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Michael Adams
Michael Adams (Email; phone: 812-855-5882)
Associate Professor, Director of Undergraduate Studies
Ph.D., University of Michigan, 1988
A.M., University of Michigan, 1985
A.B., University of Michigan, 1983
I am foremost a historian of English language, especially of English words, who also specializes in the history, theory, and practice of lexicography. I have had the good fortune to work on various dictionary projects, including the Middle English Dictionary and the American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language (4/e). For several years, I was editor of Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America. I am currently finishing a book focused on the Middle English Dictionary and techniques of historical lexicography, in which I reconstruct the MED’s editorial principles and practices and contrast them with those of other historical dictionary projects, like the Oxford English Dictionary, in order to discover what central problems confront ambitious, multi-decade dictionary projects and how solution of those problems sets the purpose and style of the eventual dictionaries.
Lexicography, in all its aspects, is a deeply rooted, ongoing professional interest of mine, but I have other equally strong scholarly interests, especially slang and jargon. Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon (2003) is a good example of my work in this field; most recently, I have written a general account, titled Slang: The People’s Poetry (2009). I am currently working on a book about restaurant jargon, tentatively called The Server’s Lexicon.
Studying the history of language requires familiarity with a wide variety of texts, spread over time, space, and type. In my case, this includes not only traditional literary genres but popular genres, like graphic novels, television, and film, as well as “new media,” like Web texts, text messaging, etc. My interest in Scottish literature extends from fifteenth-century poetry to the modern novel, and my next big project will be a linguistic study of style in the novels of Neil Gunn and Eric Linklater.
RECENT COURSES
English G-205: Introduction to the English Language
English G-405: Studies in the History of English
English G-655: Studies in the History of English
English L-208: Vampires
English L-213: Literary Masterpieces
English L-680: Reading Dictionaries
English E-301: Literature in English to 1600
SELECT PUBLICATIONS
Books:
Slang: The People’s Poetry (Oxford University Press, 2009)
(with Anne Curzan) How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction to the English Language (AB Longman, 2006; 2/e, 2009) and Instructor’s Manual to Accompany How English Works: A Linguistic Introduction (AB Longman, 2006; 2/e, 2009)
Contributing Editor, Word Histories and Mysteries: From Abracadabra to Zeus (Houghton Mifflin, 2004)
Slayer Slang: A Buffy the Vampire Slayer Lexicon (Oxford University Press, 2003)
Special Issues of Journals:
Guest Editor, Beyond Slayer Slang: Pragmatics, Discourse, and Style in Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Special issue of Slayage: The On-Line International Journal of Buffy Studies 20 (May 2006)
Co-Editor (with Anne Curzan), Teaching American English. Special issue of Journal of English Linguistics 30.4 (December 2002)
Editor, The Middle English Dictionary and Historical Lexicography. Special issue
Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 23 (2002)
Selected Articles:
“Power, Politeness, and the Pragmatics of Nicknames,” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 57.2 (June 2009): 96-106
“Nicknames, Interpellation, and Dubya’s Theory of the State,” Names: A Journal of
Onomastics 56.4 (December 2008): 206-220
“The Period Dictionaries,” in The Oxford History of English Lexicography, 2 volumes, edited by A. P. Cowie (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2008): 1.326-352
“Assimilation of French-Canadian Names into New England Speech: Notes from a
Vermont Cemetery,” Names: A Journal of Onomastics 56.2 (June 2008): 65-80
“Language,” in The Encyclopedia of African American History: From the Age of Segregation to the Twenty-First Century (1895-2005), 5 volumes, edited by Paul Finkelman and others (Oxford University Press, 2008): 3.130-135
“Re-Viewing the Academic Book Review,” Journal of English Linguistics 35.2 (June
2007): 202-205
“The Critical Dictionary and the Wiki World,” English Today: The International Review of the English Language 90 [23.2] (April 2007): 9-15
“Language: The Development of English among African Americans,” in The Encyclopedia of African American History: From the Colonial Period to the Age
of Frederick Douglass (1619-1895), 3 volumes, edited by Paul Finkelman and others (Oxford University Press, 2006): 2.251-254
“Pennsylvania Speech,” in Encyclopedia of Appalachia, edited by Rudy Abramson and Jean Haskell (University of Tennessee Press, 2006): 1023-1025
(with Jennifer Westerhaus Adams), “Surnames and American Trademark Law,”
Names: A Journal of Onomastics 53.4 (December 2005): 259-273
“Lexical Property Rights: Trademarks and American Dictionaries,” Verbatim: The Language Quarterly 30.4 (Winter 2005): 1-8
“Meaningful Interposing: A Countervalent Form,” American Speech 80.4 (Winter 2005): 437-441
“Articulating the Middle English Lexicon: Margaret Ogden, Medieval Medical Texts, and the Middle English Dictionary,” in Women Medievalists in the Academy, edited by Jane Chance (University of Wisconsin Press, 2005): 697-710
“Meaningful Infixing: A Non-Expletive Form,” American Speech 79.1 (Spring 2004): 110-112
“DARE, History, and the Texture of the Entry,” American Speech 77.4 (Winter 2002): 370-382
“Meaningful Interposing: An Accidental Form,” American Speech 77.4 (Winter 2002): 441-442
“Phantom Dictionaries: The Middle English Dictionary before Kurath,” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 23 (2002): 95-114
“Teaching ‘Bad’ American English: Profanity and Other ‘Bad’ Words in the Liberal Arts Setting,” Journal of English Linguistics 30.4 (December 2002): 353-365
“Infixing and Interposing in English: A New Direction,” American Speech 76.3 (Fall 2001): 327-331
“Lexical Doppelgängers,” Journal of English Linguistics 28.3 (September 2000): 295-310
“Ephemeral Language,” American Speech 75.4 (Winter 2000): 282-284
“Another Effing Euphemism,” American Speech 74.1 (Spring 1999): 110-112
“Slayer Slang (Part 1),” Verbatim: The Language Quarterly 24.3 (Summer 1999): 1-4, reprinted in Verbatim: From the Bawdy to the Sublime, the Best Writing on
Language for Word Lovers, Grammar Mavens, and Armchair Linguists, edited by Erin McKean (New York: Harcourt, 2001/London: Pimlico, 2003): 134-141; and “Slayer Slang (Part 2),” Verbatim: The Language Quarterly
24.4 (Autumn 1999): 1-7
“Credit Where It’s Due: Authority and Recognition at the Dictionary of American English,” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 19 (1998): 1-20
“The Server’s Lexicon: Preliminary Inquiries into Current Restaurant Jargon,” American Speech 73.1 (Spring 1998): 57-83
“Sanford Brown Meech at the Middle English Dictionary,” Dictionaries: Journal of the Dictionary Society of North America 16 (1995): 151-185
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