Seminar für Englische Philologie

PD Dr. Göran Wolf

Born in Dohna; studied English linguistics, German linguistics and education in Dresden; taught as foreign language assistant in Derry (Northern Ireland); tutor, research assistant, researcher and junior lecturer at the Chair of English Linguistics (incl. Medieval Studies, Prof. Dr. U. Schaefer), Dresden Technical University; PhD on English grammaticography between 1600 and 1900 (2009); lecturer and assistant at the Chair of English Linguistics (Prof. Dr. C. Lange), Dresden Technical University; habilitation on Ulster-Scots orthography in past and present (2016); 10/2017 to 8/2018 stand in for Dr. Dirk Schultze in Göttingen; currently Interim Professor (Lehrstuhlvertretung) for Medieval English Language and Literature for Prof. Winfried Rudolf, Göttingen.


Teaching


Taught courses relate to the study of the history of the English language (e.g. introductions to Old, Middle and Early Modern English) as well as English linguistics (e.g. sociolinguistics, corpus linguistics, English grammar, varieties of English).


Research interests



  • language and weakness: Old English lexis of disability, injury and illness;

  • history of (English) linguistics: English grammaticography since Ælfric

    • semantics and pragmatics of subcultures/youth cultures: semiotics of football fandom as constituent of urban identity – comparison of morphological, lexical and graphostilistic phenomena as well as cultural and sociohistorical evaluation of the language of ‘ultrà’-supporters
  • forms and consequences of multilingualism in Northern Ireland: historical de­ve­lop­ment and current status of languages in the north of Ireland with particular em­pha­sis on Ulster Scots

  • systemic development in dialects and varieties of present-day English in view of language contact situations: Bible adaptations and translations in varieties of English

  • cultural contact and transfer of knowledge: grammars of English in eigh­teenth-century Germany


publications


theses



  • 2015. Dialect Spelling. A Case Study of Ulster Scots. post-doctoral thesis.

  • 2009. Zur Geschichte der englischen Grammatikschreibung. Der Wandel des Begriffs ‘Grammatik’ zwischen 1600 und 1900. PhD thesis.


monographs



  • 2011. Englische Grammatikschreibung 1600-1900 – der Wandel einer Diskurs­tra­di­tion. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang. (Arbeiten zur Sprachanalyse 54)


as editor



  • 2012. Communicative Spaces. Variation, Contact, and Change. Papers in Ho­nour of Ursula Schaefer. Ed. by Claudia Lange, Beatrix Weber & Göran Wolf. Frank­furt/Main: Peter Lang.

  • 2010. Linguistics, Ideology and the Discourse of Nationalism. Ed. by Claudia Lange, Ursula Schaefer & Göran Wolf. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang.


as author



  • 2015. “Does Present-Day Written Ulster Scots Abandon Tradition?” Eng­lish­es Today: Multiple Varieties, Multiple Perspectives. Ed. by Cristina Suárez-Gó­­mez & Elena Seoane. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Pub­lish­ing, 51-80.

  • 2015. “English Grammaticography as Discourse Tradition: Comments on 18th-Century Developments.” Anglistentag 2014 Hannover. Pro­ceed­ings. Ed. by Rai­ner Emig & Jana Gohrisch. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag, 19-33.

  • 2012. “Þe we stæfcræftere hatan cunnon: Reflections on Ælfric’s Grammatical Terminology.” Communicative Spaces. Variation, Contact, and Change. Papers in Honour of Ursula Schaefer. Ed. by Claudia Lange, Beatrix Weber & Göran Wolf. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 55-72.

  • 2012. “Heinrich Christoph Albrecht’s Versuch einer critischen Englischen Sprachlehre: Tracing Robert Lowth in an 18th-Century Textbook for the Teaching and Learning of English.” Historiographia Linguistica 39,1: 93-105.

  • 2011. “Irish: Unfavourable Implications of Sociolinguistic Labels?” Sustaining Minority Language Communities: Northern Ireland, the Republic of Ireland, and Scotland. Ed. by John M. Kirk & Dónall P. Ó Baoill. Belfast: Cló Ollscoil na Banríona, 69-80. (Belfast Studies in Language, Culture and Politics 20)

  • 2011. “‘Nationalsprache’ – begriffsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen.” Nationale und transnationale Perspektiven der Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft. Bei­träge zur XI. Internationalen Konferenz zur Geschichte der Sprach­wissen­schaf­ten (ICHoLS) – Potsdam, 28.8. – 2.9. 2008. Hrsg. von Gerda Haßler. Mün­ster: Nodus Publikationen, 241-248.

  • 2010. “The ‘Language of the bravest, wisest, most powerful, and respectable Bo­dy of People’: The Discourse on Language and Nation in 18th-Century Gram­mars of English.” Linguistics, Ideology and the Discourse of Linguistic Na­tio­na­lism. Ed. by Claudia Lange, Ursula Schaefer & Göran Wolf. Frankfurt/Main: Peter Lang, 53-75.

  • 2007. “Language Contact, Change of Language Status – ‘Celtic’ National Lan­guages in the British Isles and Ireland.” The Celtic Languages in Contact. Pa­pers from the Workshop within the Framework of the XIII International Con­ference of Celtic Studies, Bonn, 26-27 July 2007. Ed. by Hildegard L.C. Tristram. Potsdam: Potsdam University Press, 315-336.

  • 2007. “Possible Origins of Different Usages in Present-Day Spoken and Written English.” Studia Anglica Posnaniensa 43: 127-139.

  • 2005. “Grammarians Assess the English Language.” Theory and Practice in Eng­lish Studies. Vol. 3. Proceedings from the Eighth Conference of British, Ame­ric­an and Canadian Studies. Ed. by Jan Chovanec. Brno: Masaryk Uni­ver­si­ty, 173-179.

    • review


  • 2008. “Skandinavisch-schottische Sprachbeziehungen im Mittelalter. Der alt­nor­dische Lehneinfluss, ed. Kries, Susanne. (North-Western European Lan­guage Evolution Supplement vol. 20). Odense: University Press of Southern Den­mark. pages xii + 498. ISBN 87-7838-873-2 (pbk).” Scottish Language 27: 107-110.


talks and presentations


  • 2016. “Von Quasi-Transitivität in It semes a kynge to haue descrescioun bis Unpersönlichkeit in It would seem that there is no way out of our difficulty – Das syntaktische Spektrum des englischen Verbs (to) seem.” & “Ultrà-Sprache: Zur Semiotik zwischen Bengalo und Blockfahne am Beispiel der Green Bri­gade, einer Fangruppierung des Celtic FC.” 29. Juni 2016 und 13. Juli 2016. Vor­träge im Rahmen des Habilitationsverfahren. Technische Universität Dresden.

  • 2016. “Studying Dialect Spelling in its Own Right.” Vortrag und Abstract an­ge­nom­men. 22. bis 26. August 2016. 19th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics. Universität Duisburg-Essen.

  • 2016. “Ulster-Scots Spelling – Tradition, Change and Deviation.” 6. Juli 2016. New Perspectives on Irish English 4. Uni­versity of Bergen.

  • 2014. “Standardising Grammars.” 22. September 2014. Anglistentag 2014. Leib­niz Universität Hannover.

  • 2013. “Does Present-Day Ulster Scots Abandon Tradition.” 19. Oktober 2013. Englishes Today 2013. Theoretical and Methodological Issues. Universidad de Vigo.

  • 2013. “Ulster Scots Contested.” 9. September 2013. Contested Languages in the Old World. Bangor University.

  • 2013. “‘Ter start evvrythin’ off ….’” 12. Juli 2013. International Conference on Dia­lect and Literature 2013. University of Sheffield.

  • 2011. “A Dialect in Need is a Language Indeed?” 3. November 2011. Workshop: Stability and Divergence in Language Contact. Universität Hamburg.

  • 2011. “Ulster Scots in Nineteenth-Century and Present-Day Literature.” 12. Juli 2011. International Conference on Dialect and Literature. University of Sheffield.

  • 2010. “Tracing Robert Lowth in 18th-Century German Textbooks for Teaching and Learning English.” 18. Dezember 2010. Robert Lowth Conference. Uni­ver­si­teit Leiden.

  • 2008. “‘[T]he language of the bravest, wisest, most powerful, and respectable Bo­dy of People upon the Face of the Globe […].’: Nationalism in 18th-Century Gram­mars of English.” 10. Oktober 2008. 1st Triennial Conference of the In­ter­na­tional Society for the Linguistics of English. Albert-Ludwigs-Universität Frei­burg.

  • 2008. “‘Nationalsprache’ – begriffsgeschichtliche Betrachtungen.” 2. Sep­tem­ber 2008. 11th International Conference on the History of the Language Sciences. Universität Potsdam.

  • 2007. “On Some Implications of Sociolinguistic Labels.” 7. November 2007. Lan­guage and Politics Symposium. Queen’s University Belfast.

  • 2007. “Language Contact, Change of Language Status – ‘Celtic’ National Lan­guages in the British Isles and Ireland.” 27. Juli 2007. XIII International Con­gress of Celtic Studies. Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn.

  • 2007. “Does Prescriptivism Coincide with Sprachpflege in 18th-Century Eng­lish Grammars?” 19. Juli 2007. Joint Colloquium of Studienkreis ‘Geschichte der Sprachwissenschaft’ & Henry Sweet Society. Helsinki Yliopisto.

  • 2007. “Observations on the History of English Grammar Writing.” 23. Februar 2007. Leiden Codifiers Project. Universiteit Leiden.

  • 2006. “Standard English Codified and Written English Established.” 22. April 2006. 37th Poznan Linguistic Meeting. Uniwersytet im. Adama Mickiewicza Poz­nan.

  • 2005. “Grammarians Assess the English Language.” 3. Februar 2005. 8th Brno Con­ference of English, American and Canadian Studies. Masarykova Uni­ver­zi­ta Brno.