Linguistic variation in Old English: Dialects, texts, and methods

The study of Old English dialects presents scholars with frustrating difficulties, chiefly because of the uncertainties of the dataset, such as the date and provenance of texts, the linguistic status of written Old English, and the representation of social factors in patterns of variation. The history of Old English dialectology is long, but, today, Old English dialectology is perceived to be at an impasse because our conception of the Old English dialects has changed little since the days of the neogrammarian scholars of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries, despite the revolution in linguistic science which has occurred in the interim. Recently, some scholars have called for a reexamination of regional dialects in Old English in the light of the methods and analysis demonstrated to be effective in the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English (1986), a work regarded as a breakthrough in historical dialectology. Still other scholars have advocated an approach to the Old English dialects which engages the study of linguistic variation as a socially embedded phenomenon demanding sociolinguistic methods and analysis.; The objective of this study is to trace the development of Old English dialectology to its current perceived impasse, to examine and evaluate the most salient aspects of the two modes of study recommended by some scholars as new avenues of research in Old English dialectology (those of the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English and of sociolinguistics), and to suggest how methods and analyses from each might be employed in the service of a renewed Old English dialectology. Although the methods and analyses of the Linguistic Atlas of Late Mediaeval English and of sociolinguistics cannot be adopted in toto, I find that some of the general principles (informed by recent linguistic research) underlying their methods and analyses can serve as propositions to the study of linguistic variation in Old English.