRI Digital and entry in CoRD.

• ECEG. A bio-bibliographic database of Eighteenth-Century English Grammars. Compiled by Nuria Yáñez-Bouza (Manchester) and María Esther Rodríguez-Gil (Las Palmas de Gran Canaria). Release date: December 2010, slightly updated 2012. See the webpage,  the online application, and entry in CoRD.

• ARCHER 3.2. A Representative Corpus of Historical English Registers, version 3.2. With David Denison (Manchester); compiled in collaboration with 14 international universities. Available since December 2013. See webpage and entry in CoRD.

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Page last updated: 19 August 2024