The history of regional 'Englishes' in the Early Modern period still presents numerous lacunae that need to be filled, in order to provide a complete insight into the English linguistic setting at this time. This book aims to remedy these deficiencies in some measure. In particular, this monograph seeks to shed light upon the history of Early Modern Northern English vocabulary by means of the first corpus of Early Modern texts where Northern linguistic traits are used for literary purposes. It provides a linguistically documented description of Northern words from a synchronic standpoint, dealing with their distribution, etymology, as well as with some of their morphological and semantic characteristics. In addition, this study offers a discussion of the Early Modern literary representations of Northern speech. A thorough revision of the treatment that Northern lexical items are given in contemporary and modern lexicographic sources is also presented, together with a glossary that outlines the diachronic profile of the terms gathered.

Contents: Representations of the North in Early Modern English literature: sources for linguistic analysis - The Salamanca Corpus - Lexicographical sources for the study of Early Modern northern words: data and problems of analysis - Northern and non -northern words used in the literary representations of the North - Etymological, morphological and semantic characteristics of the words recorded - Quantitative investigation into the lexical di alect data of the corpus texts - Lexicological and lexicographical potential of the corpus data - Diachronic profile of the words gathered.

Javier Ruano-García studied English Philology at the University of Salamanca, where he graduated in 2003. He completed his MA in English linguistics in 2005 with a dissertation on seventeenth-century Lancashire English, and received his doctorate from the University of Salamanca three years afterwards. Both his MA and his Ph.D. dissertations have been awarded the prize for outstanding achievement. He has lectured in the English Department of the University of Salamanca since 2008, and is also a member of the research project The Salamanca Corpus, headed by Dr. María F. García-Bermejo Giner and Dr. Pilar Sánchez-García. His main research interests include English diachronic dialectology, literary dialects and dialect literature, dialect lexi-cography and lexicology.