LINGUA INGLESE I, 2012-2013V. Pulcini

LAUREA TRIENNALEI ANNO L-15 , CODE: LIN.0009

9 CREDITS, 54 HOURSLINGUE E CULTURE PER IL TURISMO

TITLE of the COURSE

“Introduction to present-day English: historical background, geographical

spread and linguistic features”

SET BOOK

V. Pulcini, a cura di, A Handbook of Present-day English,

Carocci, Roma , 2009(Chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, pp. 1-237)* Chapter 5 will be covered in the second year

COURSE TIMETABLE, Second Semester 2013 Monday, Tuesday, Wednesday, 10-12

Room 1M Palazzo Venturi

18, 19, 20 February: Introduction – Language change and variation in English

25 February The history of English 26, 27 February NO LESSON 4, 5, 6 March The history of English 11, 12, 13 March: The pronunciation of English 18, 19, 20 March: The pronunciation of English 25, 26, 27 March: English grammar Easter break: 28 March- 2 April 8, 9, 10 April English grammar 15, 16, 17 April English grammar 22, 23, 24 April The English lexicon: from words to phraseology 29, 30 April: The English lexicon: from words to phraseology 6, 7, 8 May exercises and mock exam

EXAM PROGRAMME

• a written exam • it will consist in activities and questions, in

English, based on the course contents and on the set book

• it can be taken only once per session• students must have passed the first year

“prova propedeutica” (or “lettorato”), whose result will be integrated with the mark of the lingua inglese course

EXAM SESSIONS 2012-2013PROVE PROPEDEUTICHE: 3 per year (1 in the

Summer Session 2013, 1 in the Autumn Session 2013, 1 in the Winter Session 2014)

LINGUA INGLESE : 8 per year4 in the summer session 2013 (1 in May, 2 in

June, 1 in July)2 in the autumn session 2013(1 in September, 1

in November)2 in the winter session 2013 (1 in January, 1 in

February)

LINGUA INGLESE STUDENTS SHOULD COMBINE TWO TYPES OF COMPETENCE

1. PRACTICAL COMPETENCE in the use of English, both spoken and written

(language teaching and learning / EFL methodology)

2. SCIENTIFIC STUDY of English: based on data, making implicit knowledge explicit, using a metalanguage to talk about language (English linguistics)

BECOMING FAMILIAR WITH THE HANDBOOK

DIFFERENCES:

four chapters written by four lecturers in this university

(Mazzaferro, Pulcini, Minutella, Prat) (see Table of Contents pp.

7-9)

SHARED FEATURESEach chapter 1. …is composed of the main

text, the chapter overview and a list of study questions and activities

2. … is structured into titled and numbered sections

3. … has key-terms and names in bold print (see analytic index)

4. … has key concepts in the margin

5. …has a selected bibliography of important references

SOME FEATURES OF AN ACADEMIC HANDBOOK

1 ACADEMIC ENGLISH. A handbook is written by experts to experts-to be.

e.g. concepts and terms, which are widely shared by the scientific community, are explained, or clarified through examples.

e.g. Different approaches and terminologies may be presented and compared

2 ACADEMIC CONVENTIONS e.g. use of graphic devices (e.g italics), abbreviations and

phonetic symbols (pp.11-15), cross-references (see Chapter 3, §4), bibliographic conventions in the text and in the final bibliographies

From A Handbook of Present-Day English “Introduction: the goals of this book”

• Many students equate knowing a language with being able to communicate in everyday situations and in various professional and vocational areas. Indeed, the acquisition of communicative competence in English is an important goal for all students and a primary one for students of modern languages. English is today the lingua franca of international business and worldwide communication and is therefore considered ‘useful’ and a requirement for getting a good job and interacting successfully in several professional fields.

• There is, however, another important component of linguistic competence which is proper to higher education and involves more ambitious and far-reaching academic objectives. This is the acquisition of explicit linguistic knowledge about the English language and its structures. This body of linguistic description is given to us by English linguistics, an academic discipline which takes its name from its specific object of study, i.e. language.

LANGUAGE CHANGE AND VARIATION IN ENGLISH

MAIN TOPICS

• Concepts of change and variation: how and why• Attitudes to language: standard and non-standard

varieties• The main phases in the history of English • Causes of the spread of English in the world• Present-day English: from English to “Englishes”• English as a global language: advantages and

disadvantages and future predictions

BRAINSTORMING ON LANGUAGE CHANGE AND VARIATION (Chapters 1, § 1 and 2)

1. Do languages change in time?2. Why do languages change?3. How do languages change?4. Why and how do languages vary at a given

time in history? 5. What is “the best form” of a language?

From general to expert knowledge

SOME CONCEPTS AND TERMS:1. Synchrony, diachrony, sociolinguistics, historical

linguistics, history of the language, comparative linguistics, language family, Indo-European, Germanic family, Romance or Neolatin family

2. Causes for language change: “external” (e.g. historical events, inventions, new ideas) versus “internal” (e.g. analogy, hypercorrection, push chain processes)

3. Types of change: phonological, morpho-syntactic and semantic

4. Standard and non-standard varieties

A very important question:

• Is the study of the history and varieties of English relevant to university students of English?

YES1. for cultural reasons2. to understand more about present-day English - the gap between spelling and pronunciation - the mixed nature of its lexis e.g. “liberty” vs

“freedom” - the existence of regular and irregular verbs - the linguistic situation of present-day UK3. to reinforce practical competence - to improve pronunciation and grammatical

correctness - to expand lexical competence - to be prepared to understand different varieties of

English

Similarities among Indo-European languages

• English father mother three• Sanscrit pitar matar trayas• Greek pater mater treis• Latin pater mater tres

the Celts

• Indo-European people who lived in Europe from 2000 BC to 100 AD

• they inhabited the British Isles before the Roman and Anglo-Saxon invasions

• names of Celtic origin: London, Leeds, Avon, Thames, Kent, Cornwall

• very few Celtic words in Old English• Celtic languages spoken today: Welsh, Irish

Gaelic, Scots Gaelic (Breton)

Historical Periods and Linguistic Phases

1. The Anglo-Saxon period

2. The Norman period

3. Modern period Great Britain and Northern Ireland

united under the British crown. New territories explored and stable colonies established in America, Asia and Africa

4. 20th Century : From English to “Englishes” English as a global language

1. OLD ENGLISH, OE (700-1150)2. MIDDLE ENGLISH , ME (1150-1500)

1. MODERN ENGLISH, ModEngl. (1500-1900)

2. PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH (PDE) (to the present)

The Story of English started in a small Island…

1. United Kingdom of Great Britand and Northern Ireland (Uk) is composed

of EnglandScotlandWalesNorthern Ireland

2. Great Britain (GB) / Britain is composed of

EnglandScotlandWales

3. The Republic of Ireland

Stonehenge (2500 BC)

Stonehenge is a prehistoric monument, one of the most famous sites in the world.

The Roman baths of Bath

Hadrian’s Wall

Hadrian's Wall was a defensive fortification in Roman Britain. Begun in AD 122, during the rule of emperor Hadrian, it was the first of two fortifications built across Great Britain.

Major historical events

• Stonehenge, about 3,000-2500 BC• 100 BC the first Celts appeared in Britain• 55-54 BC Julius Caesar invaded Britain ( …and

the Romans left it in the 5th century)• 5th century: some Germanic tribes (Anglo-

Saxons and Jutes) arrived in England and forced the Celts to move west and north

Old English period (700-1150)

• this term refers to Germanic dialects spoken by Jutes, Angles and Saxons: Kentish, West-Saxon, Mercian and Northumbrian

• the West-Saxon reign was the most important religious, military and cultural centre in Europe

• West-Saxon was considered the first standard written language, associated with political, military and cultural power in society

Christianisation of Britain • 6th century• introduction of the Latin alphabet• abandonment of the Runic alphabet by the

Anglo-Saxons• from the 9th to the 11th centuries

manuscripts were translated from Latin into Old English

• Latin and Greek gave Old English a wide range of Gospel words related to religion and spirituality

the invasion of the Scandinavian Vikings (793 AD)

• 8th century• dark ages recorded in the Chronicles• the Danes destroyed all the Anglo-Saxon

kingdoms• King Alfred the Great raised an army and pushed

them out of his kingdom• Alfred saved the English language• he commissioned the AngloSaxon Chronicle and

encouraged the use of English in writing and in speech

Viking words

• thorpe= settlement• beck= stream• by= farm

• sky, skin, skirt, run, window, ombudsman (difensore civico)

the Celtic/Gaelic countries in the British Isles

an example from OE(Ælfric’s Colloquy, c. 998)

OE: We cildra biddaþ þe, eala lareow, þæt þu tæce us [...]

Latin: Nos pueri rogamus te, magister, ut doceas nos [...]

PDE: Master, we young men would like you to teach us [...]

features of Old English

• Latin alphabet, with some differences from PDE (e.g. the consonant thorn, or þorn, <þ>)

• nouns, adjectives and pronouns were inflected for case,number and gender (synthetic versus analytic language)

• two types of verbs (strong and weak) = regular and irregular verbs in PDE

• word order was free • lexis was mainly Germanic but included words of

Celtic (names of places, e.g. London) , Latin (e.g. schol from schola) and Scandinavian origin (e.g. landes mann = native in PDE)

Synthetic, inflected language

• grammar is determined by a system of inflections

• the king se cyning• of the king thaes cyninges• to the king thaem cyningeThe king meets the bishopSe cyning (S) meteth thone biscop (O) /Thone

biscop (O) meteth se cyning (S)

Middle English, ME (1150-1500)

(Chapter 1, § 3.2)

Major historical events

1066 A new ruling class coming from France went into power. The Normans spoke French while Latin was the language of the Church and education and English was still the language of the majority of the population

1204 The Normans lost their power in favour of English kings

1215 The Magna Charta Libertatum (in Latin)

The most authoritative example of written literary English: The Canterbury Tales by G. Chaucer (14th century)

1476 Introduction of the printing press in England by William Caxton

Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)The Canterbury Tales

Canterbury Cathedral

From Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales

Middle English:Thanne were ther yonge povre scolers two,That dwelten in this halle, of which I seye.

PDE: Then there were two young poor scholars,Who dwelt in this hall, of which I tell.

features of Middle English

• reduction of the case system in particular in nouns and adjectives

• development of the future with shall/will and the present progressive

• introduction of the pronoun “she/shoe”• increasingly fixed word order, with some variation• French (e.g. “marry” from “marier”) and Latin (e.g.

“inferior”) influence on vocabulary

Modern English (c. 1500-c.1900) Chapter 1, § 3.3.

Major historical/cultural events in the Modern English period

TWO MAJOR DEVELOPMENTS:

1. BRITAIN BECAME A UNITED AND POWERFUL COUNTRY (but with 7 million inhabitants!)

• Separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic Church• Queen Elisabeth I established the power of Britain on the seas• Great flourishing of the theatre and literature (Shakespeare, The Authorized

Translation of the Bible)• The English Civil War over the power of the Parliament versus the power of

the Monarchy• In 1702 England and Scotland were united under the British Crown

2. BRITAIN BECAME A COLONIAL WORLD POWER • Since the I7th century English trading companies in India and slave trade in

Africa • Since the 17th century stable colonies established in America, Australia, New

Zealand, Canada, The Caribbean and South Africa• 19th century colonial empire in Asia and Africa

Queen Elizabeth I (1533-1603)

William SHAKESPEARE (baptised 26 April 1564 and died 23 April 1616)

1611 King James’ Authorized Version of the Bible in English

THE BEHEADING OF CHARLES I DURING THE CIVIL WAR (1649)

The British Empire

A quotation from Love’s Labour Lost by Shakespeare

CURAT I praise God for you sir, your reasons at

dinner haue beene sharpe and sententious: pleasant without scurrillity, witty without affection, audacious without impudency, learned without opinion, and strange without heresie: I did conuerse this quondam day with a companion…

(Late) Modern English (1500-1900)

• Simplification of inflection (only ‘s genitive and -s plural in nouns, the comparative and superlative endings in adjectives) with the exception of pronouns

• Tendency to fixed word order

• Debate between Neologisers ( in favour of words of foreign origin) and Purists ( in favour of native words)

Standard English• Development of a standard form of English

through long processes of selection (London English) and codification through grammars and dictionaries

• Development of a standard accent : The Received Pronunciation (RP)

Samuel JOHNSON’S DICTIONARY 1755

LEXICO’GRAPHER. n.s. [? lixicographe, French.] A writer of dictionories; a harmless drudge, that busies himself in tracing the original, and detailing the signification of words.

Commentators and lexicographers acquainted with the Syriac language, have given these hints in their writings on scripture. Watt’s Improvement of the Mind.

The four main periods of English: a summary

Old English (700-1100 c.)● fully inflected● free word order● Germanic vocabulary

Middle English (1100-1500)● reduced inflection● increasingly fixed word

order● French influence on

vocabulary

Modern English (1500-1900)● very limited inflection● greater use of fixed word order● codification of language

Present-day English (1900-nowdays)

● language spread and differentiation

● formation of new varieties worldwide

● English as a global lingua franca

The reasons for the present predominance of English in the world: a summary

External reasons: the colonial and industrial power of Great Britain in the 18th and 19h centuries; the political, economic and technological power of the USA in the 20th century; the number of speakers; the geographical spread; cultural heritage

and/or

Internal reasons: clarity, simplicity, size of its vocabulary, flexibility in creating new words, adaptability to distant contexts

Present-day English (1900-nowdays)

Chapter 1, §4.1-4.10

MAIN POLITICAL AND CULTURAL EVENTS

1. English is the official – or main- language of many important countries in the world (e.g. UK, USA, Australia, Canada, New Zealand).

2. English has been retained as the official language (along with other native languages) in more than 70 former British colonies after their political independence (e.g. in India, and several African countries).

3. English has acquired growing importance worldwide in science, technology, international organisations and business.

WHY HAS ENGLISH BECOME A “GLOBAL” LANGUAGE?

1. Native varieties of English (ENL or L1)2 Varieties of English as a Second Language (ESL or L2),

used intranationally in former British colonies in the institutional, media and educational fields.

3. English as a Foreign language (EFL), English as a lingua franca (ELF), English for Special Purposes (ESP), Business English, English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Airspeak, Policespeak…

4. Within each category there is a continuum from an educated standard to a very limited form of communication

The three-circles model for PDE by B. Katchru

Native varieties or “Colonial Englishes”, are…

• a set of different but related varieties which share a common core of grammar and vocabulary

• they differ mainly in pronunciation and lexis

• the two main ones are British English and American English

• they provide the norms for EFL learners

Second language varieties, or New Englishes …

• are used in institutional or educational contexts in multilingual countries, usually former British colonies

• have gone through a process of language contact (e.g. as honest as an elephant)

• have been progressively acknowledged as local standards (e.g. Indian English, East-African English)

• share common features that are different from native standard varieties

Are these mistakes or the result of linguistic creativity? (see. pp. 49-53)

1. I was feeling thirsty, so I bought one soda

2. Last time she come on Thursday3. We are having something to do4. Whenever we go there they be playing5. She came yesterday, isn’t it?

The speech community of PDE

• bi-lingualism or multilingualism is the norm• languages play an important role in the

construction of people’s identities• language contact• nativization, hybridization, code-switching• new coinages: been-to= a person who has

spent a long time abroad; change-room= dressing room

English as a foreign language

Various options: - choose one of the native standards for production

on the basis of proximity, tradition, personal needs or taste (e.g. British English or American English)

- favour a non-native model, English as a Lingua Franca

but - be prepared to understand different varieties

English as a Lingua Franca

1. in the past contact languages for trade (e.g. PIDGINS and CREOLES in Africa based on English and African languages )

2. now in international scientific conferences, business meetings or the internet ( based on a core of norms drawing on British and American English and intended to guarantee mutual international intelligibility)

The predominance of English

ADVANTAGES DISADVANTAGES

positive negative

World languages have always existed

A world language is necessary in a globalised world

A post-national language may be useful to world democracy and citizenship

…

English is killing other languages and cultures

People are becoming lazy in learning other languages

English expresses a particular world view and favours its native speakers (cultural imperialism)

English has become uncontrollable

What about interpreters and translators?

Who owns English today?

“…the English language ceased to be the sole possession of the English some time ago”

(Rushdie, 1991)

WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE OF ENGLISH?

FROM

ENGLISH

TO ENGLISHES

Will English …?

1. go on being a polycentric language comprising several mutually intelligible varieties ?

2. achieve a balance between identity and international intelligibility?

3. remain strong until English-speaking countries are powerful ?

4. fragment into mutually unintelligible languages as already happened for Romance languages?

5. be rejected as a symbol of colonialism (e.g. Malaysia) or cultural imperialism

6. be spoken as a simplified lingua franca by non-native speakers?