The
PETERBOROUGH CHRONICLE
Panel
at the 13th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics
Vienna, Austria
August 23-28, 2004
Organizers
Alexander Bergs (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf, Germany)
Janne Skaffari (University of Turku, Finland)
The Peterborough Chronicle Panel (PCP) was concerned with a variety of linguistic and other approaches to the mid-twelfth-century manuscript 'E' of the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle (Bodleian MS. Laud Misc. 636), better known as the "Peterborough Chronicle" (PC). The panel was organized in connection with the 13th International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICEHL) at the University of Vienna in August 2004. Thanks to all those presenting papers at the workshop and attending the sessions!
There is a separate page for the Panel Abstracts.
A collection of papers on the PC is in preparation: please see Proceedings for updated information!
Background
The PC is an outstanding example of very early Middle English writing and as such known to practically everyone teaching the history of English (Everybody loves the Peterborough Chronicle, to quote one colleague). It continues to be a valuable source of data for many historical linguists and philologists, especially those interested in very Late Old or very Early Middle English, or the transition from Old to Middle English. Its linguistic structures and phenomena on the phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical, orthographic, and discourse level have not ceased to attract the attention of historical linguists. Major progress has been made in the study of the manuscript and its language, but ultimate limits and final conclusions have certainly not been reached.
The year 2004 not only marks the 850th birthday of the last entry of this fascinating document but also the scheduled publication of a new edition. We therefore believe it is time for a conference workshop dedicated solely to this manuscript, its language and its historical embedding. The objective of the panel is to bring together scholars working on various aspects of the PC and inform the audience about new methodologies, current issues, and recent findings in their work.
Call for Papers (from late 2003)
[A number of scholars have already indicated their interest in contributing to the panel. We are now also publishing a Call for Papers:
We invite 20-minute papers dealing with any aspect of the language or history of the Peterborough Chronicle, with emphasis on the post-Conquest entries. The perspective may be either research-oriented or reflect the use of the PC as teaching material at university level. Linguistic papers with focus on other aspects than syntax are particularly welcome.
Although the data used in the paper must be from the PC, there is naturally no need to include a general introduction to the PC in the abstract (nor in the paper itself). Please e-mail a 300-word abstract to the PCP organizers (link below) as plain text in the body of the message. Abstracts sent as e-mail attachments will not be taken into consideration because of the risk of computer viruses. If you need to use 'thorn', 'eth', or 'ash' in examples, the characters should be converted into '+t', '+d', and '+a', respectively. The deadline for abstracts was 15th January, 2004.]
Notification of acceptance was made in early February, 2004. The accepted nine abstracts are available on the Abstracts page.
Attending the Conference
Please note that the scholars whose papers are accepted by the PCP organizers also need to register for the conference itself. More information on registration, the conference programme, accommodation, and travel is available on the ICEHL website. The less costly early registration for the conference ended on 15th May.
Panel Format and Date
The date of the PCP was Tuesday, 24th August, from 10:30 am to c. 5:45 pm. Each of our four sessions contained two twenty-minute papers (with ten minutes for discussion each). We gathered a lot of attention! At one point student helpers had to carry more chairs into the room.
Proceedings
We plan to publish a collection of selected papers with an international publisher. A set of submission guidelines was e-mailed to the contributors in early November 2004 (we apologize for the delay). Here is a summary of the guidelines:
Length: c. 6000-7000 words (including everything).
Style sheet: cf. John Benjamins' Studies in Language.
Notes on content: do not repeat introductory type of information; use Susan Irvine's new edition; apply an accessible style even when writing about more advanced linguistic topics.
Submission deadline: 31 January 2005.
Please do not hesitate to contact the editors (formerly known as convenors) if you need more specific information.
Contact Information
Dr. Alexander T. Bergs, M.A.
Anglistik III - English Language and Linguistics
Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf
Universitätsstr. 1
D-40225 Düsseldorf, Germany
Mr Janne Skaffari, M.A., Lic.Phil.
Department of English
University of Turku
FIN-20014 Turku, Finland
Send e-mail to the organizers: click here.
Created 24 Sep, 2003. Last updated 8 November, 2004.