Scholarships and Prizes

Following the success of the print Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary, the editors decided to devote most of the royalties to enhancing research into English Language & Linguistics at the University of Glasgow. This is primarily achieved by the establishment of a range of postgraduate research scholarships, in addition to undergraduate research prizes and the annual Samuels and Kay Lectures. Funding for these scholarships was also boosted by a substantial legacy left after her death by Professor Christian Kay.

Historical Thesaurus Undergraduate Prizes

From 2014, there are two prizes available for excellence in an undergraduate dissertation in English Language & Linguistics:

  • The Michael Samuels Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Undergraduate Research into Historical English Language & Linguistics
  • The Christian Kay Prize for Outstanding Achievement in Undergraduate Research into Modern English Language & Linguistics

These prizes are awarded annually to Senior Honours students in the English Language & Linguistics subject area by the Historical Thesaurus Prize Committee. The prizes are funded by donations from Professor Samuels' and Professor Kay's family, friends, and colleagues. Further contributions to these funds are very welcome, and can be made here and here.

The following students have won Historical Thesaurus dissertation prizes:

2013-14:

  • George Hardwick (Michael Samuels prize): "'Harmless Drudgery'?: Deconstructing Eighteenth Century notions of standard language, with reference to Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language and Francis Grose's A Classical Dictionary of the Vulgar Tongue"
  • Colin Reilly (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "Stakeholder Perceptions on the Need and Role of English in Malawi"
  • Helen Bradshaw (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "Following the mobilization of women, how were feminine norms constituted, defined and controlled within issues of the women's magazines Woman and Woman's Own from the war year 1942?"

2014-15:

  • Thomas Robinson (Michael Samuels prize): "Samuel Johnson's Treatment of French in A Dictionary of the English Language"
  • Peter Joseph Stewart (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "Psychic Equivocation: Grice and stage psychics"
  • Sonja Maria Hakala (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "Birds of a Feather: The cross-cultural adjustment of Finnish international students in Glasgow"

2015-16:

  • Rachel Norris (Michael Samuels prize): "The Semantics of Suffering: A study of the vocabulary and imagery of portrayals of suffering in four Old English elegies"
  • Christopher Miller (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "Justifying a Sentence: A critical analysis of prescriptive methods of interpretation in legal language"
  • Derek Henderson (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "Message in a Glottal: a sociolinguistic study of glottal replacement in Dundee"

2016-17:

  • Annika Ester Maresia (Michael Samuels prize): "From Runic to Roman: The origins of English orthography"
  • Rebecca Shaw (Christian Kay prize): "The Language of Caricature: An analysis of dialect-based stereotypes in Walt Disney Studios and Disney Pixar Animation Studios films and the extent to which they are reflected in audience attitudes"

2017-18:

  • Niamh Thomson (Michael Samuels prize, jointly awarded): "Finding the Clue to Historical Semantic Change: A diachronic investigation"
  • Megan Young (Michael Samuels prize, jointly awarded): "A Systematic Analysis of the Distribution of Uncial Letter Forms Within a Defined Cross-Section of the Lindisfarne Gospels"
  • Edward Marshall (Christian Kay prize): "Vowel Intelligibility in Choral Singing: A perceptual study"

2018-19:

  • Alexander Bence Masir (Michael Samuels prize): "'Rente out of his book a leef': Cases of editing and reception of Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales for faith-based reasons during and after the English Reformation"
  • Emily Willow O'Hara (Christian Kay prize): "Can Masked Degrees of Facilitation be Found for Phonological Features in Visual Word Recognition?"

2019-20:

  • Molly Campbell (Michael Samuels prize, jointly awarded): "An examination of the process of the initial [kn]-[gn] cluster reduction in English"
  • Claire Elder (Michael Samuels prize, jointly awarded): "The Papers of the Bagot Family (1428-1671, bulk 1557-1671): A Study of Women’s Letters within a Close Family Network"
  • Pasquale Mandara (Christian Kay prize): "L2 effects on L1 production and perception: The case of consonant gemination with Italian-English bilinguals in Glasgow"

2020-21:

  • Elisabeth Iordanov (Michael Samuels prize, jointly awarded): "MSS Harley 978 and nouv. acq. fr. 1104: The Transmission and Reception of the Lais of Marie de France"
  • Martina Porru (Michael Samuels prize, jointly awarded): "Early Modern English Punctuation Practice in Shakespeare’s First Folio The Tempest (1623)"
  • Magdalena Ivok (Christian Kay prize): "Feeling the Beat: Rhythm Perception and Production in People Who Stutter"

2021-22:

  • Thomas Bouwman (Michael Samuels prize): "The impact of Old Norse on the lexicon and morphology of Old and Middle English"
  • Gregor Ashworth (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "A corpus-driven critical discourse analysis into the ideological stances observed in the discourses surrounding the Taliban’s 2021 offensive in Afghanistan as construed by The Guardian and The Daily Telegraph"
  • Shona Holmes (Christian Kay prize, jointly awarded): "To Hellberg and Hellbergbach: a study of the impact of multilingualism on the toponyms of two Gemeinden (parishes) in Switzerland"

Historical Thesaurus Masters Prizes

From 2022, the Christian Kay and Michael Samuels Prize for Outstanding MSc Research in English Language & Linguistics prize is available for excellence in a taught Masters dissertation in any MSc degree in English Language & Linguistics:

2021-22:

  • Bryony Bates (jointly awarded): "A corpus analysis of the representation of gender in Omegaverse-themed fanfiction"
  • Marie Vercauteren (jointly awarded): "Simultaneous language learning in Flanders, Belgium: How English as a global language affects the motivation to learn French among Flemish pupils"

Historical Thesaurus Postgraduate Scholarships

The postgraduate scholarships were named in honour of the four original editors of the printed Historical Thesaurus: Christian Kay, Jane Roberts, Michael Samuels and Irené Wotherspoon. This scheme has now ended.

For 2010-14, awards of full fees were offered to students undertaking PhD or MPhil research degrees in any of the subjects covered by Glasgow's English Language & Linguistics subject area. From 2014 to 2021, selected awards were made for Home/EU fees for MPhil degrees only. Preference was given to projects focusing on the Historical Thesaurus.

The following students held Historical Thesaurus scholarships:

Year 1, 2010-11:

  • Leonie Dunlop (Wotherspoon scholarship): MPhil
  • Daria Izdebska (Roberts scholarship): PhD, Year 1
  • Namiko Kikusawa (Kay scholarship): PhD, Year 1
  • Thomas White (Samuels scholarship): MPhil (part time), Year 1

Year 2, 2011-12:

  • Katrin Goundry (Samuels scholarship): PhD, Year 1
  • Rachael Hamilton (Kay Scholarship): PhD, Year 1, Semester 1 (afterwards transferred to a full AHRC scholarship)
  • Daria Izdebska (Roberts scholarship): PhD, Year 2
  • Magdalena Leitner (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD, Year 1
  • Francesca Mackay (Roberts scholarship): MPhil
  • Thomas White (Samuels scholarship): MPhil (part time), Year 2

Year 3, 2012-13:

  • Katrin Goundry (Samuels scholarship): PhD, Year 2
  • Daria Izdebska (Roberts scholarship): PhD, Year 3
  • Sadie Ryan (Wotherspoon scholarship): MPhil

Year 4, 2013-14:

  • ShouChun (Cheery) Chien (Samuels scholarship): PhD, Year 2
  • Jennifer Dornan (Roberts scholarship): PhD, Year 1
  • Katrin Goundry (Samuels scholarship): PhD, Year 3
  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD, Year 1
  • Miriam Krause (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 1
  • Ross McLachlan (Kay scholarship): MPhil

Year 5, 2014-15:

  • Jennifer Dornan (Roberts scholarship): PhD, Year 2 (on maternity leave)
  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD, Year 2
  • Miriam Krause (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 2
  • Colin Reilly (Kay scholarship): MPhil

Year 6, 2015-16:

  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD, Year 2
  • Miriam Krause (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 3
  • Viola Legény (Samuels scholarship): MPhil

Year 7, 2016-17:

  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 3
  • Miriam Krause (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 3
  • Rachel Fletcher (Roberts scholarship): MPhil
  • Ewan Hannaford (Samuels scholarship): MPhil

Year 8, 2017-18:

  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 4
  • Miriam Krause (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 4

Year 9, 2018-19:

  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 5
  • Miriam Krause (Wotherspoon scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 5

Year 10, 2019-20:

  • Elina Koristashevskaya (Kay scholarship): PhD (part time), Year 6
  • Niamh Thomson (Roberts scholarship): MPhil

Year 11, 2020-21:

  • Beth Beattie (Wotherspoon scholarship): MPhil
  • Molly Campbell (Samuels scholarship): MPhil
  • Claire Elder (Kay scholarship): MPhil
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