Annina Seiler Rübekeil

Annina Seiler, Dr.

Research Associate

Phone: +41 44 634 35 05

E-Mail

Research Interests

History of the English language

Old and Middle English

Historical lexicology and semantics

Medieval glosses and glossaries, the history of linguistic thought

Writing systems, runes, the Roman alphabet

Orality and literacy in the Middle Ages

Historical multilingualism

Short Bio

Annina Seiler joined the English Seminar of the University of Zurich as Wissenschaftliche Mitarbeiterin in 2009. She teaches English historical linguistics at the BA and MA level as well as modern and historical linguistics for students of the Pädagogische Hochschule Zürich. Annina holds a PhD in English Linguistics and an MA in German Linguistics and Literature, English Linguistics, and Comparative Germanic Philology from the University of Zurich.

In her doctoral dissertation, Annina investigated how Old English and Old High German were first put into writing. Her research shows that, contrary to expectations, early medieval writing systems were highly regular. Her favourite letter of the alphabet is the double-U: in a graphemic love-story of sorts, two U’s were joined together to create this new letter. In her postdoctoral research project, Annina has studied glossaries and dictionaries from the early Anglo-Saxon period to the end of the Middle Ages and beyond. With two colleagues, she has published the handbook Medieval Glossaries from North-Western Europe: Tradition and Innovation (Brepols, 2023). Glossaries are important linguistic and cultural sources, and they are also fun to study. If you don’t believe it, check out her article on the unicorn!

Recent Activities

Annina is co-editor of the book Old English in Switzerland: Manuscripts, Texts and Libraries (Schwabe Verlag, forthcoming), which is one of the outcomes of a project undertaken in 2022 with MA students from the University of Zurich.

Currently, she is engaged in two collaborative research projects: Waxing and Waning Words: Lexical Variation and Change in Middle English (University of Zurich; Olga Timofeeva, Annina Seiler, Johanna Vogelsanger and Rihab Ayed) and An English Teacher in Paris: John of Garland’s Dictionarius and Medieval Language Learning (University of Westminster; Heather Pagan, Annina Seiler, Christine Wallis).

Teaching (Sample)

“History of the English Language”	Regularly
“Old English Runes”	MA seminar, AS 2024
“Grapholinguistics”	BA seminar, SS 2024
“Old English in Switzerland”	MA project, SS/AS 2022
“Names and Naming in the History of English”	BA seminar, SS 2021
“Historical Code-Switching”	MA seminar, SS 2000
“Word-Formation in English: A Diachronic Approach”	MA seminar, SS 2019

Supervision (Sample)

I am happy to supervise BA and MA theses on a range of topics including Old and Middle English language and literature, historical lexicology and lexicography, semantics, grapholinguistics, morphology, onomastics, historical pragmatics.

“The Discourse around the Menstrual Cycle – A Diachronic Analysis of the Semantics of Period Vocabulary” (Lina Emily Philipp, MA Thesis, SS/AS 2024)
“Of Witches and Witchmongers: A Critical Discourse Analysis of Concrete Nouns […]” (Zoe Sarina Stucki, BA Thesis, AS 2024)

“Of Men, Mothers, and the Mere: An Investigation of the Interrelatedness of Gender and Space in Beowulf and Grettis Saga” (Seraina Fernandez, BA Thesis, SS 2024)

“Suffix Competition in Modern English” (Giovanna Crivelli, MA Thesis, AS 2023/ SS 2024)

“Requests in ME/EModE Letters” (Heather Wunderlin, MA Thesis, AS 2023/ SS 2024)

“Tone Indicators as Stance Markers on Twitter” (Laura Leoni, BA Thesis, SS 2023)

“Productivity of Affixation in Schneider’s Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes: A Corpus-based Analysis” (Bastian Burgermeister, MA Thesis, AS 2022/ SS 2023)

“The Art of Naming a Horse: A Comparison of Equine Names in Different Contexts” (Julia Lisowiec BA Thesis, SS 2022)

Links

Consultation hours: please sign up online

List of publications:

ZORA Publication List

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Publications

Pagan, Heather; Seiler, Annina; Wallis, Christine (2023). Linguistic Layers in John of Garland’s Dictionarius Études médiévales anglaises, 102(1):63-108.
Seiler, Annina; Benati, Chiara; Pons-Sanz, Sara M (2023). Introduction In: Seiler, Annina; Benati, Chiara; Pons-Sanz, Sara M . Medieval Glossaries from North-Western Europe: Tradition and Innovation. Turnhout: Brepols Publishers, 23-49.
Markwardt, V. (2023). Versus de volucribus, bestiis, arboribus, piscibus In A. Seiler, C. Benati, & S. M. Pons-Sanz (Eds.), Medieval glossaries from North-Western Europe : tradition and innovation (No. 19; Issue 19, pp. 486–493). Brepols Publishers.
Medieval Glossaries from North-Western Europe: Tradition and Innovation Edited by: Seiler, Annina; Benati, Chiara; Pons-Sanz, Sara M (2023). Turnhout: Brepols.
Markwardt, V. (2023). Summarium Heinrici In A. Seiler, C. Benati, & S. M. Pons-Sanz (Eds.), Medieval glossaries from North-Western Europe : tradition and innovation (No. 19; Issue 19, pp. 425–434). Brepols Publishers.
Seiler, Annina (2023). Turegum: Zurich, Constantia: Chostinza: Das Ortsnamenglossar in Zürich, Zentralbibliothek, Ms. Car. C 164 In: Marti Heinzle, Mirjam; Thöny, Luzius . Swe gameliþ ist: Studien zur vergleichenden germanischen Sprachwissenschaft: Festschrift für Ludwig Rübekeil zum 65. Geburtstag. Heidelberg: Universitätsverlag Winter, 177-194.
Seiler, Annina (2021). Review of: Claudia Di Sciacca, Concetta Giliberto, Carmela Rizzo and Loredana Teresi (eds). 2018. Studies on Late Antique and Medieval Germanic Glossography and Lexicography in Honour of Patrizia Lendinara. 2 vols. Pisa: Edizioni ETS Anglia : Journal of English Philology, 139(4):764-773.
Seiler, Annina (2021). Review: The Emergence and Development of English: An Introduction. By William A. Kretzschmar, Jr. Cambridge Introductions to the English Language.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2018. Vi + 262. ISBN: 9781108469982 (hardback) Journal of English Linguistics, 49(3):349-352.
Seiler, Annina (2021). Germanic names, vernacular sounds, and Latin spellings in early Anglo-Saxon and Alemannic charters In: Gallagher, Robert; Roberts, Edward; Tinti, Francesca . The Languages of Early Medieval Charters : Latin, Germanic Vernaculars, and the Written Word. Leiden: Brill, 117-153.
Seiler, Annina (2020). How to Catch Your Unicorn: Defining Meaning in Ælfric's Glossary, the Oxford English Dictionary, and Urban Dictionary Dictionaries, 41(2):245-276.
Seiler, Annina (2019). Teaching the history of the English language backwards In: Moore, Colette; Palmer, Chris C . Teaching the History of the English Language. New York: Modern Language Association, 137-146.
Seiler, Annina (2019). The spelling of the Erfurt glossary In: Nievergelt, Andreas; Rübekeil, Ludwig . 'athe in palice, athe in anderu sumeuuelicheru stedi'. Raum und Sprache: Festschrift für Elvira Glaser zum 65. Geburtstag. Heidelberg: Universit�tsverlag Winter, 525-540.
Seiler, Annina (2019). Ælfric’s Glossary in the Middle English Period In: Stenroos, Merja; Mäkinen, Martti; Thengs, Kjetil V; Traxel, Oliver M . Current Explorations in Middle English: Selected papers from the 10th International Conference on Middle English (ICOME), University of Stavanger, Norway, 2017. Bern: Peter Lang, 285-307.
Pagan, Heather; Seiler, Annina (2019). Multilingual annotations in Ælfric’s Glossary in London, British Library, Cotton Faustina A. x: A commented edition Early Middle English, 1(2):13-64.
Seiler, Annina (2017). Book review: Peter Orton, Writing in a Speaking World: The Pragmatics of Literacy in Anglo-Saxon Inscriptions and Old English Poetry. Medieval and Renaissance Texts and Studies 445. Tempe: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 2014 Speculum, 92(3):877-879.
Seiler, Annina (2017). Zur Graphematik des i-Umlauts im Altenglischen und Althochdeutschen In: Waxenberger, Gaby; Sauer, Hans; Kazzazi, Kerstin . Von den Hieroglyphen zur Internetsprache: Das Verhältnis von Laut, Schrift und Sprache. Wiesbaden: Reichert, 97-110.
Seiler, Annina (2017). Untangling the strands: The spelling of the Épinal glossary In: Dusil, Stephan; Schwedler, Gerald; Schwitter, Raphael . Exzerpieren - Kompilieren - Tradieren : Transformationen des Wissens zwischen Spätantike und Frühmittelalter. Berlin: De Gruyter, 153-174.
Seiler, Annina (2016). Factual and Fictional Inscriptions: Literacy and the Visual Imagination in Anglo-Saxon England In: Niles, John D; Klein, Stacy S; Wilcox, Jonathan . Anglo-Saxon England and the Visual Imagination. Tempe, Arizona: Arizona Center for Medieval and Renaissance Studies, 211-236.
Seiler, Annina (2015). Writing the Germanic Languages: The Early History of the Digraphs , and In: Conti, Aidan; Da Rold, Orietta; Shaw, Philip . Writing Europe, 500-1450: Texts and Contexts. Cambridge: D. S. Brewer, 101-121.
Seiler, Annina (2014). The scripting of the Germanic languages: A comparative study of "spelling difficulties" in Old English, Old High German and Old Saxon Zurich: Chronos.

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