Time: Wednesday 19 November 2025 @ 11:30
Venue: Sala Górna, Collegium Heliodori Święcicki, Grunwaldzka 6
Speaker: Prof. Horst Simon (Freie Universität Berlin)
Early Modern Foreign Language Textbooks: Perspectives for Historical Linguistics and for the History of Knowledge
Abstract
In this lecture I will present Early Modern foreign language textbooks first as instances of teaching materials in their own right, but then also as sources for historical linguistics in general. These texts, which hail from all over Europe and were continuously reworked and reprinted, provide a great resource which offers the opportunity to research a multitude of questions, ranging from historical conceptualisations of multilingualism and language variation in an age before standardisation via the didactics of foreign language teaching to the reconstruction of authentic language use and everyday communicative behaviour. I will give an overview of various aspects of those textbooks focusing particularly on methodological challenges as well as on their potential for historical linguists – when handled with care.
About the speaker
Professor Horst Simon is Professor of Historical Linguistics In the Department of German and Dutch Philology at Freie Universität Berlin. He has worked for and lectured in many institutions in Europe and beyond, among others at King’s College London 2007-2011.
Professor Simon’s research foci include contemporary sociolinguistic and dialectal varieties of German as well as theories of language contact and language change. His recent books are Politeness Crossing Times and Spaces (Harrassowitz; ed. with Linda Gennies), Fremdsprachenlehrwerke im 17. Jahrhundert. Beiträge zu einem Linguistic Close Reading (Harrassowitz, ed. with Liv Büchler); Headedness and/or Grammatical Anarchy? (Language Science Press; ed. with Ulrike Freywald & Stefan Müller) (2022) and Fremdsprachenlehrwerke in der Frühen Neuzeit: Perspektiven – Potentiale – Herausforderungen (Harrassowitz, ed. with Julia Hübner, 2021).
Professor Simon has been very successful at grant capture and he is currently involved in four large projects, two of which are: Variational Pragmatics of German: Comparing Communicative Patterns; 2023-2026; jointly funded by DFG/SNF/FWF; jointly with Tanja Ackermann (Bielefeld), Christa Dürscheid (Zürich) and Stephan Elspaß (Salzburg) and Historische Fremdsprachenlehrwerke digital. Language History, Language Attitudes and Everyday Communication in the Context of Multilingualism in Early Modern Europe (FSL digital); 2024-2041; a long-term project funded by the Academies’ Programme, supported by the Berlin- Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities and the Academy of Sciences and Literature, Mainz; jointly with Natalia Filatkina (Hamburg) and Andrea Rapp (Darmstadt).
About the lecture series
WA Distinguished Professors’ Lectures Series features internationally renowned scholars visiting the Faculty of English to share their research and professional expertise with the faculty and students.