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English Department
Olga Timofeeva

Olga Timofeeva, Prof. Dr.

  • Ausserordentliche Professorin für Historische Englische Sprachwissenschaft

Research Interests

  • Old and Middle English 

  • Historical lexicology and semantics 

  • Language contact in the Middle Ages 

  • Historical sociolinguistics 

  • Historical pragmatics and discourse studies 

  • Historical syntax 

About me

I am professor of English historical linguistics at the University of Zurich and the principal investigator of the SNSF-funded project Waxing and Waning Words: Lexical Variation and Change in Middle English (WAW-ME). My early specialisation was in Old English syntax. I have since published on a range of subjects, including Old and Middle English lexis, language contact and second language acquisition in the Middle Ages, historical sociopragmatics, and the evolution of legal register in early English. I am the author of Non-finite Constructions in Old English, with Special Reference to Syntactic Borrowing from Latin,Société Néophilologique de Helsinki (2010) and Sociolinguistic Variation in Old English: Records of Communities and People,
Benjamins (2022).

Teaching Sample

I have regularly taught the History of the English Language (both lecture and seminar) as well as: 

Discourse on, by and for women in the English Middle Ages HS 2023
The language of Chaucer and other Londoners HS 2022
Critical Discourse Analysis for medieval texts FS 2020; HS 2024
Beowulf and Old English heroic poetry FS 2019
Bible translation: From Ælfric to King James FS 2018 and 2023
Language contact in the history of English HS 2017, 2020 and 2024

Supervision Sample

  • “Damysell, þat can ȝe best do”: The Use of Thou and Ye in a Selection of Saints’ Lives from the South English Legendary and the Northern Homily Cycle (MA, Rahel Huwyler, HS 2024) 

  • Constructing Narratives: An Analysis of Media Framing in Two UK Newspapers during the 2020 Black Lives Matter Protests (BA, Charlène Stieger, HS 2023) 

  • The Use of ye and thou in Geoffrey Chaucer’s The Shipman’s Tale, John Gower’s The Tale of Florent, and John Lydgate’s Fabula Duorum Mercatorum (BA, Rebecca von Planta, HS 2020) 

  • Her frounyng was their vndoyng: A CDA Analysis of Margaret of Anjou’s Changing Depiction in English Chronicles (MA, Myriam Dudli; Semesterpreis FS 2020) 

  • Penance in 14th-century Middle English: An Onomasiological Study (MA, Rebekka Haerter, FS 2020) 

  • Forto make a Middle English Craft Recipe: Register features in Middle English recipes in The Crafte of Lymmyng and the Maner of Steynyng (MA, Olivia Sacher, FS 2020) 

Links

WAW-ME project: www.waw-me.uzh.ch

You can find most of my publications on:

ZORA www.zora.uzh.ch

Academia.edu: uzh.academia.edu/OlgaTimofeeva