First Published in 2006. Routledge is an imprint of Taylor & Francis, an informa company.

Progress in Language, first published in 1894, dates from fairly early in Otto Jespersen's (1860-1943) academic career; it already contains many of the essentials of his argument against the prevailing mode of 19th-century linguistic thought which he maintained until the end of his life. As James D.McCawley writes in the Introduction:"Much of the fascination of reading this long out-of-print classic lies in seeing its relationship to Jespersen's long and distinguished subsequent career: seeing how much importance he already attached to variation in language, how tightly his views on linguistic change were already integrated with his views on synchronic grammar, how intransigently sociolinguistic his thinking about language change was (...), and how vast a collection he had already amassed of English examples illustrating even very subtle details of phonology, morphology, syntax, and semantics."

Written in a detailed and fascinating manner, this book is ideal for general readers interested in the English language.

Material on the production and transmission of medieval literature and the early formation of the canon of English poetry. A wide range of poets is covered - Chaucer, Gower, Hoccleve, the Gawain poet, Langland, and Lydgate, along with the translator of Claudian's De Consulatu Stilichonis. The Turnament of Totenham is read in termsof theory of the carnivalesque and popular culture, and major contributions are made to current linguistic, editorial and codicological controversies. Going beyond the Middle Ages, the book also considers the sixteenth-century reception of Chaucer's Legend of Good Women and Post-Reformation reading of Lydgate. It is essential reading for anyone interested in the production and transmission of medieval literature, and in the early formation of the canon of English poetry. Contributors: JULIA BOFFEY, J.A. BURROW, CHRISTOPHER CANNON, MARTHA DRIVER, SIAN ECHARD, A.S.G. EDWARDS, KATE D. HARRIS, S.S. HUSSEY, KATHRYN KERBY-FULTON, CAROL M. MEALE, LINNE R. MOONEY, CHARLOTTE C. MORSE, V.I.J. SCATTERGOOD, ELIZABETH SOLOPOVA, ESTELLE STUBBS, JOHN THOMPSON.

This volume, first published in 1960 to commemorate the one hundredth birthday of Jespersen, collects together as many of his writings as possible in order to allow students of the English language, or indeed of language in general, to read those shorter papers which have hitherto escaped their notice. The layout of the book largely follows the nature of the subjects dealt with: English grammar, phonetics, history of English, language teaching, language in general, international language and miscellaneous papers.