Earlier this year, a book was published, edited by Markus Schiegg and Judith Huber, called Intra-Witer Variation in Historical Sociolinguistics (Lausanne etc.: Peter Lang, 2023). In includes a substantial number of papers on a variety of different languages and on different periods, and its introducation aims to contextualise the field into various approaches and linguistic research models that have been applied.

So far so good. But the editors also claim that the field is new and emerging, and that “observable variation within individual behaviour” has been “under-researched”. Nothing could be further from the truth, at least, not for the history of the English language. I may not have called my research that, but intra as well as inter-writer variation is the air I have been breathing, in as well as out, for more than forty years.

So for my own sanity and also by way as a kind of bibliographical supplement to the book – though much more could be added, such as the work of Frances Austin or that of Carol Percy and Joan Beal and many others – I will post a list of my own publications on the subject. And further publications by other scholars could easily be added here, so do drop a note or a comment if you wish to make any additions here.

My work on Intra-writer Variation since the mid 1980s (with names of individual authors highlighted; some more papers being in press or under review at the moment):

Monographs

(1987) The Auxiliary Do in Eighteenth-Century English: A Sociohistorical Ling. Approach. Dordrecht: Foris.

(1995) The Two Versions of Malory’s Morte Darthur. Cambridge: D.S. Brewer.

(2011) The Bishop’s Grammar: Robert Lowth and the Rise of Prescriptivism. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

(2014) In Search of Jane Austen: The Language of the Letters. New York: Oxford University Press.

Articles and chapters

(1985) “Do-support in the writings of Lady Mary Wortley Montagu: A change in progress”. Folia Linguistica Historica 6. 127–151.

(1986)  “Negative do in eighteenth-century English”. Dutch Quarterly Review. 16. 296–312.

(1987) “Negative do in eighteenth-century English”. In: G.H.V. Bunt, E.S. Kooper, J.L. Mackenzie and D.R.M. Wilkinson (eds.), One Hundred Years of English Studies in Dutch Universities. Amsterdam: Rodopi. 157–171.

(1988) “Maatschappelijke aspiraties in het taalgebruik van Betsy en Richard Brinsley Sheridan”. In: Korrie Korevaart (ed.), Vrouwen in Taal en Literatuur. Amersfoort/Leuven: Acco. 39–47.

(1988) “Dr. Johnson and the Auxiliary Do”. Hiroshima Studies in English Language and Literature 33, 22–39. Also appeared in Folia linguistica historica 10.1–2: 145–162 (1989). 

(1990) “Betsy Sheridan: fettered by grammatical rules?”. Leuvense Bijdragen 79, 79–90.

(1991) “Samuel Richardson’s role as linguistic innovator: A sociolinguistic analysis”. In: Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade and John Frankis (eds.), Language, Usage and Description. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 47–57.

(1994) “Standard and non-standard pronominal usage in English, with special reference to the eighteenth century”. In: Dieter Stein and Ingrid Tieken-Boon van Ostade (eds.), Towards a Standard Language 1600–1800. Berlijn/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 217–242.

(1994) “Eighteenth-century letters and journals as evidence: studying society through the individual”. In: Roger D. Sell and Peter Verdonk (eds.), Literature and the New Interdisciplinarity. Poetics, Linguistics, History. Amsterdam/Atlanta, GA: Rodopi. 179–191.

(1994) “‘After a copye vnto me delyuerd’: Multiple negation in Malory’s Morte Darthur”. In: Francisco Fernández, Miguel Fuster and Juan José Calvo (eds.), English Historical Linguistics 1992. Amsterdam: Benjamins. 353–364.

(1996) “Social network theory and eighteenth-century English: The case of Boswell”. In: Britton, D. (ed.), English Historical Linguistics 1994. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: Benjamins. 327-337.

(1998) “Standardisation of English spelling: the eighteenth-century printers’ contribution. In: Fisiak, J. & Krygier, M. (eds.), English Historical Linguistics 1996. Berlijn: Mouton de Gruyter. 457-470.

(1999) “Of formulas and friends: expressions of politeness in John Gay’s letters”. In: Tops, G.A.J., Devriendt, B., Geukens, S. (eds.), Thinking English Grammar. To Honour Xavier Dekeyser, Professor Emeritus (Orbis Supplementa). Leuven/Paris: Peeters. 99-112.

(2000) “Social network analysis and the history of English”. European Journal of English Studies, 4/3, 211-216. 

(2000) “Social network analysis and the language of Sarah Fielding”. European Journal of English Studies, 4/3, 291-301. 

(2000) “Sociohistorical linguistics and the observer’s paradox”. In Kastovsky, D. & Mettinger, A. (eds.) The History of English in a Historical Context. Berlin/New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 441-461.

(2000) “A little learning a dangerous thing? Learning and gender in Sarah Fielding’s letters to James Harris”. Language Sciences, 22, 339-358. 

(2002) “Robert Lowth and the Corpus of Early English Correspondence”. In Raumolin-Brunberg, H., Nevala, M., Nurmi, A., Rissanen, M. (eds.), Variation Past and Present. VARIENG Studies on English for Terttu Nevalainen. Helsinki: Société Néophilologique. 161-172.

(2002) “Robert Lowth and the strong verb system”. Language Sciences 24. 459-469. 

(2005) “Of social networks and linguistic influence: The language of Robert Lowth and his correspondents”. In Conde-Silvestre, J.C. & Hernandez-Campoy, J.M. (eds.)., Sociolinguistics and the History of English: Perspectives and Problems. Special issiue of International Journal of English Studies 5:1, 135-157.

(2005) “Eighteenth-century English letters: In search of the vernacular”. Linguistica e Filologia 21. 113-146. 

(2006) “‘Disrespectful and too familiar’? Abbreviations as an index of politeness in 18th-century letters”. In Dalton-Puffer, C., Ritt, N., Schendl, H., Kastovsky, D. (eds.), Syntax, style and grammatical norms: English from 1500–2000. Frankfurt/Bern: Peter Lang. 229-247.

(2006) “James Merrick (1720-1769): Poet, scholar, linguist”. Historiographia Linguistica, 38 (1/2), 39-56. 

(2006) “Edward Pearson Esqr.: the language of an eighteenth-century secretary”. In: Dossena, M. & Fitzmaurice, S. (eds.) Business and Official Correspondence: Historical Investigations. Bern: Peter Lang. 129-151.

(2007) with Anita Auer. “Robert Lowth and the use of the inflectional subjunctive in eighteenth-century English. In: Smit, U., Dollinger, St., Hüttner, J., Lutzky, U., Kaltenböck, G (eds.), Tracing English through time: explorations in language variation. Vienna: Braumüller. 1-16.

(2008) “Letters as a source for reconstructing social networks: The case of Robert Lowth”. In: Dossena, M. & Tieken-Boon van Ostade, I.M. (eds.), Studies in Late Modern English Correspondence: Methodology and Data. Linguistic Insights 76. Bern: Peter Lang. 51-76.

(2010) “Eighteenth-century women and the norms of correctness”. In: Hickey, R. (ed.), Eighteenth-Century English: Ideology and Change. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. 59-72.

(2010) “Communicative competence and the language of eighteenth-century letters”. In: Brownlees, Nicholas, Del Lungo, Gabriella, Denton, John (eds.), The Language of Public and Private Communication in a Historical Perspective. Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing. 24-45.

(2012) “‘For alas! there was not affection between us’: Letters from Alexander and James Boswell to Abraham Gronovius”. In: Claudia Lange, Beatrix Weber and Göran Wolf (eds.), Communicative Spaces. Variation, Contact, and Change. Papers in Honour of Ursula Schaefer. Frankfurt am Main etc.: Peter Lang. 345-363.

(2012), English at the Onset of the Normative Tradition. In: Mugglestone L. (red.), The Oxford History of English [updated edition]. Oxford: Oxford University Press. 298-339.

(2013), Flat adverbs and Jane Austen’s letters. In: Wal Marijke J. van der & Rutten Gijsbert (red.), Touching the Past. Studies in the historical sociolinguistics of ego-documents 91-106.

(2014), “To my dearest sister Cassandra”: An analysis of Jane Austen’s Will”, English Studies 95(3): 322–341.

(2015), Jane Austen’s correspondence with James Stanier Clarke. In: Emig R. & Gohrisch J. (red.), Anglistentag 2014 Hannover, Proceedings. Trier: Wissenschaftlicher Verlag. 79-90.