Расписание лекций 14-15 октября

Лекции представляют собой единый цикл, в котором лекторы последовательно показывают лингвокультурный потенциал английских географических названий и возможности междисциплинарного использования ономастических данных. Совместно с сентябрьскими лекциями Ричарда Коутса, этот цикл является первым опытом подобного курса об английской ономастике в России.

Лекции построены по единому принципу: первая половина посвящена широкому обзору темы; вторая разбирает и иллюстрирует тему на отдельном ярком примере

Посещение лекций свободное. Посетителям иметь с собой паспорт.

Аннотации лекций (на английском языке)

The languages of place-names in England. Case study: the Scandinavian impact.

The first part of this lecture will introduce the topic of place-names in England. These evolved as descriptive labels distinguishing one location from another. They comprise a unique record of the different speech communities present in lowland Britain from prehistory to the modern period. The case study complementing this introduction focuses on the impact of Scandinavian-speaking incomers in the Viking Age (roughly ad800 to ad1100). The English and Scandinavian languages belong to the Germanic language family, and (in the early medieval period) shared many features of vocabulary and grammar. The impact upon the place-nomenclature—and indeed the spoken language(s)—of northern and eastern England was profound.  

Place-names and the English landscape. Case study: watery names in the medieval and modern periods.

Toponyms record perceptions of place. Not surprisingly, landscape features and resources loom very large in the place-name corpus, revealing an extraordinarily varied and specific topographical vocabulary. As many of the landscape features which gave rise to ancient names (mostly early medieval) are still visible, it is possible to understand precisely the significance of this vocabulary, and to see a pre-industrial England through the eyes of the namers. Water, the fundamental resource for any settlement, is of course a recurrent feature in topographical names. These reveal not only the presence of water, but also its behaviour, its value, and sometimes the risk it presents to life. There are striking parallels to be found between the watery landscape of the early medieval period and flood-prone 21st-century England. The second part of the lecture explores some of these parallels, and what we might learn from the toponomastic record.  

History in the landscape. Case study: Administering England through time.

English place-names have long held an important position in informing historical discourse, especially in the field of Anglo-Saxon studies. Since the foundation of the English Place-Name Society, scholars have used place-names to identify sites of potential historical or archaeological interest. In recent decades, place-name scholars have increasingly worked together with other disciplines to further our understanding of the early medieval landscape and how they reflect social and political changes. This lecture will introduce these approaches, focusing particularly on the ways in which place-names can shed light on Anglo-Saxon administrative practices.