Department of English and German
Sala de Investigación, first floor
Facultad de Filología
University of Santiago de Compostela
E-15782 Santiago de Compostela
SPAIN

E-mail: teresa.fanego@usc.es

I am a Full Professor of English Language and Linguistics at the University of Santiago de Compostela. I studied Germanic Philology in Santiago de Compostela and specialized (1975-1976) in English Historical Linguistics at University College London, on a British Council scholarship.

In 1978 I completed my doctorate on “Linguistic Variants in Seventeenth and Eighteenth Century Editions of Shakespeare” (Extraordinary PhD Award, Faculty of Philosophy and Letters; supervisor: Francisco Gª Tortosa, U. of Seville). In 1984 I was appointed Associate Professor of English in Santiago de Compostela and from May 1990 I hold the chair in English Language and Linguistics (from September 2018 as Professor Emerita).

Most of my published work has been on the English of Shakespeare and his contemporaries and on various aspects of English historical syntax, including sentential complement constructions, motion events and their realization, the emergence of new periphrases of aspect and modality, and (recently) the typology and diachrony of meteorological expressions. More generally, my research focuses on grammaticalization processes, which I examine from the perspective of cognitive and constructional models of grammar. I am also interested in the development of English legal discourse and in historical Irish English.

In 1991, I founded the research unit Variation, Linguistic Change and Grammaticalization (VLCG) at the University of Santiago de Compostela. A leading centre for the study of English historical linguistics, it was funded by the European Regional Development Fund, the Regional Government of Galicia, and the Spanish National Research Plan. I directed the unit until January 2024.