The Eighteenth Century Speaks! Launch event of the ECEP

This event marks the launch of a major new digital resource for research in 18th cent. pronunciation: ECEP (The Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database), the culmination of a project by the Universities of Sheffield and Vigo, in collaboration with the Digital Humanities Institute, Sheffield.

Pronouncing dictionaries were popular in eighteenth-century Britain, as ‘upward mobility’ came to be perceived as firmly dependent on how one spoke. As a result, they also provide a wealth of information for present-day researchers in linguistics, and also those with historical, geographical, and sociological interests. The dictionaries tell their readers how to speak, but also (crucially) how not to speak, so providing valuable information on actual contemporary pronunciation as well as prescriptive norms. Despite being such a valuable resource, they, and the phonological study of the period, have been rather neglected owing to their idiosyncratic notation systems.

Refreshments will be available following the launch event.