Linguistics in Britain

This is a collection of ‘linguistic autobiographies' by 23 British linguists who played a major role in the development of the subject in Britain during the second half of the twentieth century.

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• Includes contributions from 23 major British linguists.
  
• Provides an overview of the rapid growth of linguistics in the last 50 years.
  
• Reflects on the achievements of British linguistics since the Second World War.

Preface vii

Jean Aitchison 1

W. Sidney Allen 14

R. E. Asher 28

John Bendor-Samuel 43

Gillian Brown 53

N. E. Collinge 67

Joseph Cremona 78

David Crystal 91

Gerald Gazdar 104

M. A. K. Halliday 116

Richard Hudson 127

John Laver 139

Geoffrey Leech 155

John Lyons 170

Peter Matthews 200

Anna Morpungo Davies 213

Frank Palmer 228

Randolph Quirk 239

R. H. Robins 249

Neil Smith 262

J. L. M. Trim 274

Peter Trudgill 286

John Wells 297

General Index 307

Keith Brown is a member of the Research Centre for English and Applied Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. He is the co-editor of the Blackwell Publishing journal, Transactions of the Philological Society.

Vivien Law was lately Reader in the History of Linguistics at the University of Cambridge. She was the author or editor of numerous publications, including Grammar and Grammarians in the Early Middle Ages (1997).

This landmark volume provides a fascinating overview of the evolution of the discipline of linguistics in Britain since the end of the Second World War. It consists of a series of ‘linguistic autobiographies' by 23 British linguists who played a major role in the development of the subject during the second half of the twentieth century.

Commissioned by the Council of the Philological Society, contributors look back over the achievements of British linguistics in the previous 50 years. They reflect on how and why they went into linguistics, what branches of the subject attracted them, what formative influences they were exposed to, and how they reacted to them. They also consider the role they personally played in the intellectual and institutional development of the subject.