Dr. Laurel Brinton


Professor

English Language & Literatures

Faculty of Arts

Research Themes:  Language, Sustainability and Transnationalism

Laurel Brinton is a specialist in the English Language, with a focus on the history of English. Her particular areas of interest include English historical linguistics, historical pragmatics (discourse markers), grammaticalization and lexicalization, phrasal verbs and composite predicates, corpus linguistics, and aspectual studies. Laurel completed her PhD at the University of California, Berkeley, in English with a Linguistics Emphasis in 1981, and has been working at UBC ever since. Her current projects include an edited textbook on English Historical Linguistics: Perspectives and Approaches as well as a monograph on The Evolution of Pragmatic Markers in English: Pathways to Change, both to be published by Cambridge University Press. Laurel is also one of the developers and instructors of the new UBC course ‘Challenging Language Myths’ (English/Linguistics 140).

Research Interests

English historical linguistics, historical pragmatics (discourse markers), grammaticalization and lexicalization, phrasal verbs and composite predicates, corpus linguistics, and aspectual studies.

First Nations land acknowledegement

We acknowledge that UBC’s campuses are situated within the traditional territories of the Musqueam, Squamish and Tsleil-Waututh, and in the traditional, ancestral, unceded territory of the Syilx Okanagan Nation and their peoples.


UBC Crest The official logo of the University of British Columbia. Urgent Message An exclamation mark in a speech bubble. Caret An arrowhead indicating direction. Arrow An arrow indicating direction. Arrow in Circle An arrow indicating direction. Arrow in Circle An arrow indicating direction. Chats Two speech clouds. Facebook The logo for the Facebook social media service. Information The letter 'i' in a circle. Instagram The logo for the Instagram social media service. External Link An arrow entering a square. Linkedin The logo for the LinkedIn social media service. Location Pin A map location pin. Mail An envelope. Menu Three horizontal lines indicating a menu. Minus A minus sign. Telephone An antique telephone. Plus A plus symbol indicating more or the ability to add. Search A magnifying glass. Twitter The logo for the Twitter social media service. Youtube The logo for the YouTube video sharing service.