Hacia una sociolingüística histórica de la lengua inglesa: algunas propuestas liminares

Abstract

This paper propounds certain basic patterns for a renewed consideration of language history and linguistic change, in the light of sociolinguistic methodology and its applications. To this end, three fundamental steps are suggested: defining sociolinguistics as a branch of linguistics in its own right, updating the analytic parameters of historical linguistics, and clarifying the methodological status of language history by leaving the dubious dichotomy between 'external' and 'internal' history. Such a model of sociolinguistics as applied to the history of the English language should eventually result in a renewed vision of the latter discipline within the field of pragmatics.