Research
I have published on a range of aspects of early English language and literature. My main research is etymological and lexicological: broadly speaking, I am interested in the history of words, their semantics and their contexts, especially in Old and Middle English texts. My special focus is on the effects of contact between speakers of Old English and Old Norse in Viking Age England, especially on the English lexicon; I am currently writing a book about the Norse loanwords in the Middle English poem 'Sir Gawain and the Green Knight'.
Publications
Dance, R. (2003). Words Derived from Old Norse in Early Middle English: Studies in the Vocabulary of the South-West Midland Texts. Tempe, AZ, ACMRS
Dance, R. (2004). Sound, Fury and Signifiers; or Wulfstan’s Language, in Wulfstan, Archbishop of York: The Proceedings of the Second Alcuin Conference, ed. M.Townend, Studies in the Early Middle Ages 10. Turnhout, Brepols, pp. 29–61
Dance, R. (2006). ‘“Þær wearð hream ahafen”: A Note on Old English Spelling and the Sound of The Battle of Maldon, in The Power of Words: Anglo-Saxon Studies Presented to Donald G. Scragg on his Seventieth Birthday, ed. H. Magennis and J. Wilcox. Morgantown WV, West Virginia University Press, pp. 278–317
Dance, R. (2007). Glossary and assorted Notes in Ancrene Wisse: A Corrected Edition of the Text in Cambridge, Corpus Christi College, MS 402, with Variants from Other Manuscripts, ed. B. Millett, vol. 2, General Introduction, Notes on Text, Glossary and Bibliography, Early English Text Society o.s. 326. Oxford, Oxford University Press.
Dance, R. (2011). ‘“Tomar3an hit is awane”: Words Derived from Old Norse in Four Lambeth Homilies, in Foreign Influences on Medieval English, ed. J. Fisiak and M. Bator, Studies in English Medieval Language and Literature 28. Frankfurt am Main, Peter Lang, pp. 77–127
Publications (from Symplectic)
2019
2012
2003
2018
2017
2016
Dance, RW., 2016. North Sea Currents: Old English and Old Norse in Comparison and in Contact 2012 (No publication date)
Dance, RW., 2012 (No publication date). English in Contact: Norse Dance, RW., 2012 (No publication date). 'Tor for to telle': Words Derived from Old Norse in Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 2011
Dance, RW., 2011. “Tomar3an hit is awane”: Words Derived from Old Norse in Four Lambeth Homilies. 2010
Dance, RW., 2010. The Old English Language and the Alliterative Tradition. In A Companion to Medieval Poetry 2008
2006
2004
2003
2015
Doi: http://doi.org/10.5871/bacad/9780197265864.003.0007
2011 (Accepted for publication)
Dance, RW., 2011 (Accepted for publication). Ealde æ, niwæ la3e: Two Words for “Law” in the Twelfth Century New Medieval Literatures, v. 132004
Doi: 10.1111/j.1741-4113.2004.00117.x
2001
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1023/A:1011849417720
2000
Doi: http://doi.org/10.1076/0013-838X(200007)81:4;1-F;FT368
