The Eighteenth-Century English Phonology Database (ECEP)

ECEP is an online database designed for the study of eighteenth-century English phonology, which allows users to investigate the social, regional and lexical distribution of phonological variants in eighteenth-century English. It serves as a source bank for quantitative and qualitative studies, thereby meeting the demands of the growing research community in historical phonology and dialectology in particular (e.g. Honeybone & Salmons 2015) and in Late Modern English in general (e.g. Mugglestone 2003, Hickey 2010).

The database incorporates data in the form of IPA transcriptions from eleven pronouncing dictionaries published in the second half of the eighteenth century. We have annotated as many of the 1,395 individual example words used to exemplify John C. Wells’ (1982) Standard Lexical Sets of vowel variants as can be found in the selected sources (27 sets), to which we have added 6 supplementary sets of consonant variants (564 individual example words). This adds to a total of 33 lexical sets, 73 subsets and 1,959 example words.

Project members: Joan C. Beal (PI), Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Ranjan Sen, Christine Wallis (RA)
Time of compilation: 2014–2015, 2021–2023
Language: English
Number of texts/samples: 11 dictionaries, c. 1,960 example words each (c. 21,550 example words in total)
Period: 1750–1800
Released: 2016, 2023
Funding: British Academy / Leverhulme Trust (SG132806); Santander Research Mobility Award (2012/13, 2014/15)
Database access: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/ecep/
Project home page: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/

Reference line and copyright

ECEP = Eighteenth-Century English Phonology database, 2015/2023. Compiled by Joan C. Beal, Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Ranjan Sen, and Christine Wallis. The University of Sheffield and Universidade de Vigo. Published by: University of Sheffield. https://www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/

Compilers

Prof. Joan C. Beal (University Sheffield)
Dr Nuria Yáñez-Bouza (Universidade de Vigo)
Dr Ranjan Sen (University Sheffield)

Research assistant

Christine Wallis (University Sheffield, July–October 2014)
Mar Nieves Fernández (Universidade de Vigo, 2020–2021)

Technical support

The Digital Humanities Institute (former Humanities Research Institute), The University of Sheffield. Michael Pidd (Digital Director) and Ryan Bloor (Developer).

Availability

ECEP is freely available online via the Digital Humanities Institute (former Humanities Research Institute) at the University of Sheffield.

Project website: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/projects/ecep/

ECEP access: https://www.dhi.ac.uk/ecep/

Acknowledgements

The compilers would like to acknowledge financial support from the British Academy / Leverhulme Trust (SG–132806) and the Santander Research Mobility Scheme (calls 2012–13 and 2014–15). We are also grateful to the Humanities Research Institute at the University of Sheffield for technical support, in particular Michael Pidd (Digital Director) and Ryan Bloor (Developer). Nuria Yáñez-Bouza would like to thank the Spanish Ministry of Economy, Ramón y Cajal Scheme (RYC-2011-07863) and the research group Language Variation and Textual Categorization at the Universidade de Vigo (the European Regional Development Fund FFI2013-44065-P; the Autonomous Government of Galicia GPC2014/060).

CoRD Entry submitted on September 5, 2014 by Dr Nuria Yáñez-Bouza, Universidade de Vigo / University of Manchester.
Information for the entry was edited by Dr Nuria Yáñez-Bouza.