University News Last updated 19 September 2014
A senior lecturer at Birmingham City University's School of English is celebrating after winning an ESSE Book Award for 2014.
Ursula Lutzky, Senior Lecturer in English Language Studies, won first place in the category of English Language and Linguistics for her latest book 'Discourse Markers in Early Modern English' in the European Society for the Study of English (ESSE) Book Awards 2014.
Ursula said: "I am very pleased that my book has been awarded this prize. It is fantastic that my work has been recognised by the academic community through this European award and I am very grateful to the board and president of ESSE for honouring my work in this way."
'Discourse Markers in Early Modern English' offers new insights into the nature of discourse markers used in Early Modern English (1500-1760). Discourse markers such as 'you know', 'well' or 'like' are, on the one hand, optional elements as they do not contribute to the meaning of a sentence and their omission does not render it ungrammatical. On the other hand, they have important functions which go beyond the level of the sentence, as for instance introducing a new topic or expressing acknowledgement of what someone has said.
'Discourse Markers in Early Modern English', which is based on Ursula's PhD project, contributes to the field of historical (socio) pragmatics. Ursula focuses in particular on three different forms, 'marry', 'well' and 'why', looking at similarities and differences in their distribution and function in dialogues and other speech-related text types, such as drama or personal letters. She also studies their use by male and female speakers as well as by members of different social classes to discover, for example, if women used these particles more often than men.
Ursula studied English, French and Finnish at the University of Vienna, where she completed her MA in English and French studies and her PhD in English linguistics. After working as a lecturer and research assistant at the Department of English at the University of Vienna (2005 - 2010), Ursula joined Birmingham City University in August 2010.