What are the points of contact between the study of language and the study of history? What are the possibilities for collaboration between linguists and historians, and what prevents it? This volume, the proceedings of an international conference held at the University of Bristol in April 2009, presents twenty-two articles by linguists and historians, exploring the relationship between the fields theoretically, conceptually and in practice. Contributions focus on a variety of European and American languages, in historical periods from the Middle Ages to the present day. Key themes at the intersection of these two disciplines are the standardization and classification of languages, the social and demographic history of medieval and early modern Europe, the study of language and history 'from below', and the function of language in modern politics. The value of interdisciplinary collaboration is demonstrated in a wide-ranging set of case studies, on topics including language contact in Northern and Central Europe, the relationship between peninsular and transatlantic Spanish, and new approaches to the recent histories of Nicaragua, Luxembourg and Bulgaria. The volume seeks out the interdependencies between the two fields and asks why exchanges between linguists and historians remain the exception rather than the rule.

The volume brings together recent papers by the author, selected to form a broad picture of his teachings, all of them revised and updated, either addressing particular topics in the Histor(iograph)y of Linguistics (Part I) or offering historical accounts of linguistic subfields (Part II), in altogether 10 chapters: 1, Persistent Issues in Linguistic Historiography; 2, Metalanguage in Linguistic Historiography; 3, The Natural Science Impact on Theory Formation in 19th and 20th Century Linguistics; 4, Saussure and the Question of the Sources of his Linguistic Theory; 5, Chomsky's Readings of the Cours de linguistique générale; 6, Toward a History of Modern Sociolinguistics; 7, Toward a History of Americanist Linguistics; 8, Toward a History of Linguistic Typology; 9, History and Historiography of Phonetics: A state-of-the-art account, and 10, The 'Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis': An historico-bibliographical essay. Index of authors; index of subjects & terms.

Leading scholars examine the history of linguistics from ancient origins to the present. They consider every aspect of the field from language origins to neurolinguistics, explore the linguistic traditions in different parts of the world, examine how work in linguistics has influenced other fields, and look at how it has been practically applied

This volume brings together — in 8 chapters — what has occupied the author during his many years as editor of Historiographia Linguistica. Namely, how the history of linguistics has developed into a major field of scholarly research, and that the discussion of questions of method and epistemology needs to be continued to avoid stereotypical practice. The author takes up a number of subjects that often had been regarded as settled, but which require a revisit. This is shown in several chapters, whether it appears subjects like ‘analogy’ or the relationships between well-known linguists like Saussure, Hermann Paul, and others.

Most of the papers collected in this volume concentrate on the history of linguistic ideas in France and Italy in the modern period (from the Renaissance to the present day). Some of them are specifically focused on the links between the two traditions of reflection on language.The contributions have a common methodological outlook: the authors do not believe that the history of linguistic ideas is a separate activity from research on language or that it is marginal with respect to the latter. On the contrary, they are convinced that in contemporary research into language we can still discern the influence — positive or negative as this may be — of factors deriving from the (sometimes distant) past. A historical analysis of these factors — whether it rejects them as superseded, or redefines them in order to elicit the fruitful suggestions they may still contain — has a contribution to make to the progress of theory.

In recent years integrationist theory has mounted a radical challenge to the traditional notion of 'languages' as possible objects of inquiry. This volume develops the integrationist critique of orthodox linguistics.

The present volume follows the author's tradition of bringing together at certain intervals selections of articles which more often than not had previously been published in not easily accessible places, or which had not been published before. These papers do not typically represent mere reprints but in most instances thoroughly revised versions.This volume contains twelve articles organized under three headings, "Programmatic Papers in the History of Linguistics," "Studies in Linguistic Historiography," and "Sketches historiographical and (auto)biographical," plus as an appendix a complete list of Zellig Harris' writings as an illustration of Koerner's penchant for and belief in the importance of good bibliographies as a basis for historical research. While the first two sections, which take up the bulk of the volume, either show the author as an historian engage or demonstrate his work as a historiographer of 19th and 20th century linguistics, the third section is much shorter and less heavy going. Indexes of Biographical Names and of Subjects, Terms & Languages round out the volume, which also contains a number of portraits of linguists and other illustrations.