Dr Harry Parkin | University of Chester

Senior Lecturer in English Language; Programme Leader, MRes Storytelling

I am a Senior Lecturer in English Language and the Programme Leader for the MRes in Storytelling. I joined the university in 2019, having previously worked at the University of Westminster and the University of the West of England.

My academic interests and research are primarily focused on the study of names (a field known as onomastics). In particular, I'm interested in the ways in which surnames which appear in historical records can tell us about English dialects in the past. I am also working with students and external stakeholders to explore ways in which surnames, place-names and historical aspects of the English language can enhance engagement with our local stories and histories.

I am the editor of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain, and I have also published a dictionary of the place-names of Leeds. I have also written a number of articles on surnames and historical English dialects.

From 2014 to 2017 I worked on the Family Names of the United Kingdom research project at the University of the West of England, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In this role, I contributed to a dictionary of UK family names, published as the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland in 2016. Following this, I worked on the project Technical Language and Semantic Shift in Middle English at the University of Westminster, before joining the University of Chester in 2019.

I am involved in judging the Cheshire Prize for Literature.

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I have taught on a number of topics related to English Language and Linguistics, including the history of the English language, stylistics, and cognitive linguistics. I also lead and teach on the MRes Storytelling.

Modules I teach and/or convene include:

EN4305 Foundations of English
EN5303 Creativity in English
EN5314 Roots & Development of English
EN5316 Advances in English
EN6310 English Language Dissertation
EN7006 Research Methods: Critical and Creative Projects
EN7007 Telling Stories: Debates Past and Present
EN7008 Research Dissertation
EN7404 Research Methods in English Language and Linguistics,
EN7405 Dissertation
EN7408 Language and Identity

My main research interests are in the history of the English language, in particular Middle English vocabulary, Middle English dialectology, and the use of onomastic data for the analysis of regional dialect lexis and phonology. I am currently exploring the ways in which medieval tax documents can be used to further our understanding of Middle English dialect distribution, and the extent to which variation in name data differs from variation in other types of linguistic evidence.

I am committed to public outreach, and have taken my research to primary schools and heritage sites in an effort to widen public awareness of the history of the English language.

From 2014 to 2017 I worked on the Family Names of the United Kingdom research project at the University of the West of England, which was funded by the Arts and Humanities Research Council. In this role, I contributed to a dictionary of UK family names, published as the Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland in 2016. I have continued this work, and am editor of the Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain.

From 2017-2018 I worked as a Research Fellow on the Technical Language and Semantic Shift in Middle English project at the University of Westminster.

I would welcome enquiries from prospective research students who are interested in place-names, family names, and the history of the English language.

Publications

Parkin, H. (2022). ‘Hereditary surname establishment in the Gloucestershire Cotswolds: a diachronic analysis’. In S. Bassett & A. J. Spedding (Eds.), Names, texts and landscapes in the Middle Ages: a memorial volume for Duncan Probert. Paul Watkins.

Parkin, H. (2021). The Concise Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain. Oxford University Press.

Sylvester, L., H. Parkin and R. Ingham, R. (2021). ‘Patterns of borrowing, obsolescence and polysemy in the technical vocabulary of Middle English’, in L. Vezzosi (ed.), Current Issues in Medieval England. Peter Lang, pp. 143–166.

Parkin, H. (2018), ‘The value of recent records, historical context, and genealogy in surname research’, Nomina 39, pp. 1–20.

Rambousek, A., H. Parkin and A. Horak (2018), ‘Software tools for big data resources in family names dictionaries’, Names: A Journal of Onomastics 66, 4, pp. 246–255.

Parkin, H. (2017), Your City’s Place-Names: Leeds. English Place Name Society.

Hanks, P. and H. Parkin (2016), ‘Family names’, in C. Hough (ed.), The Oxford Handbook of Names and Naming. Oxford University Press, pp. 214–236.

Hanks, P. et al. (2016), The Oxford Dictionary of Family Names in Britain and Ireland. Oxford University Press.

Parkin, H. (2015a), ‘English regional dialect lexis in the names and occupations of the Gloucestershire Cotswolds: a reassessment of the relationship between names and dialects’, Dialectologia et Geolinguistica 23, 1, pp. 24–37.

Parkin, H. (2015b), ‘The fourteenth-century poll tax returns and the study of English surname distribution’, Historical Methods: A Journal of Quantitative and Interdisciplinary History 48, 1, pp. 1–12.

Parkin, H. (2015c), ‘Family Names of the United Kingdom Project Report’, Nomina 38, pp. 116–130.

Parkin, H. (2015d), BOOK REVIEW: ‘George Redmonds: A Dictionary of Yorkshire Surnames’, Nomina 38, pp. 139–142.

Parkin, D. H. (2014a), ‘The onomastic data of the fourteenth-century poll tax returns: a case for further dialectological study of late medieval English’, Studia Anglica Posnaniensia 49, 2, pp. 33–61.

Parkin, D. H. (2014b), Change in the by-names and surnames of the Cotswolds, 1381 to c1600. Unpublished PhD thesis: University of the West of England, Bristol.

Parkin, D. H. (2013), ‘Surname typology and the problem of inconsistent classification’, Names: A Journal of Onomastics 61, 4, pp. 200–211.

Parkin, D. H. (2011), BOOK REVIEW: ‘Debbie Kennett: The surnames handbook: a guide to family name research in the 21st century’, Nomina 34, pp. 149–151.

Conference contributions and research seminars

‘Patterns of borrowing, obsolescence and semantic shift in the technical vocabulary of Middle English (co-author Louise Sylvester)’, presented at the International Conference on Middle English, Florence, Italy, February 2019.

‘Investigating semantic shift: a semantic-hierarchical approach (co-author Louise Sylvester)’, presented at the International Conference on English Historical Linguistics, Edinburgh, August 2018.

‘Change in the by-names and surnames of the Cotswolds’, presented at the University of Westminster English Language and Linguistics Research Seminar Series, University of Westminster, March 2018.

‘Technical language and semantic shift’, presented at the Bristol Centre for Linguistics Research Seminar Series, University of the West of England, February 2018.

‘Change in the by-names and surnames of the Cotswolds’, presented at the 2017 SNSBI Spring Conference, March 2017.

‘Change in the by-names and surnames of the Cotswolds: a model for Kent’, presented at Kent Places and People: A joint conference between the Centre for Kent History and Heritage and Kent Archaeological Society, November 2016.

‘West Midlands English dialect revealed by tax returns’, presented at the Bristol Centre for Linguistics Research Seminar Series, University of the West of England, October 2014.

‘Wool Trade Surnames in the Cotswolds: Regional Identity and Names in the 1381 Poll Tax Returns’, presented at the iMean 3 conference 2013, Bristol, April 2013.

FHEA
BA
PGCert
PhD