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The Development of English Unit 1. Aims of the course Knowledge about the historical and linguistic development of the English language, from Anglo-Saxon.

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Presentation on theme: "The Development of English Unit 1. Aims of the course Knowledge about the historical and linguistic development of the English language, from Anglo-Saxon."— Presentation transcript:

1 The Development of English Unit 1

2 Aims of the course Knowledge about the historical and linguistic development of the English language, from Anglo-Saxon times to the present day. Understanding of the external and internal factors that influence the development of languages in general and English in particular.

3 Topics Distinctive characteristics of the English language: syntax, morphology, lexis, pronunciation, orthography, punctuation The history of the English language The development of present-day English English as a lingua franca Present-day English: the Internet, different domains of use and their features, lexical expansion.

4 Teaching methodology and content Lectures Video extracts Discussion Reading of articles and short extracts from the literature, followed by discussion Listening to samples of spoken English and reading of written English texts from different periods and locations, followed by analysis and discussion Brief inquiry or reflection tasks

5 Requirements Active participation in sessions Reading of the required texts Occasional brief tasks Final assignment, composed of two short essays.

6 Assessment Active participation 10% Ongoing reading and tasks 30% Final paper 60%

7 In this class Which languages other than Hebrew, Arabic and English do participants know? Russian Dutch Czech German French Spanish

8 The Quiz How many of the questions (out of 26) could you answer?

9 Language types Synthetic vs analytic/isolating languages Inflected vs non-inflected languages

10 Preliminary concepts and definitions: Pronunciation Sounds, intonation, stress and rhythm

11 The sounds Vowels and consonants, phonemes Monothongs, diphthongs, triphthongs Present-day English has about 20 clearly distinguished vowels, and about 24 consonants. How many does Hebrew have? Arabic? (Phonemic symbols)

12 Could these be natural English words? ngif fing stlon ristle lok vrain frain tzick kitz

13 Intonation and stress Intonation: expresses meaning. He’s going to be there / He’s going to be there? / When is he going to be there? And stress Are you going to Haifa by train?

14 English is a stress-timed language There’s a new ˡ manager at the ˡ works ˡ today There’s a new ˡ boss ˡ there ˡ now.

15 Break, break, break Break, break, break, On thy cold gray stones, O Sea! And I would that my tongue could utter The thoughts that arise in me. Alfred, Lord Tennyson

16 Lexis, morphology and syntax Lexical and grammatical words Morphemes (bound, unbound; derivational and grammatical) Syntax

17 Word Order Sometimes just conventional, arbitrary (adj before noun, order of adjectives) Sometimes conveys meaning: subject/object; inversion for questions

18 Language change and development Dialects and languages: what’s the difference? Convergent and divergent processes: dialects and languages Change because of influence of other languages: migration or invasion; prestige; particular areas of activity… Internal development (economic, cultural influences, development of ideas or fields of activity, ease, other unexplained developments)

19 The ancestry of English Indo-European  The Germanic languages  English

20 O.EnglishGothicSanskritGreekLatin ānainsekaheisunus twegen, twā twaidvauduo þrīe?trayastreis tr ēs f ēower fidworcatvārastettaresquattor fīffimfpancapentequīnque siexsaihssathexsex seofonsibunsaptaheptasepte, eahtaahtauastauoktōoctō nigonniunnavaenneanovem tīentaihundasadekadecem

21 The ancestry of English Indo-European  the Germanic languages  English + Latin, and some Greek, largely through French Basic vocabulary – English But most words in the dictionary are Latinate http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#W ord_origins) http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/English_language#W ord_origins English is essentially Germanic.

22 Germanic words in English Grammatical function words: articles, pronouns, determiners, auxiliary verbs, numbers, prepositions The more common, everyday, concrete words (e.g. colors, animals, basic verbs) Used the letters: g, w, y, the combinations ng, wh, th, gh, ght Common prefixes and suffixes: be- -y -ful -less -ish -ly -ng, ing

23 Latinate words in English Full lexical items (nouns, verbs, adjectives, adverbs) Usually long (five or more letters) Academic words, words for abstract concepts Common suffixes: Common prefixes: -tion, -sion -ence, -ance -ment -ity, -ify, -ate, -ite -ive ad-, ab-, a- in-, im-, un- con-, com- de-, dis- sub-, super- inter-, trans-,

24 Combinations But note that today there are many words which combine components of both: for example, the word beautiful comes from beauty (Latin/French) and the Germanic suffix –ful; clearly from clear (Latin/French) and the Germanic suffix –ly.

25 Assignment 1.Read ‘The Roots of English’, pp. 19-22 2.Do the assignment on the website on Germanic and Latinate words, and upload.

26 Comparison of texts Informal English language (taken from an E-mail message): "…Everything is so huge and even though I am used to the language everything is new and unfamiliar, except for my family here…“ 17 Germanic out of a total of 23 words: 74% Formal English language (Academic text): “It is important to note that the term ‘International English is thus used in reference to two quite different linguacultural situations.” 11 Germanic out of a total of 20 words: 55%


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