Current Students

Alison Aspin

“Words that stay and words that go: factors affecting word survival and obsolescence in English": While new words in English have received considerable scholarly attention, the longer-term survival or loss of words has been a neglected topic. This project addresses that topic.  It aims to identify and assess, systematically, the factors influencing lexical loss/persistence, and to investigate the role played by psycholinguistic processes. The project will contribute to the understanding of lexical change in English and – more widely – to forging a link between two currently separate fields of enquiry: historical lexical change, and the processing of words in the mind. 

Supervisory Team: Dr William van der Wurff, English Literature, Language and Linguistics (Newcastle), Dr Adam Mearns, English Literature, Language and Linguistics (Newcastle).

Start Date: September 2016.