Professor Andrew LinnDirector of Research and Innovation - Faculty of Arts and Humanities
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Overview
My first degree (at Emmanuel College, Cambridge where I was also organ scholar) was in English. After graduating I escaped to Norway for a year and then returned to Cambridge for a Master's degree in General Linguistics and a PhD in the History of Linguistics (supervised by Dr Vivien Law).
In 1994 I got my first university post, as lecturer in linguistics at the University of Luton and after three years moved to a lectureship in the Department of English Language and Linguistics here at Sheffield.
In 2002 I became senior lecturer and in 2003 was promoted to a chair in the history of linguistics. Formerly Head of Department, I spent the academic year 2007-2008 working at the University of Bergen on a Leverhulme Fellowship and in 2012 I was a visiting professor at the University of Paris 7-Diderot.
I am an elected member of the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters (Det Norske Videnskaps-Akademi) and of the Agder Vitenskapsakademi, chair of the Henry Sweet Society for the History of Linguistic Ideas, and a council member of The Philological Society.
I am also active as a concert organist and have given concerts throughout the UK, in Scandinavia and in the USA. My most recent CD (Bach and Beyond (Regent Records)) is of music by Bach (including the amazing Canonic Variations), Brahms and 20th-century British composers.
Research
Current research projects
- English in Europe: Opportunity or Threat? (Principal Investigator on a Leverhulme International Network). In this project we are examining the changing role of the English language in five contrasting European countries.
- Ola Nordmann Goes West: Using virtual worlds and on-line social networking technologies as historical research tools (Principal Investigator on an AHRC research grant). This project seeks to present emigration from Norway during the 19th century in new ways.
- The History of Applied Linguistics (co-editor of special issue of Histoire Epistémologie Langage). I continue to work with colleagues in France and the UK to develop our understanding of the growth and spread of Applied Linguistics worldwide.
Some completed research projects
- Shaping Language Policy: the Norwegian Experience (Leverhulme Trust)
- J. A. Lundell and the Anglo-Scandinavian School in Linguistics (British Academy / Royal Swedish Academy)
- An Intellectual Biography of Johan Storm (Leverhulme Trust)
Teaching
My teaching at undergraduate and postgraduate level is in the area of the history of linguistics, phonetics and language planning. At undergraduate level this means level-one Sounds of English, level-two Language Policy and Language Planning and level-three History of Linguistics. At Masters level I teach on our MA programmes in English Language Studies and in Applied Linguistics. I have supervised a number of PhD students in the history of linguistics and language and travel in 19th-century Norway, and I am always very pleased to hear from anybody thinking about or currently undertaking research into the history of linguistics, nineteenth-century Norway or in language planning and language policy.
Together with Dr Sandra Whiteside I have produced a web-based resource for learning the sounds of the IPA chart.
Selected Publications
- (2012) Vernaculars and the idea of a standard language. In Keith Allan ed., Handbook of the History of Linguistics. Oxford: OUP, 379-395.
- (2011) Impact: Linguistics in the Real World. In: Histoire Epistémologie Langage 33:1, 15-27
- (2010) Voices from above – voices from below. Who is talking and who is listening in Norwegian language politics? In Current Issues in Language Planning 11:2, 114–129.
- (2008) The birth of Applied Linguistics. The Anglo-Scandinavian School as discourse community. In Historiographia Linguistica 35:3, 342-384.
- (2007) Linn, Andrew & Leigh Oakes, Language policies for a global era: the changing face of language politics in Scandinavia. In: Fandrych, Christian / Salverda, Reinier (eds.), Standard, Variation and Language Change in the Germanic Languages. Tübingen: Narr, 59-90.
- (2006) English Grammar Writing. In: Bas Aarts & April McMahon (eds) The Handbook of English Linguistics. Oxford: Blackwell, 72-92.
- (2005) The Scandinavian Languages: Grammars and Grammar Writing to 1900. In: Peter Schmitter (ed.) Geschichte der Sprachtheorie 6:1. Tübingen: Gunter Narr Verlag, 162-199.
- (2005) Research Ethics in Book-Based Historical Research. In: Nicola McLelland & Andrew R. Linn (eds) Flores Grammaticæ: Essays in Memory of Vivien Law. Münster: Nodus Publikationen.
- (2004) Johan Storm: dhi grétest pràktikal liNgwist in dhi werld. Oxford: Blackwell.
- (2003) Johan Storm, "målmennenes og fornorskingsmennenes argeste motstander. In: Omdal, Helge and Rune Røsstad (eds) Krefter og motkrefter i språknormeringa. Kristiansand: Høyskoleforlaget, 175-186. [In Norwegian]
- (2002) ed. with Nicola McLelland, Standardization. Studies from the Germanic Languages. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins.