En torno a la integración de lo interno y lo externo en los estudios historiográficos de la lengua inglesa

Resumen

This paper provides a critical approach to one of the dualities discussed by Saussure: researching linguistic phenomena either from the perspective based on internal or external linguistics and its applicability to studies of the history of the English language. Due to the ontological character of diachronic research, these Saussurean considerations constitute a milestone in the attempt to theorize on the linguistic change operative in English. Moreover, this more or less explicit distinction between the internal and external is a generally accepted procedure in historiographical treatises. Nevertheless, when doing diachronic research, internal description of linguistic phenomena requires that external factors be taken into account in order to chronologically delimit them. Thus, although sociological conditions are considered peripheral to the analysis, they are of major importance, not only because they provide an adequate social context into which linguistic phenomena can be placed but also because they introduce sociolinguistic factors which offer new insights into historiographic research based on patterns of variation in the written register of the English language.