George Walkden

English Linguistics MEd oral exam

For the MEd oral exam in English Linguistics, you need to sign up online using this form.

Deadlines for internal registration are:

  • For the spring exam: 15th June
  • For the autumn exam: 30th December

of the preceding year. Here also is some information on the possible examiners for English Linguistics.

Office hours (Sprechstunden)

See my entry on this page for my office hours. I only have office hours in teaching weeks; outside the teaching term, and when I am on research leave, please email me to make an appointment.

Lectures and seminars

From April 2023 to September 2024 I am on research leave and not teaching anything.

In Konstanz I have recently taught the following courses:

Winter semester 2022-23:

Summer semester 2022:

  • History of the English Language (Ling 172 SHE II). (ILIAS)
  • Old English and its closest relatives (with Raquel Montero). (ILIAS)

Winter semester 2021-22:

  • Syntax III: Theories of agreement in syntax. (ILIAS)
  • SHE III: Language contact in early English (with Gemma McCarley). (ILIAS)

Summer semester 2021:

  • History of the English Language (Ling 172 SHE II). (ILIAS)

Winter semester 2019-20:

Summer semester 2019:

  • History of the English Language (Ling 172 SHE II). (ILIAS) (lecture recordings)
  • Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings: language contact in early English (SHE III). (ILIAS)
  • Early Modern English: emerging voices, 1500-1800. (ILIAS)
  • English Syntax (Ling 114) (with Julia Bacskai-Atkari). (ILIAS)
  • Forschungs- und Examenskolloquium (Ling 391). (ILIAS)

Winter semester 2018-19:

Summer semester 2018:

  • History of the English Language (Ling 172 SHE II). (ILIAS) (lecture recordings)
  • Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings: language contact in early English (SHE III). (ILIAS)
  • Morphology III: Morphological Frameworks (Ling 313). (ILIAS)
  • English Syntax (Ling 114). (ILIAS)
  • Forschungs- und Examenskolloquium (Ling 391). (ILIAS)

Winter semester 2017-18:

  • Old English (Ling 326). (ILIAS)
  • Syntax III: Minimalist Syntax. (ILIAS)
  • Germanic Philology and Corpus Methods. (ILIAS)
  • Forschungs- und Examenskolloquium (Ling 391). (ILIAS)

Summer semester 2017:

  • History of the English Language (Ling 172 SHE II). (ILIAS) (lecture recordings)
  • Anglo-Saxons, Celts and Vikings: language contact in early English (SHE III). (ILIAS)
  • Morphology III (Ling 313). (ILIAS)
  • Historical Linguistics (Ling 321). (ILIAS)
  • Forschungs- und Examenskolloquium (Ling 391). (ILIAS)

Postgraduate research supervision

I'm always happy to receive proposals from graduate students who want to work on topics related to my research interests: historical linguistics, morphosyntax, and the Germanic languages.

I'm currently (2023) supervising a substantial number of doctoral students, however, so for doctoral research supervision you might want to look for someone who has more spare time and resources.

PhD supervision

I have also been involved as external committee member or examiner for the following dissertations:

  • Tara Struik (Nijmegen, 2022): Information structure triggers for word order variation and change: the OV/VO alternation in the West Germanic Languages
  • Jordan Kodner (Penn, 2020): Language acquisition in the past
  • Christin Schätzle (Konstanz, 2018): Dative subjects: historical change visualized
  • Espen Klævik-Pettersen (Oslo, 2018): Inversion, V-to-C, and verb-second: an investigation into the syntax and word order of Old French and Late Latin
  • Melissa Farasyn (Ghent, 2018): Fitting in or standing out? Subject agreement phenomena in Middle Low German
  • Meta Links (Nijmegen, 2018): Correlative constructions in earlier English: clause structure and discourse organisation
  • Man Li (Newcastle, 2017): Fronting constructions in Chinese from synchronic and diachronic perspectives
  • Tam Blaxter (Cambridge, 2017): Speech in space and time: Contact, change and diffusion in medieval Norway
  • Hofa Meng-Jung Wu (Newcastle, 2015): The syntax of polar questions and their answers in Taiwanese

MA thesis supervision

Only theses on which I am the first supervisor are listed here.

  • Sarah Einhaus (Konstanz, 2023): The effects of paradigm structure in contact situations: an artificial language learning experiment
  • Agathe Miellot (Konstanz, 2023): Multilingualism in Marie Stuart, Queen of Scots
  • Chiara Riegger (Konstanz, 2023): Old Saxon vowel epenthesis: an analysis of manuscripts M, C, and V
  • Matías Hernández Cornejo (Konstanz, 2023): The phonetic and phonological nature of the Old English /r/: A systematic literature review
  • Sijing Meng (Konstanz, 2023): Comparative study of Chinese and English word-formation
  • Sophie Bernlochner (Konstanz, 2023): Cross-linguistic influence and anglicization in the letters of Mary Stuart
  • Owen Brown (Konstanz, 2022): Soziale Effekte auf die Variation in siebenbürgisch-sächsischen Verbclustern [Social effects on variation in Transylvanian Saxon verb clusters]
  • Susanne Lentjes (Konstanz, 2022): Preposition stranding in the Middle English period: a text-based analysis
  • Marianna Brevetti (Konstanz, 2022): Politeness in Bess of Hardwick’s letters: a historical and sociolinguistic analysis
  • Kathleen Frank (Konstanz, 2021): The influence of language contact on the English language: Can French language contact explain the language changes in Middle English?
  • Nadine Keller (Konstanz, 2020): “It depends on if you like it”: Acceptance of embedded polar questions introduced by if as prepositional complements
  • Helen Ranyai (Konstanz, 2019): Die Kurdischen Dialekte: Phonologische und Morphologische Varietäten in Kurmanjî und Soranî [Kurdish dialects: phonological and morphological variation in Kurmanjî and Soranî]
  • Marc Meisezahl (Konstanz, 2019): Word order in subordinated clauses in the Surselva
  • Larissa Trescher (Konstanz, 2018): The productivity of German plural markers: a diachronic approach
  • Andrew Wells (Manchester, 2016): Water metaphors in political discourse
  • Khawla Ghadgoud (Manchester, 2013): Jespersen's Cycle in Libyan Arabic and Nafusi Berber
  • Fernanda McDougall (Manchester, 2012): Linguistic variation and dialect levelling in the speech community of Barrow-in-Furness
  • Meredith McMurray (Manchester, 2012): A historical analysis of the verb 'to want'
  • Betsy Snider (Manchester, 2012): Variation in the -en/n perfect participle of irregular verbs in American vs. British English 1850 to 1999

Past teaching

Tartu 2019

On an Erasmus visit to Tartu in October 2019 I taught a minicourse on theories of language change. Drop me a line if you're interested in the materials.

EGG 2016

Looking for my EGG 2016 materials on V2? You can find them here: Verb-second

Email if you're interested in my materials on syntactic change or the introduction to syntactic theory.

Manchester

In Manchester I taught the following courses:

  • Historical Syntax (LELA30961-2), including an enhanced MA version (LELA60691-2).
  • Introduction to Old English Language (LELA20091).
  • Language Change (LELA60052).
  • Introduction to Historical Linguistics (LELA10172).
  • Introducing English Grammar (LELA10041).
  • English Corpus Linguistics (LELA70472).

Resources complementing the Introduction to Historical Linguistics lectures can be found here.

In 2013 I was nominated by students, and shortlisted, for Best Humanities Lecturer at the Union Teaching Awards.

Cambridge

I also taught for several courses as a graduate student at Cambridge. These include:

  • 2011. Linguistics Paper LT13 (History of the English Language).
  • 2010-2011. Linguistics Paper LT4 (History and Varieties of English).
  • 2010-2011. Linguistics Paper LT11 (Historical Linguistics).
  • 2009-2010. MML Paper Ge1 (Introduction to the Structures and Varieties of Modern German).
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