The ICEHL or the International Conference of English Historical Linguistics is a biannual conference started in Durham in 1979. Its second most recent installment was hosted by the University of Sheffield in 2023. ICEHL has evolved from a regional meeting to a leading international forum dedicated to the study of the history and development of the English language, attracting researchers worldwide. Specifically, the 23rd ICEHL’s 4-day programme was jam-packed with over 140 presentations and 3 plenary talks by scholars across Europe, America, and Asia.
This 23rd edition of the conference was hosted by Universitá degli Studi de Milano in a building known as the Ca’ Granda. This large venue has played a prominent role in the history of the city that dates back to the 15th century. Its main purpose was to serve as a hospital and community center, hence the name which can be translated to ‘Big House’. This was certainly a fitting place to come together, as Milan offered us a very warm welcome that was both literal and figurative. However, the heat was no impediment for the attendees to participate in the stacked program which offered over one hundred parallel sessions and some intriguing plenary talks, with just enough time between them to catch-up with others while sipping espressos in the courtyard.
First day
The first day of the conference started after mid-day, giving us time to recover from travelling. After the first plenary talk of the conference we headed directly to the room where the first day of our panel would take place. Chaired by Professor Susan Fitzmaurice and Doctor Catherine Wong from University of Sheffield, the session focused on talks that approached semantic change from a discursive perspective. We both delivered our talks on the first day of the panel. During this panel we also got to learn about innovative and compelling research being undertaken by senior colleagues and peers from the UK, Germany and Japan.
Second day
After the second day talks had finished there was a round table discussion. Through some of the questions posed by the co-chairs of the panel we got to reflect on the methods and datasets we use in our approach to the study of semantic change, but also how these choices represent an integral part of our research often in the form of both constraints and advantages.
Rest of the conference
Wednesday was the final full day of activities. After an afternoon break, the attendants reconveined for a conference dinner around the courtyard. While the evening did not provide reprieve from the warm weather, it did provide an excuse to indulge in Italian cuisine.
Our thoughts/Key take-aways
Maria: I was very glad for the opportunity to present my research at ICEHL-23, where I received some very valuable feedback and engaged in insightful discussions that will no doubt inspire my research moving forward. The topic of discursive approaches in semantic change has been a constant topic of reflection for me due to the nature of my dissertation. However, this time my paper was not directly related to my thesis. Instead, I presented a deep-dive into the complex history and polysemy of the term ‘native’ from a diachronic perspective. Overall, I appreciated the variety of perspectives and methods that I was able to gain from the other speakers of the panel. Talking to the other participants allowed me to identify new facets and key issues in discursive research that I had not considered before and that were brought to my attention by the wide diversity of not just topics but also the cultural backgrounds of the participants.
More broadly speaking, this is by far the largest conference that I have attended since starting my PhD journey. The ICEHL is also one of the longest running conferences that I have been a part of. Knowing that there are several decades of tradition behind the event gave me a new perspective and appreciation for all the (oftentimes) invisible labor that goes into planning and executing each new edition of a conference. It is not just a matter of logistics, but also of bridging the gap between established academics and early career researchers that ensures the vitality of these spaces.
Penelope: This is my first time presenting as a panelist. Each panel contributor brought a fresh perspective, and together, we completed the larger picture that is the discursive approach to semantic change. My presentation, “Same same but different”: Decoding the discursive DNA of Early Modern ‘astrology’ and ‘astronomy’, was the fruition of my first-year’s work, built upon the Linguistic DNA project’s legacy. There are many reasons why this opportunity means so much to me. First, I wholeheartedly love the process of discovery, combing through each line of data and connecting the dots. It was hard work yet extremely meditative, and the great sense of achievement is one of a kind. Second, this can be considered my PhD “side quest,” as I have been working on something very different since the beginning of my second year. Fortunately, this little project has concluded successfully, giving me invaluable directions and experience for the road ahead. There is no better way to conclude than receiving constructive feedback from an international academic audience so that I can work towards a foreseeable opportunity of publication, especially after I had presented it to a general audience at the Pint of Science Festival in Sheffield the previous month. Last but not least, working on the presentation, I was able to pinpoint areas for improvements, putting on the critic’s hat. It was also an invaluable opportunity for me to hone my presentation skills, which are of utmost importance to an early-career researcher.
As an introvert, I was surprised to see how much I enjoyed the social events at the conference. It was such a great way to organically engage with other like-minded scholars in all stages of career. I love seeing how diverse our interests were: there was always something that made me feel “oh wow” and revisit my approaches to historical linguistics. The enthusiasm was contagious, the speakers were all full of wisdom, and I think I was left with more food for thought than I ever expected.
Penelope Gia Bao Huu Nguyen is a doctoral researcher at the Digital Humanities Institute, the University of Sheffield. She holds a bachelor’s degree in English Studies from Can Tho University in Vietnam, where she first developed her passion for linguistics, particularly in the field of pragmatics. As a Fulbright scholar, she completed her master’s in Linguistics at Purdue University (USA), focusing on impoliteness and emoji usage on Vietnamese Facebook pages. Her research integrates computational and corpus linguistics to address questions that advance linguistic theory and interdisciplinary fields. Beyond research, Penelope is also an experienced literary translator, ESL teacher, and content creator.
Maria Flores Alejo is a doctoral research fellow and part of the CASCADE Doctoral Network who is currently based at The University of Sheffield. She earned her bachelor’s degree in Languages from Universidad de las Américas Puebla in México and went on to complete a master’s degree in Linguistics and Literary studies at Vrije Universiteit Brussels under the Mastermind Scholarship Scheme. She has a wide variety of research interests including language teaching and language acquisition, Spanish as a Foreign language, corpus linguistics and lexicography. Her current research focuses on the development of new methods for historical thesauri creation by blending aspects of techniques like hierarchical structures, word embedding and linguistic concept modelling.
CASCADE is a collaboration between University College Cork, University of Sheffield, University of Helsinki, KU Leuven, and Universität des Saarlandes. Funded by Horizon Europe under the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) Doctoral Networks and the UKRO.