Laura Wright

Research interests:

The history of the English language; the history of London English; the history of London place-names; the development of Standard English; historical codeswitching between Anglo-Norman, Medieval Latin and Middle English; lexical sociolinguistics. Most of my work has been on the language of 14th and 15th century MSS produced in London (in particular, the make-up of mixed-language business writing).  I have also published on the English of 16th century London court records, on the language of 17th and early 18th century slaves and settlers on the Island of St Helena, South Atlantic; on the language of 18th century London trade-cards and servants' bills - in particular, those of fireworkers and their fireworks, the linguistic conventions adopted by servants and masters when advertising for work, and the effects of Victorian technological developments on colour terms and perfume names.  I'm particularly interested in the social connotations of housenames and streetnames across time and space.