James Robert Dunlop Milroy (1933–2017) was a British linguist who pioneered the development of

sociolinguistics Sociolinguistics is the descriptive, scientific study of how language is shaped by, and used differently within, any given society. The field largely looks at how a language changes between distinct social groups, as well as how it varies unde ...

. He was born in

Portpatrick Portpatrick is a village and civil parishes in Scotland, civil parish in the historical county of Wigtownshire, Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland. It is located on the west coast of the Rhins of Galloway. The parish is about in length and in br ...

in Scotland, but grew up in Scotland, Wales and Surrey, and as a child he learned Welsh. He taught at several British universities before obtaining a teaching position at

Queen's University Belfast The Queen's University of Belfast, commonly known as Queen's University Belfast (; abbreviated Queen's or QUB), is a public research university in Belfast, Northern Ireland, United Kingdom. The university received its charter in 1845 as part of ...

where in 1965 he met his wife Lesley with whom he began carrying out sociolinguistics research on English dialects. In 1981 he became Chair of The Linguistics Science Department at the University of Sheffield, then moved to Newcastle University, and then taught for 10 years at the

University of Michigan The University of Michigan (U-M, U of M, or Michigan) is a public university, public research university in Ann Arbor, Michigan, United States. Founded in 1817, it is the oldest institution of higher education in the state. The University of Mi ...

. Most of his research was carried out with his wife Lesley; they coauthored the two highly influential books: ''Authority in Language'' and ''Real English: the grammar of English dialects in the British Isles''. James R. D. Milroy wrote: ''Linguistic variation and change: on the historical sociolinguistics of English'' as well as many journal articles.

References

{{DEFAULTSORT:Milroy, James Linguists from the United Kingdom Sociolinguists 1933 births 2017 deaths University of Michigan faculty Academics of the University of Sheffield