Prof. Dr. Ursula Lenker

Historical linguistics – language change in English, particularly

• historical syntax
• historical pragmatics and
• historical text linguistics

Literature and culture of early medieval England, particularly

• runic and Latin literacy in Anglo-Saxon England
• Manuscripts: textual composition of Latin and Old English texts
• Old English and Latin liturgical texts

Books

• Argument and Rhetoric – Adverbial Connectors in the History of English, Topics in English Linguistics 64, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2010, xi + 359 S. (S. 295–359 auf CD-ROM)
• Die westsächsische Evangelienversion und die Perikopenordnungen im angelsächsischen England, Münchener Universitätsschriften. Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 20, München: Fink, 1997, xxiii + 548 S.

Editorial Work: journal / series

• MUSE: Munich Studies in English – Münchner Schriften zur Englischen Philologie (since 2016)
• Anglia: Zeitschrift für englische Philologie (2012-2024)
• Buchreihe der Anglia (2012-2024)

Editorial Work: anthologies

• Ursula Lenker & Gabriele Rippl. 2021. Book Histories in the Digital Age. Special Issue Anglia 139:1.
• (Zu-)Hören Interdisziplinär, eds. Magdalena Zorn & Ursula Lenker. Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte Sonderband 1, München: Allitera Verlag, 2018.
• Connectives in Synchrony and Diachrony in European Languages, ed. Anneli Meurman-Solin & Ursula Lenker, Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 8, Helsinki: VARIENG, 2011, <http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/08/>.
• English Historical Linguistics 2008. Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 15), Munich, 24–30 August 2008, Volume I: The History of English Verbal and Nominal Constructions, ed. Ursula Lenker, Judith Huber & Robert Mailhammer, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 314, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2010, x + 280 S.
• Connectives in the History of English, ed. Ursula Lenker & Anneli Meurman-Solin, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 283, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2007, viii + 311 S.
• Bookmarks from the Past: Studies in Early English Language and Literature in Honour of Helmut Gneuss, ed. Lucia Kornexl & Ursula Lenker, Münchener Universitätsschriften, Texte und Untersuchungen zur Englischen Philologie 30, Frankfurt: Lang, 2003, xxxiii + 319 S.

Editorial work

• [with Marianne Hundt] section papers from "Section V: Modern English in the Making", Anglistentag 2005 Bamberg: Proceedings, ed. Christoph Houswitschka, Gabriele Knappe & Anja Müller, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2006, 43–557.

Articles

• "Adverbs in the History of English". In: Joan Beal (ed.). The New Cambridge History of the English Language. Volume III: Transmission, Change and Ideology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 2025, 391–422.
• “Historical Continuity in the Morphological Marking of Subjectivity? Textual Perspectives on the Origin of English Adverbial ‑ly in Late Old and Early Middle English”. Zeitschrift für Wortbildung / Journal for Word Formation 8/2, 2024, 74–106.
• “‘And fare now wel …’: Functions of Imperatives in Middle English Verbal Interaction”. In: Renate Bauer, Christine Elsweiler, Ulrike Krischke and Kerstin Majewski (eds.). Texts Travelling – Travelling Texts. A Gedenkschrift in Memory of Hans Sauer. München: utz, 2023, 123–141.
• [with Gabriele Rippl]. "Book Histories in the Digital Age: Challenges, Promises, Achievements". Book Histories in the Digital Age, eds. Ursula Lanker and Gabriele Rippl. Special Issue Anglia 139, 2021, 1–5.
• [with Hans-Jörg Schmid, Quirin Würschinger & Melanie Keller]. "Battling for Semantic Territory across Social Networks. The Case of Anglo-Saxon on Twitter". Yearbook of the German Cognitive Linguistics Association / Jahrbuch der Deutschen Gesellschaft für Kognitive Linguistik (GCLA) 8, 2020, 3–26. [DOI: https://doi.org/10.1515/gcla-2020-0002]
• "Framing Material in Early Literacy: Presenting Literacy and its Agents in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts". The Dynamics of Text and Framing Phenomena: Historical Approaches to Paratext and Metadiscourse in English, ed. Birte Bös and Matti Peikola. Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2020, 115–134.
• "'Methodical, Energetic, Business-Like and Sober': Language Evolution and Constructions of Masculinity in Otto Jespersen’s Growth and Structure of the English Language". In: Lectiones difficiliores – Vom Ethos der Lektüre, ed. Jörg Dünne, Kurt Hahn und Lars Schneider. Tübingen: Narr\francke\attempo, 2019, 315–322.
• [mit Lucia Kornexl]. "Anglo-Saxon Micro-Texts: An Introduction". Anglo-Saxon Micro-Texts, ed. Ursula Lenker and Lucia Kornexl. Berlin: de Gruyter, 2019, 1–10.
• "Old English þa in Farman’s Glosses to the Rushworth Gospels – Signal of Idiomatic Discourse Structuring in Old English?" In: Studies on Late Antique and Medieval Germanic Glossography and Lexicography in Honour of Patrizia Lendinara, ed. Claudia di Sciacca, Concetta Giliberto, Carmela Rizzo and Loredana Teresi, Pisa: Edizioni ETS, 2018, 489–501.
• "Medizinische, sprachwissenschaftliche, wissenschaftsgeschichtliche und historisch-ästhetische Perspektiven auf das ›(Zu‑)Hören‹". (Zu-)Hören interdisziplinär, ed. Magdalena Zorn und Ursula Lenker (Münchner Veröffentlichungen zur Musikgeschichte. Sonderband 1), München: Allitera, 2018, 8–17.
• "'There’s an issue there …': Signalling Functions of Discourse-Deictic There in the History of English", Language Sciences 68 (2018), 94–105 [DOI: 10.1016/j.langsci.2017.12.003].
• "Einwortsprechhandlungen". In: Kerstin Kazzazi et al. (eds). Worte über Wörter. Eine Festschrift zu Ehren von Elke Ronneberger-Sibold. Tübingen: Stauffenburg, 2018, 265–300.
• "Pathways of Change of English there", In: Andrzej M. Łęcki, Ireneusz Kida, Jerzy Nykiel (eds.), Current Developments in English Historical Linguistics. Studies in Honour of Rafał Molencki, ed. Artur Kijak, Andrzej M. Łęcki, and Jerzy Nykiel, Katowice: Wydawnictwo Uniwersytetu Śląskiego, 2017, 90–108.
• "Old English Pragmatics and Discourse". In: The History of English: Old English, ed. Laurel Brinton and Alexander Bergs, Berlin: de Gruyter Mouton, 2017, 140–159.
• "Gospelbooks" – In: The Encyclopedia of Medieval Literature in Britain, gen. ed. Siân Echard and Robert Rouse et. al., Oxford: Wiley-Blackwell, 4 vols., Vol. 2, 2017, DOI: 10.1002/9781118396957.wbemlb134.
• "'Waiter, there’s a horse in my lasagna': Animals and their Meats in the History of English", The Subcarpathian Studies in English Language, Literature and Culture, Volume 1: Linguistics and Methodology, ed. Grzegorz A. Kleparski, Ewa Konieczna & Beata Kopecka, Rzeszów: Uniwersytetu Rzeszowskiego Rzeszów, 2014, 98–108.
• Knitting and Splitting Information: Medial Placement of Linking Adverbials in the History of English", Contact, Variation and Change in the History of English, ed. Simone E. Pfenninger, Olga Timofeeva, Anne-Christine Gardner, Alpo Honkapohja, Marianne Hundt & Daniel Schreier, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2014, 11–38.
• Old English: Pragmatics and Discourse". Historical Linguistics of English: An International Handbook, Vol. 1, ed. Alexander Bergs & Laurel Brinton, Handbook of Linguistics and Communication Science, HSK 34.1, Berlin: de Gruyter, 2012, 325–340.
• Focus on Adverbial Connectors: Connecting, Partitioning and Focusing Attention in the History of English", Connectives in Synchrony and Diachrony in European Languages, ed. Anneli Meurman-Solin & Ursula Lenker, Studies in Variation, Contacts and Change in English 8, 2011. Helsinki: VARIENG, <http://www.helsinki.fi/varieng/journal/volumes/08/lenker/>.
• [with Lucia Kornexl], "Culinary and Other Pairs: Lexical Borrowing and Conceptual Differentiation in Early English Food Terminology", More Than Words: English Lexicography and Lexicology Past and Present. Essays Presented to Hans Sauer on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday. Part I, ed. Renate Bauer & Ulrike Krischke, Münchener Universitätsschriften 36, Frankfurt: Lang, 2011, 179–206.
• [with Judith Huber & Robert Mailhammer], "Introduction: Capturing and explaining syntactic change in the history of English", English Historical Linguistics 2008: Selected Papers from the Fifteenth International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL 15), Munich, 24–30 August 2008, Volume I: The History of English Verbal and Nominal Constructions, ed. Ursula Lenker, Judith Huber & Robert Mailhammer, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 314, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2010, 1–8.
• "Signifying Christ in Anglo-Saxon England: Old English terms for the SIGN OF THE CROSS", The Cross in Anglo-Saxon England and the Continent, ed. Sarah Larrett Keefer, Catherine Karkov & Karen Jolly, Manchester: Manchester University Press, 2010, 235–277.
• anguage Divides: The Long 19th Century from a Linguistic Perspective", Anglistentag 2008 Tübingen: Proceedings, ed. Lars Eckstein & Christoph Reinfandt, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2009, 189–206.
• Booster Prefixes in Old English: An Alternative View of the Roots of ME forsooth", English Language and Linguistics 12.2 (2008), 245–265.
• [with Hans Sauer] "English Historical Linguistics in the German-Speaking Countries: Continuations and New Departures", English Studies Today: Recent Developments and New Directions, ed. Ansgar Nünning & Jürgen Schlaeger, Trier: wvt, 2007, 41–65.
• Forhwi 'because'. Shifting Deictics in the History of English Causal Connection", Connectives in the History of English, ed. Ursula Lenker & Anneli Meurman-Solin, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 283, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2007, 193–227.
• [zusammen mit Anneli Meurman-Solin] "Introduction", Connectives in the History of English, ed. Ursula Lenker & Anneli Meurman-Solin, Current Issues in Linguistic Theory 283, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2007, 1–10.
• "Soþlice, forsoothe, truly: Communicative Principles and Invited Inferences in the History of Truth-intensifying Adverbs in English", Methods in Historical Pragmatics, ed. Susan Fitzmaurice & Irma Taavitsainen, Topics in English Linguistics 52, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 2007, 81–105.
• [with Marianne Hundt] "Modern English in the Making: Introduction", Anglistentag 2005 Bamberg: Proceedings, ed. Christoph Houswitschka, Gabriele Knappe & Anja Müller, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2006, 439–445.
• Forhwi hence: Shifting Deictics in Early English Causal Connection", Anglistentag 2004 Aachen: Proceedings, ed. Lilo Mössner & Christl M. Schmidt, Proceedings of the German Association of University Teachers of English 26, Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag Trier, 2005, 63–76.
• he Rites and Ministries of the Canons: Liturgical Rubrics to Vernacular Gospels and their Functions in a European Context", The Liturgy of the Late Anglo-Saxon Church, ed. Helen Gittos & M. Bradford Bedingfield, Henry Bradshaw Society Subsidia V, Woodbridge: Boydell & Brewer, 2005, 185–212.
• [with Hans Sauer] "Das englische Mittelalter im Film – Perspektiven und Probleme: Ein Bericht", Englische Sprachwissenschaft und Mediävistik: Standpunkte – Perspektiven – Neue Wege. English Linguistics and Medieval Studies: Positions – Perspectives – New Approaches. Proceedings of the Conference in Bamberg, May 21–22, 2004, ed. Gabriele Knappe, Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2005, 95–117.
• "Forsooth, a Source: Metalinguistic Thought in Early English", Bookmarks from the Past: Studies in Early English Language and Literature in Honour of Helmut Gneuss, ed. Lucia Kornexl & Ursula Lenker, Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2003, 261–288.
• "Is It, Stylewise or Otherwise, Wise to Use -wise? Domain Adverbs and the History of English -wise", Proceedings of the Eleventh International Conference on English Historical Linguistics: Santiago de Compostela, 7–11 September, 2000, ed. Teresa Fanego et al., 2002, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 157–180.
• "The Monasteries of the Benedictine Reform and the 'Winchester School': Model Cases of Social Networks in Anglo-Saxon England?", Social Network Analysis and the History of English, ed. Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade & Terttu Nevalainen, European Journal of English Studies 4.3 (2000), 225–238.
• "Soþlice and witodlice: Discourse Markers in Old English", Pathways of Change: Grammaticalization in English, ed. Olga Fischer, Anette Rosenbach & Dieter Stein, Studies in Language Companion Series 53, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 2000, 229–249.
• "The Gospel Lectionary in Anglo-Saxon England: Manuscript Evidence and Liturgical Practice", Anglo-Saxon England 28, 1999, 141–178.
• "gerles, girls, grrrlz – Girlpower! Cultural Phenomena and the Semantic Changes of girl", Words, Lexemes, Concepts – Approaches to the Lexicon: Studies in Honour of Leonhard Lipka, ed. Wolfgang Falkner & Hans-Jörg Schmid, Tübingen: Narr, 1999, 7–21.

Encyclopaedia entries and shorter articles

• "How to Grapple with Meaning", OED Symposium Newsletter 5 (2013), <www.oedsymposium.com/app>.
• [with Hans Sauer] "Das englische Mittelalter im Film", Das Mittelalter, 2005 [Zusammenfassung für den Tagungsbericht Englische Sprachwissenschaft und Mediävistik: Standpunkte und Perspektiven].
• [with Lucia Kornexl] "Bookmarks from the Past: Studies in Early English Language and Literature in Honour of Helmut Gneuss", English and American Studies in German 2003, ed. Horst Weinstock, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 2004, 41–43 [English summary of the volume].
• "The West Saxon Gospels and the Gospel-Lectionary in Anglo-Saxon England", English and American Studies in German 1997, ed. Horst Weinstock, Tübingen: Niemeyer, 1998, 8–11 [englischsprachige Zusammenfassung der Dissertation].
• "Wulfstan v. Winchester (Cantor)", Lexikon des Mittelalters, Band IX, München: LexMA Verlag, 1998, 349.

Reviews

• Dearnley, Elizabeth. Translators and their Prologues in Medieval England. Bristol Studies in Medieval Cultures. Cambridge: Brewer, 2016, in Anglia 138 (2020), 324–328.
• David Greer, Manuscript Inscriptions in Early English Printed Music. Music and Material Culture Series. Farnham/Burlington, VT: Ashgate, 2015, in Anglia 134 (2016), 549–552.
• Bettelou Los, A Historical Syntax of English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, 2015, in English Studies 97 (2016), 682–684, DOI <10.1080/0013838X.2016.1183967>.
• Helen Foxhall Forbes, Heaven and Earth in Anglo-Saxon England: Theology and Society in an Age of Faith, Studies in Early Medieval Britain, Farnham: Ashgate, 2013, in Anglia 133 (2015), 386–391.
• Rafał Molencki, Causal Conjunctions in Mediaeval English: A Corpus-Based Study of Grammaticalization. Katowice: Uniwersytet Śląski/Oficina Wydawnicza, 2012, in Anglia 133 (2015), 378–382.
• Tom Lundskær-Nielsen, Prepositions in English Grammars until 1801: With a Survey of the Western European Background, Odense: University Press of Southern Denmark, 2011, in Modern Language Review 110 (2015), 517–519.
• Alice Jorgensen (ed.), Reading the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle: Language, Literature, History, Turnhout: Brepols, 2010, in Mediaevistik 25 (2012), 304–308.
• Geoffrey Leech, Marianne Hundt, Christian Mair & Nicholas Smith, Change in Contemporary English. A Grammatical Study, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2009, in Anglia 130 (2012), 152–155.
• David Pratt, The Political Thought of King Alfred the Great, Cambridge, Camridge University Press, 2007, in Mediaevistik 24 (2011), 469–472.
• Kiriko Sato, The Development from Case-Forms to Prepositional Constructions in Old English Prose, Bern: Lang, 2009, in Zeitschrift für Anglistik und Amerikanistik 59 (2011), 427–431.
• Hugh Magennis & Mary Swan (eds.), A Companion to Ælfric, Leiden/Boston, MA: Brill, 2009, in Anglia 129 (2011), 490–494.
• Ans van Kemenade & Bettelou Los (eds.), The Handbook of the History of English, Malden, MA/Oxford/Carlton, Victoria: Blackwell, 2006 (2009), in Anglia 127 (2009), 483–489.
• Christian Mair, Twentieth-Century English. History, Variation, and Standardization, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2006, in Anglia 127 (2009), 499–502.
• Nicholas Orme, Medieval Schools: From Roman Britain to Renaissance England, New Haven, CT: Yale University Press, 2006, in Mediaevistik 22 (2009), 292–295.
• Laurel B. Brinton & Elizabeth Closs Traugott, Lexicalization and Language Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2005, in Anglia 125 (2007), 501–503.
• Renate Pasch, Ursula Brauße, Eva Breindl & Ulrich Hermann Waßner, Handbuch der deutschen Konnektoren. Linguistische Grundlagen der Beschreibung und syntaktische Merkmal der deutschen Satzverknüpfer (Konjunktionen, Satzadverbien und Partikeln), Berlin: de Gruyter, 2003, in Word 56 (2005), 446–451.
• Joan Beal, English in Modern Times 1700–1945, London: Arnold, 2004, Anglia 124 (2006), 317–320.
• Wolfgang Obst & Florian Schleburg, Lehrbuch des Altenglischen, Heidelberg: Winter, 2004, in Anglia 123 (2005), 286–289.
• Ilse Wischer & Gabriele Diewald (eds.), New Reflections on Grammaticalization, Amsterdam: John Benjamins, 2002, in Anglia 123 (2005), 269–273.
• Elizabeth C. Traugott & Richard B. Dasher, Regularity in Semantic Change, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2002, in Word 55 (2004), 262–265.
• Christine Ehler, Verschriftung und Verschriftlichung des Altenglischen: Eine methodisch-exemplarische Untersuchung, Frankfurt: Lang, 1999, in Word 53 (2002), 238–242.
• Manfred Görlach, Aspects of the History of English, Heidelberg: Winter, 1999, in Anglistik 12 (2001), 191–193.
• Bernd Kortmann, Adverbial Subordination: A Typology and History of Adverbial Subordinators based on European Languages, Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997, in Word 51.3 (2000), 430–434.
• Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö & Kirsi Heikkonen (eds.), English in Transition: Corpus-Based Studies in Linguistic Variation and Genre Styles, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997, in Anglia 118 (2000), 103–109.
• Matti Rissanen, Merja Kytö & Kirsi Heikkonen (eds.), Grammaticalization at Work: Studies of Long-Term Developments in English, Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter, 1997, in Anglia 118 (2000), 103–109.
• Richard Marsden, The Text of the Old Testament in Anglo-Saxon England, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, in Anglia 116 (1998), 519–522.
• Sara Mills, Feminist Stylistics, London: Routledge, 1995, in Word 49 (1998), 286–290.
• Henning Andersen (ed.), Historical Linguistics 1993: Selected Papers from the 11th International Conference on Historical Linguistics. Los Angeles, 16–20 August 1993, Amsterdam: Benjamins, 1995, in Word 49 (1998), 278–286.
• David N. Dumville, English Caroline Script and Monastic History: Studies in Benedictinism, A.D. 950–1030, Woodbridge: Boydell, 1993, in Anglia 116 (1998), 90–93.
• Jonathan Wilcox (ed.), Ælfric's Prefaces, Durham: Durham Medieval Texts, 1994, in Anglia 115 (1997), 526–528.

• International Conference on Middle English (ICOME 13), Málaga, 8 May 2024
  “Middle English Adjectives and Adverbs in ‑līch(e)/‑ly”
• Kolloquium Ilse Wischer, Universität Potsdam, 21.-22. März 2024
  “Grammaticalization and Word Formation Cont’d: Histories of English ‑ly”
• Conference "Viking Things: Objects and Agency in Old Norse Culture", Siemens-Stiftung / LMU Skandinavistik München, 15. September 2023
  "Speaking Objects in Early English Literature"
• Guest lecture Universität Zürich, Lecture Series “Variation and Change in the History of the English Lexicon”, 21 March 2023
  “Meanings and Functions of ‑lic(e)/‑ly in the History of English”
• Symposium “Historical English Word-Formation”, LMU München, 18 February 2023
  “Morphologically Marking Epistemicity in the History of English: English -ly and the Functional Diversification of English Adverbs”
• Ninth International Symposium on Runes and Runic Inscriptions, Sankelmark, 17 Juni 2022 “Maker-Formulae in Anglo-Saxon Literacy: Runic and Beyond”
• Eleventh International Conference on Middle English (ICOME 11), University of Florence (Italy), 6 February 2019
  ““Assay, and he shal fynde it that so dooth”: Imperatives in Middle English Verbal Interaction”
• Ringvorlesung ZMR, LMU (zum Thema „Herrschaft und Widerstand“), 29. November 2018
  „Zur Herrschaft der Frau über den Mann im englischen Spätmittelalter - Die Maistrie von Chaucers Wife of Bath“
• ICEHL XX Edinburgh, Workshop “Paratextual Communication in a Historical Linguistic Perspective”, 28 August 2018
  “Anglo-Saxon Paratexts: Liminal Material in Anglo-Saxon Manuscripts”
• Guest lecture, Universität Augsburg, 28. Juni 2018
  “‘There's an issue there ...’: Signalling Functions of Discourse-Deictic There in the History of English”
• Guest lecture, Universität Stavanger (Norwegen), 1. Juni 2018
  “Anglo-Saxon Microtexts: Language and Communicative Functions”
• Symposium “Anglo-Saxon Micro-Texts”
  LMU München, 3.-4. November 2017
  “Anglo-Saxon Micro-Texts: Introduction”
• Symposium “Some Thoughts on Language and Language Change”
  Università degli Studi di Firenze, 10. Oktober 2017
  “‘There's an issue there ...’: Signalling Functions of Discourse-Deictic There in the History of English”
• Conference „(Zu-)Hören“, Interdisziplinäre Tagung
  Orff-Zentrum München, 29. Juni 2017
  “Einführung“
• ICAME
  Prag, 23. Mai 2017
  Workshop “Back to text: Contextualizing corpus data in historical and variationist English linguistics” (convenors: Kristin Bech / Ruth Möhlig),
  “Reclaiming Space and Time - The Manuscript Context of Old English Biblical and Homiletic Texts in the Helsinki Corpus”
• 19th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Duisburg-Essen, 22–26 August 2016
  Workshop "Intersubjectivity and the Emergence of Grammatical Patterns in the History of English" (convenors: Sylvie Hancil, Alexander Haselow)
  "You may have a point there: On the Development of Intersubjective there"
• Medieval Conference "Feast and Famine"
  Leeds, 4 July 2016
  Roundtable discussion organized by the Graduate Student Committee of the Medieval Academy of America: "More Famine than Feast? Preparing for the Academic Job Search"
• Linguistisches Kolloquium
  LMU Munich, 9 December 2015
  "Wenn Konnektoren spalten: Zur Prosodie von Adverbien in Mittelstellung im Englischen"
• International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (ISAS) 2015
  Glasgow, 7 August 2015
  "Anglo-Saxon Microtexts: Language and Communicative Functions"
• Guest lectures, Universität Augsburg and Universität Würzburg
  Augsburg, 15 January 2014 and Würzburg, 11 November 2014
  "Wenn Konnektoren spalten: Zur Mittelstellung von Adverbien im Englischen"
• The Subcarpathian Studies in English Language, Literature and Culture; The 3rd Rzeszów Anglistentag
  Rzeszów, 22 April 2013
  "'Waiter, there’s a horse in my lasagna': Animals and their Meats in the History of English" (plenary talk)
• 17th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Zurich, 23 August 2012
  "Knitting and Splitting Information: Medial Placement of Adverbials in the History of English" (keynote presentation)
• 17th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Zurich, 23 August 2012
  [with Lucia Kornexl] "Disentangling 'an Enduring Myth': The Lexical 'Animal-Meat' Divide in English as a Model Case for the Dynamics of Borrowing"
• Katholische Universität Eichstätt-Ingolstadt
  Eichstätt, 28 November 2011
  Interdisziplinäre Ringvorlesung "K'Universale: Scheitern"
  "Gescheiterte Kommunikation: Missverstehen und Missverständnisse"
• Universität Göttingen
  Göttingen, 31 May 2010
  "Der Artus-Mythos im Film"
• Workshop "Connectives in synchrony and diachrony in European languages"
  Helsinki, 16 April 2010
  "A Focus on Adverbial Connectors: Connecting and Focussing in the History of English" (keynote lecture)
• Universität Erlangen
  Erlangen, 12 January 2009
  "Forþæm, hence, after all: Variation und Sprachwandel in der Geschichte kausaler Konnektoren des Englischen" (guest lecture)
• Anglistentag 2008
  Tübingen, 5 October 2008
  Section "Borders and Transitions in Language, Literature and Culture" (convenors: Andrew James Johnston, Hans Sauer)
  "The Language Divide: The Long Nineteenth Century from a Linguistic Point of View"
• Vorlesungsreihe des Zentrums für Mittelalter- und Renaissance-Forschung
  LMU Munich, 10 July 2008
  "Der Artus-Mythos im Film"
• 10. LIPP-Symposium "Sprachwandel und Variation"
  LMU Munich, 9 November 2007
  "Forþæm, hence, after all: Variation und Sprachwandel in der Geschichte kausaler Konnektoren des Englischen"
• OED Forum
  Oxford, 30 March 2007
  "After all – moreover – swaþeahhwæþere: The Present and Past of Adverbial Connectors"
• 14th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Bergamo, 21–25 August 2006
  "Sentence-Final Coordinators and Long-Term Linguistic Change in English"
• Anglistentag 2005
  Bamberg, 18–21 September 2005
  Organization of, chair of and introduction to the section "Modern English in the Making" [with Marianne Hundt, Universität Heidelberg]
• Anglistentag 2004
  Aachen, 26–29 September 2004
  Section "England in the Middle Ages: Language, Literature, and Culture"
  "Forhwi 'hence': Shifting Deictics in Early English Causal Connection"
• 13th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Vienna, 23–28 August 2004
  Convenor: Workshop "Clausal Connection in the History of English" [with Anneli Meurman-Solin, University of Helsinki]
• Englische Sprachwissenschaft und Mediävistik: Standpunkte und Perspektiven
  Bamberg, 21–22 May 2004
  [with Hans Sauer] "Das englische Mittelalter im Film"
• Englische Sprachwissenschaft und Mediävistik: Standpunkte und Perspektiven
  Bamberg, 21–22 May 2004
  Statements, chair of closing discussion
• Halig Rod: The Cross in Anglo-Saxon England
  Winchester, 4–6 July 2003
  "The Sign of the Cross and the Gospels in Anglo-Saxon England: A Semiotic Study of Words Denoting CROSS in Old English"
• Universität Innsbruck, Austria
  Innsbruck, 21 November 2002
  "Conjuncts in the History of English" (guest lecture)
• 12th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Glasgow, 22–26 August 2002
  "Conjuncts: Their Semantic and Functional Development in the History of English"
• 12th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Glasgow, 22–26 August 2002
  Workshop on Historical Pragmatics
  "Soþlice, forsothe, truly: Truth, Facts, Adverbs and Historical Pragmatics"
• 11th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Santiago de Compostela, 7–11 September 2000
  "Is It, Stylewise or Otherwise, Wise to Use -wise? Domain Adverbs and the History of English -wise"
• Ritual and Belief in Anglo-Saxon England
  Oxford, 7–9 July 2000
  "Gospel Lections and Preaching in the Vernacular in the Anglo-Saxon Period"
• New Reflections on Grammaticalization: An International Symposium
  Potsdam, 17–19 June 1999
  "Actually: soþlice, soothly, trewely, indeed: Grammaticalization of Truth-intensifying Adverbs in the History of English"
• 10th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
  Manchester, 21–28 August 1998
  "Social Networks in Old English: The Benedictine Reform, the 'Winchester Vocabulary' and Standardisation in Old English"
• Words, Lexemes, Concepts: Approaches to the Lexicon.
  Symposium in Honour of Leonhard Lipka on the Occasion of his 60th Birthday
  Munich, 13–15 June 1998
  "gerles, girls, grrrlz – Girlpower!"
• International Conference on Historical Linguistics, Tenth Conference
  Düsseldorf, 10–17 August 1997
  "Soþlice and witodlice: Discourse Markers in Old English"
• International Society of Anglo-Saxonists, Eighth Conference
  Palermo, 7–12 July 1997
  "The Gospel-Lectionary in Anglo-Saxon England: Manuscript Evidence and Liturgical Practice"

Member of the editorial board of

• Dictionary of Old English (University of Toronto; seit September 2014)
• VARIENG: Research Unit for the Study of Variation, Contacts and Change in English (University of Helsinki, Finnland; seit Januar 2013)
• Old English Newsletter (ed. Stephen Harris, University of Knoxville, Tennessee, USA) (seit April 2006)
• Atlantis: A Journal of the Spanish Association for Anglo-American Studies (2005–2014; Gutachtertätigkeiten Aufsätze und Rezensionen)

Other reviewing activities

• External member of the doctoral programme at the Università degli Studi di Firenze (Italy) (since 2017)
• Member of the Scientific Committee of the 19th International Conference of English Historical Linguistics, Duisburg und Essen, Deutschland (2015/2016)
• Reviewer for the Dean of the Language Faculty, Uppsala University, Sweden (2015)
• Elected member of the Advisory Board of the International Society of Anglo-Saxonists (2009–2011)
• Reviewer for the dissertation prize of the Anglistenverbandes (Anglistentag Paderborn 2015)
• External examiner for Master theses and examinations at the Stavanger University Norway (2014)
• Member of the Scientific Board of the 18th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Leuven, Belgium (2013/2014)
• Reviewer for the Research Foundation Flanders – FWO (Belgien) (2011, 2012)
• Member of the Academic Advisory Board of the 17th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Zürich, Switzerland (2011/2012)
• Member of the German Research Council’s working group on research rating in the field of English and American StudiesWissenschaftsrates zum Forschungsrating im Bereich Anglistik/Amerikanistik (2011/2012)
• Advisory Board Member for the project The Production and Use of English Manuscripts 1060 to 1220 (heads: Mary Swan, Leeds; Elaine Treharne, Leicester, GB; 2005–2010)

Reviewing activities for journals and publishers

• monographs / anthologies: Benjamins, Cambridge University Press, Narr, Oxford University Press, Routledge
• various journals of linguistics and medieval studies, including Diachronica,English Language and Linguistics, Functions of Language, Journal of English Linguistics,Journal of Historical Pragmatics, Lingua, Linguistics and the Human Sciences, Review of English Studies, Token: A Journal of English Linguistics
  

RuneS

• Runische Schriftlichkeit in den germanischen Sprachen - Runic Writing in the Germanic Languages (Union der Akademien) mehr
• "Performing the Authentic Sound"

Ongoing dissertations

• Berkl-Horn, Annette: Lateinisch-englische und englisch-lateinische Lexikographie im England des 15. Jahrhunderts.
• Ganz, Yannick: Insults in the History of English
• Gerstbrein, Heike: Negotiating Crisis in Anglo-Saxon England.
• Molinari, Alessandra: Somatic Cosmology in the Poetry of Oxford, Bodleian Library, Junius 11.
• Sprau, Melanie: Binomials and Multinomials in Sir Thomas Elyot’s The Boke Named The Gouernour: Structures and Functions
• Varela Villaverde, David: Comment Clauses in the History of English: A Constructional View on Forms, Positions and Functions
  

Completed dissertations

• Harthan, Carolin: "Linking Adverbials in Written Academic English: Usage Patterns and Functions"; completed 2020: Munich Studies in English, vol. 49 (Peter Lang, 2022).
• Hauf, Christoph: "Construction and Complementation of Verbs of Speaking in the History of English"; completed 2019; published: Munich Studies in English 47 (Frankfurt am Main: Lang, 2021) [Verbs of Speaking and the Linguistic Expression of COMMUNICATION in the History of English].
• Huber, Judith: "Motion and the English Verb. A Diachronic Study"; completed 2013; published: Oxford Studies in the History of English (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2017).
• Mauk, Renate: "Linguistische Analyse von Geschäftsschildern im räumlichen und zeitlichen Vergleich. Eine Untersuchung in Deutschland, Österreich, der deutsch-sprachigen Schweiz, Frankreich und England", completed 2022.
• Skiba, Michael : "Participle-based Prepositions in the History of English"; completed 2019; published: English and Beyond 13 (Munich: Utz, 2021) [Participial Prepositions and Conjunctions in the History of English].
• Zhao, Qian: "Binomials and Multinominals in the Chinese and the Recent English Versions of the Lotus Sutra", completed 2025.
• Co-supervisor and examiner of doctoral dissertations at the FAU Erlangen, LMU Munich (3x) and University of Potsdam
• External supervisor and examiner of doctoral dissertations at the University of Antwerpen, Edinburgh, Helskini und Udine

Completed habilitations

• Elsweiler, Christine: “From Shared Meaning to Divergent Pragmatics: A Comparative Study of the Modal Auxiliaries May, Can, Shall and Will in Scottish and English Letters (1500–1700)”; completed 2019.

I supervise Master theses on topics in English historical linguistics, medieval English studies, and studies on English in general in my main areas of research (syntax, historical pragmatics and text linguistics).

If you would like me to supervise your Bachelor’s or Master’s thesis or your Zulassungsarbeit, please note the following:

a) You should have attended at least one of my courses and completed a written assignment — preferably a seminar paper — as part of that course.

b) If condition (a) is not met, please submit a current Transcript of Records.

c) In any case, I would appreciate receiving a Transcript of Records, as this will help us identify a suitable topic and methodology for your thesis.

d) Please contact me at least four weeks before the beginning of the thesis registration period.

Master Theses Supervision Lenker (PDF, 149 KB)

Topics are commonly chosen on the basis of a particular seminar offered by me. To give you an idea, here is a small selection of recent topics from various kinds of these (Bachelor, Master and Zulassungsarbeiten).

Bachelor- und Zulassungsarbeiten

• English recipes: Developments from 1900 until today
• Wilde Kritzeleien oder signifikante Botschaften: eine Analyse der Funktionen der Schriftlichkeit bei frühen Runen und modernen Graffiti
• The Celtic Language Influence in the English Language: Reception of the Celtic Hypothesis Past and Present
• Terms of Nominal and Pronominal Address in Directive Speech Acts in Romances by Geoffrey Chaucer
• Relativization Strategies in Old English Gospel Glosses and Translations: Regional Variation or Functional Differentiation?
• Konzeptionelle Mündlichkeit bei Chaucer. Französisches Lehngut in Dialogen ausgewählter Fabliaux und Romanzen der Canterbury Tales
• Intensifiers in Foer’s Extremely Loud & Incredibly Close and its German Translation: A Comparison of Source Domains, Frequency and Use of Intensifiers
• Intensifiers in Australian English
• Imperatives of Perception Verbs as Discourse Markers: A Corpus-Based Study of look, see, listen and hear
• French Loans in the L2 Vocabulary of Bavarian Learns of English in Grammar Schools
• Featuring French Fashion: A Diachronic Corpus Study of French Fashion Loanwords in Vogue US 1926, 1956, 1986
• Englische Ortsnamen: Fallstudie zu Orten in Norfolk
• Anredepronomen und Pronomenwechsel in der englischen Sprachgeschichte
• Aethelthryth – A Saint's Life through the Middle Ages
• Adverbial Placement and Information Structure in Present-Day English: A Corpus-Based Study
• „The chief enrichment of the language …“: Additions to the English lexicon (OED 1991-2020)

Masterarbeiten

• A Linguistic Profile of Present-Day English en-/em-: History and Use
• Present-Day English I reckon: A Comment Clause?
• Linguistic Analysis of Climate Change in the Press: 1980/1990 vs. 2000/2010
• The Interplay of Primary and Secondary Text Type Markers in American Newspaper Advertisements from the 18th to the 21st Century
• Uses of Need to in Present-Day American English: A Corpus Study
• She’s that girl: Feminine Pronouns Used in Reference to Inanimate Objects in the US Beauty Industry
• English anyway(s) and by the way: A Corpus-Study of Positions and Functions
• Thou, you and Beyond: A Diachronic Study of Address Pronouns in Medieval and Early Modern English
• The Language of the Letters of Charles Dickens
• Functions of the Imperative in Early Modern English Scripted Orality
• Tracing Language Change in Wartime: A Linguistic Analysis of Press Coverage of World War I
• A Linguistic Analysis of Adjective and Adverb Usage in English Instagram Posts