Presentations

2020

• The Old Bailey Corpus and its potential for the study of Late Modern English

  Englische Sprachwissenschaft, Neuphilologisches Institut, Universität Würzburg 25 January 2020

2019

• Investigating language change in Late Modern English - The Old Bailey Corpus

  Englische Sprachwissenschaft, Philologisch-historische Fakultät, Universität Augsburg, 5 July 2019

2016

• Introducing the Old Bailey Corpus, version 2.0
  Historical Corpus Linguistics: Methods and Applications, Saarbrücken, 16-17 June 2016

2015

• 1. Language planning and attitudes towards Pidgin English in the German colony of Cameroon (with Viveka Velupillai)
  2. The Database of Early Pidgin and Creole Texts (DEPiCT) (with Viveka Velupillai)
  9th Workshop of the Colonial Linguistics Research Group, University of Klagenfurt, 30-31 March 2015
• CLARIN-Integration des Old Bailey Corpus
  CLARIN-D Konsortiumstreffen, Braunschweig, 23-24 March 2015
• Creoles and sign languages in comparison with non-creole spoken languages. A preliminary survey (with Viveka Velupillai)
  Tenth Creolistics Workshop, Aarhus University, Denmark, 8 April 2015
• Variation in South Wales Coalfield English. Rhoticity and the realization of the FACE and GOAT vowels
  36th Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Trier, 27-31 May 2015
• Introducing the Database of Early Pidgin and Creole Texts (DEPiCT): Language attitudes and language planning in colonial German New Guinea (with Damaris Neuhof & Viveka Velupillai)
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Graz, 7-9 July 2015
• Early recordings of Ghanaian English. A variationist approach to the phonological history of an Outer Circle variety
  Department of English, University of Ghana, 2 September 2015
• Early recordings of Ghanaian English. A variationist approach to the phonological history of an Outer Circle variety
  Department of English, University of Cape Coast, Ghana, 6 September 2015
• Die Database of Early Pidgin and Creole Texts (DEPiCT): Spracheinstellungen und Sprachplanung im kolonialen Deutsch-Neuguinea (with Viveka Velupillai)
  Workshop “Deutsche Sprachspuren im Pazifik. Dokumentation und linguistische Analyse”, Mannheim, 24 November 2015

2014

• Stylistic variation in an emerging New English. Evidence from ICE-Ghana
  35th Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Nottingham, UK, 30 April-04 May 2014
• Cleft constructions in 18th and 19th century spoken English. A historical sociolinguistic study based on the Old Bailey Corpus
  International Conference on English Historical Linguistics (ICHEL) 18, Leuven, Belgium, 14-18 July 2014
• The Old Bailey Corpus, 1720-1913. A sociohistorical corpus of spoken English.
  Department of English, Uppsala University, Sweden, 20 November 2014

2013

• Das Pidginenglische in den deutschen Kolonien. Quellen, Methoden und Erkenntnisse
  Ringvorlesung "Sprache und Kolonialismus", Universität Bremen, 15 Mai 2013
• 1. An innovative web interface for the 14-million-word Old Bailey Corpus, 1720-1913 (with Magnus Nissel)
  2. Taboo language and swearing in 18th and 19th century English. A diachronic study based on the Old Bailey Corpus (with Bianca Widlitzki)
  34th Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Santiago de Compostela, Spain, 22-26 May 2013
• Der Angeklagte hat das Wort. Das gesprochene Englisch in den Protokollen des Londoner Strafgerichtshofs Old Bailey
  Ringvorlesung "Historische Mündlichkeit", Universität Kiel, 11 Juni 2013
• A variationist approach to the phonological history of an Outer Circle variety: Early recordings from Ghana
  International Congress of Linguistics 2013, Geneva, Switzerland. Session: Sociolinguistics and multilingualism, 22.-27. July 2013
• The Old Bailey Corpus. Investigating spoken English in th 18th and 19th centuries
  Department of English, University of Ghana, 23 August 2013
  Department of English, University of Cape Coast, 3 September 2013

2012

• The Old Bailey Corpus: spoken English in the 18th and 19th Centuries. The use of historical court records in the investigation of language change
  Digital History Seminar, Institute of Historical Research, University of London, 21 February 2012.
• German colonial sources and the history of Pidgin English. A first analysis of the material relating to German New Guinea in the Deutsche Kolonialbibliothek (with Viveka Velupillai)
  7. Internationale Konferenz für Missionarslinguistik, Universität Bremen, 28 February - 2 March 2012
• Introducing the Database of Early Pidgin and Creole Texts, DEPiCT (with Viveka Velupillai)
  Ninth Creolistics Workshop: Contact languages in a global context: past and present, Aarhus University, Denmark, 11-13 April 2012
• Sprachenpolitik und Spracheinstellungen gegenüber dem Pidgin-Englischen in den deutschen Kolonien
  Institut für Deutsche Sprache, Mannheim, 20 April 2012
• Existential sentences with relative clauses in 18th and 19th century English. A diachronic study based on the Old Bailey Corpus
  33rd Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Leuven, Belgium, 30 May - 3 June 2012
• Russen und Tataren - Sprachenpolitik in der Russischen Föderation. Kurzkommentar aus anglistischer Sicht
  Russland-Woche, Gießen, 11-15 June 2012

2011

• Factors conditioning the choice of relativizers in 18th and 19th century English. A diachronic study based on the Old Bailey Corpus
  32nd Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Oslo, Norway, 1-5 June 2011
• New ways of analysing the history of varieties of English. Early Highlife recordings from Ghana (with Sebastian Schmidt)
  Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English – "Methods Past & Current. Methods of Study in Corpus Linguistics, Varieties, Dialects and Standard English", Boston, USA, 17-21 June 2011
• German colonial sources and the history of West African Pidgin English. A first analysis of the holdings of the Deutsche Kolonialbibliothek (with Viveka Velupillai)
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Accra, Ghana, 2-16 August 2011
• Substrate traces, superstrate traces and universals in Atlantic pidgins and creoles. Findings based on the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures with a special focus on Africa (with Susanne Michaelis, Martin Haspelmath and Philippe Maurer)
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Accra, Ghana, 2-16 August 2011
• Investigating the history of Pidgin English. Early Highlife recordings from Ghana (with Sebastian Schmidt)
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Accra, Ghana, 2-16 August 2011

2010

• Testing the sociolinguistic potential of the Old Bailey Corpus: negative and auxiliary contractions
  Workshop "Investigating Earlier Spoken English. Papers based on the Old Bailey Corpus", 31st Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Gießen, Germany, 27-31 May 2010
• Comparing contact languages world-wide. Findings based on the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures (with Susanne Michaelis, Martin Haspelmath and Philippe Maurer)
  18th biennial conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics: Caribbean languages and popular culture, Barbados, 9-13 August 2010

2009

• Comparative evidence in the search for the elusive Virginia Creole (with Linden Müller)
  Eighth Creolistics Workshop: Pidgins and creoles in a comparative perspective, University of Gießen, 2-4 April 2009
• More news from Old Bailey. The development of cleft constructions in the 18th and 19th centuries
  30th Conference of the International Computer Archive for Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Lancaster, UK, 27-31 May 2009
• Using the WWW to investigate language change in progress: theoretical and methodological considerations
  Web as Culture, Gießen, 16-18 July 2009
• German colonial sources and the history of Pidgin English. A first analysis of the holdings of the Deutsche Kolonialbibliothek
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Köln, 11-14 August 2009
• Trial proceedings as a source of spoken English. A critical evaluation based on the Proceedings of the Old Bailey, 1674-1913
  Anglistentag 2009, Klagenfurt, Austria, 20-23 September 2009
• From Freetown along the West African coast. The role of Kru labourers in the spread of Krio and West African Pidgin English
  Workshop "Suriname and West African Pidgin English: Trans-Atlantic connections", Nijmegen, The Netherlands, 19 October 2009
• Calculating pidgin and creole affinities. A statistical approach based on the APiCS data
  Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Structures Conference, Leipzig, 5-9 November 2009

2008

• The African Diaspora reversed: population movement and the trans-Atlantic Creole link
  Workshop "Sprache – Literatur – Migration", Gießen, 16-18 January 2008
• Spelling variation as a key to sound change in the history of English: A corpus linguistic approach
  29th Conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Ascona, Switzerland, 14-18 May 2008
• Workshop on the Atlas of Pidgin and Creole Language Structures
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Cayenne, 28-31 July 2008
• Ethno-linguistic variation in the emergence of Ghanaian English
  Seminar, Department of English, University of Ghana, 26 September 2008
• Ethno-phonological variation in the development of ESL varieties. The case of English in Ghana
  Conference of the International Society for the Linguistics of English – "The Linguistics of English: Setting the Agenda", Freiburg, 8-11 October 2008
• The emergence of social varieties in Ghanaian English (with Thorsten Brato)
  Accents 2008, Lódz, Poland, 12-14 December 2008

2007

• News from Old Bailey. The development of negative interrogatives in a corpus of spoken English, 1674-1834
  28th conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Stratford-upon-Avon, 23-27 May 2007
• Liberian Krus and the spread of West African Pidgin English. A sociohistorical approach with special focus on Ghana
  Section d'anglais, Université de Lausanne, 5 June 2007
• Predicate markers in Atlantic English Creoles? A look at West African Pidgin Englishes
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Amsterdam, 18-20 June 2007
• Emerging norms: phonological variability, focussing and the birth of Ghanaian English
  International Association for World Englishes 13th Annual Conference: "World Englishes: Problems – Properties – Prospects", Regensburg, 4-6 October 2007
• Phonological processes in the emergence of ESL standard accents in the outer circle
  Accents 2007, Lódz, Poland, 3-5 December 2007
• Creole trans-plantation. The migration of the Black Loyalists
  3. Konferenz zur Dynamik mobilisierter Kulturen: "Migrationslinguistik", Potsdam, 29-30 November 2007

2006

• English in South-East Wales: History and Characteristics
  Institute of English Studies, University of Lódz, Poland, 21 March 2006
• The Old Bailey Proceedings: Compiling a Corpus of Spoken English, 1674-1834
  Institute of English Studies, University of Lódz, Poland, 21 March 2006
• "I live for try" – in search of grammaticalization and complexity in early Pidgin Englishes
  Seventh Creolistics Workshop: Simplicity and complexity in pidgins and creoles, University of Gießen, 6-8 April 2006
• Identifying, tagging, and analyzing spoken English in the Proceedings of the Old Bailey
  27th conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Helsinki, 24-28 May 2006
• The Old Bailey Corpus, 1674-1834: Spoken language at the transition from Early Modern English to Modern English
  27th conference of the International Computer Archive of Modern and Medieval English (ICAME), Helsinki, 24-28 May 2006
• The role of Kru labourers in the origin and spread of West African Pidgin English
  Department of English, University of Ghana, Legon, 22 September 2006
• Atlantic, Pacific, and World-Wide features in English-Lexicon Contact Languages
  Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey, 2 and 3 October 2006
• The Gullah-Sierra Leone/Bahamas Connection
  Faculty of Arts and Sciences, Dokuz Eylül University, Izmir, Turkey, 2 and 3 October 2006
• Standard- und Nicht-Standardvarietäten des Englischen im Bildungssektor anglophoner Länder
  Ringvorlesung Educational Linguistics, Fachbereich 05 Sprache, Literatur, Kultur, Justus-Liebig-Universität Gießen, 5 December 2006

2005

• The role of adstrates in the development of Atlantic English Creoles
  Creole language structure between substrates and superstrates, Leipzig, 3-5 June 2005

2004

• Gullah in the diaspora: Linguistic evidence from the Bahamas and Sierra Leone (with Stephanie Hackert)
  Meeting of the Society for Pidgin and Creole Languages, Curaçao, 11-15 August 2004
• The relationship between St Helena English and both Atlantic and Pacific Pidgins and Creoles: an update of the Baker & Huber list of world-wide features
  Westminster Creolistics Workshop: Diachronic Studies and Theories of Creolization, University of Westminster, London, UK, 15-17 April 2004

2003

• Phonological variation in Ghanaian Pidgin English: L1-influence vs. community norm
  Second International Workshop on the Phonology and Morphology of Creole Languages, Universität Siegen, 8.-10. Oktober 2003
• The development of an English dialect in the South Wales Coalfield: Variation and homogeneity
  ICLaVE, Uppsala University, 12-14 June 2003

2002

• World-wide patterns in four centuries of Pidgin English
  ACLC, Amsterdam Center for Language and Communication, University of Amsterdam, 25 October 2002
• English in Ghana or Ghanaian English? (with Kari Dako)
  Seminar on English in Ghana, University of Ghana, 9 August 2002
• Liberian migrant workers and West African Pidgin English
  World English Symposium, Universität zu Köln, 12 July 2002
• The corpus of English in south-east Wales: the origins and development of a dialect Kolloquium "Recent Research in English Linguistics", Universität Regensburg, 20 June 2002
• Atlantic, Indo-Pacific, and world-wide features in French-lexicon Pidgins and Creoles (with Philip Baker)
  Internationales Symposium "Journées créoles et francophones", Universität Regensburg, 7-9 March 2002

2001

• The corpus of English in south-east Wales and its synchronic and diachronic implications
  Third Colloquium on the Celtic Englishes "The Celtic Englishes: Interdisciplinary Approaches", Universität Potsdam, 20-22 September 2001
• "If me die, me die, had rather die in me own Countrey than this cold place". The Nova Scotia-Sierra Leone connection
  SPCL, Coimbra, 26-27 June 2001
• The language of Antera Duke's diary: evidence of early West African Pidgin English?
  Workshop on Pidgins: Their Nature and Significance, University of Westminster, 19-21 April 2001
• World-wide features in early English-lexicon contact languages: the nature of the pidginization process in the 17th and 18th centuries (with Philip Baker) Workshop on Pidgins: Their Nature and Significance, University of Westminster, 19-21 April 2001
• Forms and functions of English in Ghana
  Soziolinguistentag "Dynamics of non-standard varieties", Universität Heidelberg, 10 February 2001

2000

• Ghanaisches Pidginenglisch: Geschichte und Struktur
  Guest lecture, Institut für Afrikanistik, Universität zu Köln, 21 June 2000
• Atlantic, Pacific, and world-wide features in English-lexicon contact languages
  Kolloquium "Recent Research in English Linguistics", Universität Regensburg, 8 June 2000
• The position of English and Pidgin English in West Africa
  Guest lecture, Institut für englische Sprachwissenschaft, TU Chemnitz, 31 May 2000
• Atlantic, Pacific, and world-wide features
  SPCL, Chicago, 7-8 January 2000

1999

• Towards a history of Kru Pidgin English
  SPCL, Aix-en-Provence, 24-29 June 1999
• Ghanaian Pidgin English
  Kolloquium "Recent Research in English Linguistics", Universität Regensburg, 10 June 1999
• Verbal reduplication as a means of expressing nominal plurality - the development of formal concord? Evidence from West African Pidgin English
  4th Westminster Creolistics Workshop, University of Westminister, 9-11 April 1999
• Pidgins and Creoles
  Guest lecture Englisches Seminar, Universität Bonn, 22 January 1999

1998

• Constructing new pronominal systems from the Atlantic to the Pacific (with Philip Baker)
  Twelfth Biennial Conference of the Society for Caribbean Linguistics, St Lucia, 19-22 August 1998
• Afro-European linguistic encounters on the Lower Guinea Coast
  International Seminar on the History of the Atlantic World, 1500-1800: "Cultural Encounters in Atlantic Societies, 1500-1800". Cambridge, MA, 10-21 August 1998
• Restructuring in vitro: evidence from early Krio
  International Symposium Degrees of Restructuring in Creole Languages, Universität Regensburg, 24-27 June 1998
• The origin and development of Krio: new linguistic and sociohistorical evidence
  SPCL, New York, 9-10 January 1998

1997

• The history of West African Pidgin English: on the role of anglophone overseas jargon and New World Creoles in the development of restructured Englishes in West Africa
  Guest lecture at School of Oriental and African Studies, London, 20 November 1997

1996

• Atlantic English Creoles and the Lower Guinea Coast: Afrogenesis reconsidered
  Third Creolistics Workshop, University of Westminster, 29-31 March 1996

1995

• Some aspects of TMA in Ghanaian Pidgin English
  Second Creolistics Workshop, University of Westminster, 28-30 April 1995

1994

• The position of 'Kru English' in Ghana: true pidgin or social dialect?
  Colloque Morphologie et Syntaxe des Langues Créoles, Université de Provence, 23-25 June 1994