Going further

So you want to go further in the history of linguistics? Good! You'll need to do a lot more reading, of course: longer surveys of the period from 1600 to the present, more detailed studies of the topics of your choice, and (last but not least) the source texts themselves. Nothing, but nothing, can replace firsthand knowledge of the original sources. You'll need to master the research techniques appropriate to the period or the topic which you wish to pursue further: paleography and textual criticism to facilitate your work with as yet unprinted medieval texts, for instance, or the bibliographical research tools that will help you to find your way through the vast literature of primary and secondary sources for any period. You'll find a guide to some of the research resources in the history of linguistics at the end of this chapter. You may need to attend specialised courses or find suitable books from which to teach yourself the necessary skills. Equally importantly, you'll need to cultivate the inner faculties a historian of linguistics needs, and think about ethics in relation to the impact of your work on others and your research methods.

Cultivating the faculties a historian needs

Right at the start of this book we thought about empathy as the fundamental attitude of mind that you need to adopt when you approach the texts of a past era. By now it will have become a habit of mind (I hope). With empathy as your fundamental attitude you can now move to cultivating the faculties which every historian of linguistics needs.