Introduction to the History of English

Kohnen introduces the history of the English language to students and readers who do not have a background in linguistics. He begins with a short overview of the basic facts of language change and the Indo-European background of English, then traces the major periods of the language--Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, and Late Modern English. For each period he discusses the socio-historical background, the core areas of linguistic structure, discourse, speech acts, and genres. Many examples and excerpts, translated for earlier periods, illustrate the principles and trends. Annotation c2014 Ringgold, Inc., Portland, OR (protoview.com)

Thomas Kohnen is Professor of English historical linguistics at the University of Cologne. His major fields of study include historical pragmatics and historical text linguistics, corpus linguistics, historical syntax, speech act theory as well as orality and literacy and the language of religion.