Discursive identities in historical English texts. Introduction

This special issue of Token: A Journal of English Linguistics contains a collection of papers originating from the International Conference on Discursive Identities in Historical English Texts organised by Prof. Christina Samson, coordinator of the Corpora and Historical English Research (CHER) group, within the Department of Education, Languages, Intercultures, Literatures and Psychology at the University of Florence. The conference was the first public engagement activity of CHER, held in October 2019, and it drew together researchers tackling diachronic discursive identity from multiple perspectives. Most of the contributions included in this special issue were presented and discussed at the event, whereas others were inspired by the topic and offer a wider angle on it.