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Lecture 1 (2 hours)
Introduction to the course: What is Linguistics?
Theory and history of the English Language (EL) and its main branches.
Goal: to know the subject and aims of the theory and history of the English language
Plan:
1. Definition of "Linguistics" and prominent scholars' suggestions to language consideration.
2. The subject, the aim and the main tasks / problems of the theory and history of EL (HEL)
3. Methods and sources of studying the HEL
4. The connection between the HEL and the history of its people
5. The periodization of the HEL
1. Linguistics is the scientific study of human language. Linguistics can be broadly broken into three categories or subfields of study: language form, language meaning, and language in context.
One subfield of linguistics is the study of language structure, or grammar. This focuses on the system of rules followed by the users of one or more languages.
Linguistics also looks at the broader context in which language is influenced by social, cultural, historical and political factors.
The term linguist applies within the field to someone who studies language, or specific languages. Outside the field, this term is commonly used to refer to people who speak many languages fluently.
Linguistics concerns itself with describing and explaining the nature of human language. Fundamental questions include what is universal to language, how language can vary, and how human beings come to know languages. Linguistic research can broadly be divided into the descriptive analysis of structure and grammar on the one hand and the study of non-linguistic influences on language on the other.
Linguistics is the study of language, sometimes called the science of language.{1} The subject has become a very technical, splitting into separate fields: sound (phonetics and phonology), sentence structure (syntax, structuralism, deep grammar), meaning (semantics), practical psychology (psycholinguistics) and contexts of language choice (pragmatics).
Ferdinand de Saussure (1857-1913)
Ferdinand de Saussure tentatively suggested that language be seen as a game of chess, where the history of past moves is irrelevant to the players, a way though the impasse was quickly recognized. Saussure sketched some possibilities. If the word high-handed falls out of use, then synonyms like arrogant and presumptuous will extend their uses. If we drop the final f or v the results in English are not momentous (we might still recognize belie as belief from the context), but not if the final s is dropped (we should then have to find some new way of indicating plurals).
Words are signs, and in linguistics we are studying the science of signs: semiology. And signs took on a value depending on words adjacent in use or meaning. English has sheep and mutton but French has only mouton for both uses. Above all (extending the picture of a chess game) we should understand that language was a totality of linguistic possibilities, where the "move" of each word depended on the possible moves of others.
Noam Chomsky and Generative Grammar
Avram Noam Chomsky (1928- ) and his followers have transformed linguistics. Indeed, despite many difficulties and large claims later retracted, the school of deep or generative grammar still holds centre stage. Chomsky came to prominence in a 1972 criticism of the behavourist's B.F. Skinner's book Verbal Behaviour. Linguistic output was not simply related to input. Far from it, and a science which ignored what the brain did to create its novel outputs was no science at all. Chomsky was concerned to explain two striking features of language — the speed with which children acquire a language, and its astonishing fecundity, our ability to create a endless supply of grammatically correct sentences without apparently knowing the rules. How was that possible? Only by having a) an underlying syntax and b) rules to convert syntax to what we speak. The syntax was universal and simple. A great diversity of sentences can be constructed with six symbols. Take a cats sits on the mat. Older readers will remember their parsing exercises at school: indefinite article, noun, verb, preposition, definite article, noun.
2. Any language can be studied in different aspects: 1) phonetics; 2) grammar; 3) wordstock (vocabulary).
The aim of this course is to study different linguistic processes, to show causes and ways of formation of specific linguistic features of the EL.
The EL is closely connected with cognate languages. In the process of the development of it two main trends can be observed: 1) the appearance of new forms and words; 2) the disappearance of the obsolete forms.
1) Phonetics and spelling. English spelling is difficult because it is more traditional, more conventional than phonetics. The value of Latin letters differs from their value in other cognate languages, such as German or French: bite – 4 letters, 3 sounds; night – 5 letters, 3 sounds. Sound system changes rather slowly because it must constantly preserve the contrast between the phonemes that are essential to the differentiation between morphemes.
2) Grammar. During the historical development of the EL some grammatical forms appeared, others became obsolete and disappeared. Every language has an organized structure of grammar. Any changes meet all these requirements and correlate with the norms of the language. Some changes meet exceptions: a book – books, but a woman – women. The lady doth protest too much. Grammar changes very slowly because grammar structure provides frames and patterns for other systems of the language.
3) Word stock. It’s a part of the language that changes more rapidly. In the process of the English development a lot of words of French origin appeared in the EL. The fact that words of the French origin occur very often in the English word stock proves that the process of borrowings is a characteristic feature in a language. Changes in the vocabulary can be observed during the lifetime of one generation: borrowing of a coined word can appear as the result of achievements in technological, economical, computer spheres of life. It is necessary to state that changes in the word stock are also caused by changes in the linguistic groups to which a language belongs. But all alterations in the word stock do not break up the language system, they support it and show how it works.
English is a member of the Indo-European family of languages. This broad family includes most of the European languages spoken today. The Indo-European family includes several major branches: Latin and the modern Romance languages (French, etc.); the Germanic languages (English, German, Swedish etc.); the Indo-Iranian languages (Hindi, Urdu, Sanskrit etc.); the Slavic languages (Russian, Polish, Czech etc.); the Baltic languages of Latvian and Lithuanian;the Celtic languages (Welsh, Irish Gaelic etc.); Greek.
The influence of the original Indo-European language can be seen today, even though no written record of it exists. The word for father, for example, is vater in German, pater in Latin, and pitr in Sanskrit. These words are all cognates, similar words in different languages that share the same root.
Of these branches of the Indo-European family, two are, as far as the study of the development of English is concerned, of paramount importance, the Germanic and the Romance (called that because the Romance languages derive from Latin, the language of ancient Rome). English is a member of the Germanic group of languages. It is believed that this group began as a common language in the Elbe river region about 3,000 years ago. By the second century BC, this Common Germanic language had split into three distinct sub-groups:
The history of the English language really started with the arrival of three Germanic tribes who invaded Britain during the 5th century AD. These tribes, the Angles, the Saxons and the Jutes, crossed the North Sea from what today is Denmark and northern Germany. At that time the inhabitants of Britain spoke a Celtic language. But most of the Celtic speakers were pushed west and north by the invaders - mainly into what is now Wales, Scotland and Ireland. The Angles came from "England" [sic] and their language was called "Englisc" - from which the words "England" and "English" are derived.
3. Methods of studying the history of EL
Any language can be investigated with the help of two main scientific approaches: 1) synchronic; 2) diachronic. According to the synchronic approach, all linguistic factors of modern English are analyzed. According to the diachronic approach, any language phenomenon is treated as part of ever-lasting process and evolution.
In order to learn as much as possible about the language, its necessary to analyze linguistic factors not only from the point of the synchronic approach, but also with the help of the diachronic one. The division between synchronic and diachronic approaches is conventional. This division exists more in theory than in practice.
In the diachronic approach to studying the language two main methods are used: the comparative method and the internal reconstruction method. The comparative method compares variations between different languages. For example, full cognates have similar phonetic and semantic structure and share the same etymology: Lat. padre, Eng. father, G. vater, etc.; root cognates have the same origin but only in their root: Lat. deus, Sanskrit devah, Eng. divine. The internal reconstruction method compares variant forms within a single language under the assumption that they descend from a single, regular form.
Sources of studying the history of EL are based on different English historical documents and English texts which formed the English language: for example, “The Song of Beowulf”; King’s Alfred translation of Orosius’s “Universal History”; Chaucer’s “The Canterbury Tales”; W. Shakespeare’s “Hamlet”.
4. The connection between the HEL and the history of its people
All linguistic alterations are interconnected or closely connected with the events which take place in the political, economical, cultural life of people, i.e. with the history of the country. As a result, new words and word combinations appear in a language in order to name the things that exist in different periods of the development of the country. Example: During the reign of the Normans, many words related to the ruling classes and the business of government entered English from French. Among these words are: attorney, bailiff, baron, city, conservative, countess, county, damage, duchess, duke, empire, executive, felony, govern, judicial, jury, justice, legislative, liberal, marriage, nobility, parliament, perjury, petty, prince, prison, regal, representative, republic, royal, senator, sovereign, state, traitor, viscount.
5. The periodization of the HEL
The history of English is divided into three periods usually called Old English (or AngloSaxon), Middle English, and Modern English.
The periods of English:
1) 450–1100 – Old English (OE) – the language of Beowulf. Beowulf is an anonymous Old English epic poem in alliterative verse, believed to have been composed in the 8th century A.D.
2) 1100–1500 – Middle English (ME) – The language of Geoffrey Chaucer (?1340-1400), the English poet who wrote “The Canterbury Tales”.
3) 1500–till today – Modern English (ModE, or NE):
3.1. 1500–1650 – Early Modern English (or Renaissance English) – the language of William Shakespeare.
3.2. 1650 – Present Modern English (or Present-Day English) – the language as spoken today.
This periodization is conventional and based on the historical events of the country.
Add. Literature:
1. ГЕЛЬБЕРГ С. Курс истории английского языка: Учеб. пособие. – Ижевск,
2003.
2. ИВАНОВА И.П., ЧАХОЯН Л.П., БЕЛЯЕВА Т.М. История английского
языка; Хрестоматия; Словарь. – СПб., 2006.
3. ИВАНОВА И.П., ЧАХОЯН Л.П., БЕЛЯЕВА Т.М. Практикум по истории
английского языка. – СПб., 2005.
4. МАТВЕЕВА Е.А. История английского языка. – М., 2006.
5. РАСТОРГУЕВА Т.А. История английского языка: Учебник. – М., 2001. (на
англ. яз.)
6. РЕЗНИК И. В., РЕЗНИК Р. В., СОРОКИНА Т. С., СОРОКИНА Т. А. A
History of the English Language = История английского языка. – М., 2003 (на
англ. яз.)
7. СМИРНИЦКИЙ А.И. Древнеанглийский язык. – М., 2006.
8. СМИРНИЦКИЙ А.И. Лекции по истории английского языка (средний и
новый период). – М., 2006.
9. ХЛЕБНИКОВА И.Б. Введение в германскую филологию и историю
английского языка. – М., 2001.
10. ХРЕСТОМАТИЯ ПО ИСТОРИИ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА (с VII по XVII
вв.) = A Reader in the History of English (from the VII to the XVII century): учеб.
пособие / Авт.-сост. Е.К. Щука, С.Е. Олейник, В.А. Мальцева. – Мн.: Лексис,
2007.
11. CRYSTAL D. The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language. – 2nd ed.
12. Антрушина Г.Б., Афанасьева О.В., Морозова Н.Н. «Лексикология английского языка». М.: Дрофа, 2004
13. Расторгуева Т.А. «История английского языка». М.: Астрель, 2003