History of English II (Q1080)

History of English II (Q1080)

Module Document

Spring-Summer 2014

Source:forum.getdpi.com

Teaching: One 50-minute lecture per week plus one 50-minute seminar per week.

The venue:

Lecture Wednesday 10.00-10.50in Jubilee 144

Seminar (group 1) Thursday 10.00-10.50 in Friston 116

Seminar (group 2) Thursday 13.00-13.50in Bramber 253

Seminar (group 3) Thursday 14.00-14.50in Bramber 253

Note: For week 8 sessions, seminars 2 and 3 will take place on Tuesday of week 9, (Tuesday 18th March) at 11.00 and 12.00 in Jubilee G35, instead of Thursday 13th March.

Seminars for all seminar groups take place in:

• The usual rooms in weeks 1–9; 12
• JMS 1B1 in weeks 10 and 11

Tutors:

Convenor and co-tutor:
Dr Justyna Robinson
Office:Arts B-246
/ Co-tutor:
Dr Lynne Cahill
Office:Arts B-243
/ Co-tutor:
Dr Katie Walter
Office:Arts B-231

Objectives: This module represents an introduction to the principles of language change,

and illustrates these principles via an exploration of early English, covering the period from

Old English to Early Middle English with a brief look at the linguistic prehistory of the language. The module investigates changesin the phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax and lexicon of English during the OldEnglish and Early Middle English periods. In this module you will

• deploy basic principles of descriptive and historical linguistics,
• analyse various aspects of Old English and Early Middle English texts,
• demonstrate factual knowledge about changes in early English,
• demonstrate linguistic understanding of those changes.

Prerequisites: Foundations of Grammar (Q1068) or Approaches to Grammar (Q1028),

Approaches to Meaning (in English),Approaches to Pronunciation or modules equivalent to

those listed.

Attendance: You are required to attend all lectures and seminars scheduled. If you miss a

class, it is your responsibility to notify the tutor in advance, and to find out what you

missed.

Credits/Assessment: 15 credits. Assessed by a 1,500-word data analysis exercise (30%)

to be submitted in week 6 of the spring term, and by a one-hour unseen exam in the summer

term (70%).

Misconduct: Unless you are expressly instructed otherwise, you are required to do your

own work on all modulework (and examinations). Collaboration with other students or with

anyone else constitutes collusion. Submitting someone else’s work as your own,

regardless of the source of that work, is plagiarism. Both collusion and plagiarism are

serious offences; anyone found guilty of either offence will face very serious penalties, up to

and including dismissal from the University. When you cite someone else’s work, including

in an oral presentation, be sure to make it clear that you are doing so, and be sure to

identify both the work cited and the source of that work. See Guide to Writing and Planning

Essays and Dissertations on your Study Direct site for this module.

Syllabus (preliminary)

Wk 1Introduction: the World of Old English and the ancestry of EnglishLynne

Wk 2The sounds (and spelling) of Old English Lynne

Wk 3Major sound changes from Old to Early Modern English Lynne

Wk 4Analogy and Old English nominal and verbal inflection Lynne

Wk 5Grammaticalisation: the emergence of new categories Lynne

Wk 6Reanalysis and word order change in English Lynne

Wk 7Reading week (no classes)

Wk 8/9Multilingualism and code-switching in Medieval EnglandKatie

Wk 9Place names as evidence of language contact in early Britain Justyna

Wk 10Sources of new vocabulary in Old and Middle English Justyna

Wk 11Semantic change in ‘older’ EnglishJustyna

Wk 12Revision LynneandJustyna

Reading list

Below is a list of textbooks that will be referred to regularly throughout the module. If you

want to buy a book, we suggest that the following titles are the most useful, but no single textbook contains all the material covered in themodule.

Recommended textbook on history of English:

• Baugh, Albert C. and Thomas Cable. 2013. A History of the English Language. 6th

ed. Abingdon: Routledge.

[5th edition is available as an ebook at:

Recommended textbooks on historical linguistics in general:

• McMahon, April M. S. 1994. Understanding Language Change. Cambridge: CUP.
• McColl Millar, Robert (and Larry Trask). 2007. Trask’s Historical Linguistics (2nd ed.

revised by Robert McColl Millar). London: Hodder Arnold.

(The McMahon book is probably stronger on English, while the Trask book is probably stronger on historical linguistics, but with more examples from other languages.)

Recommended reading:

Aitchison, Jean. 2012. Language Change: Progress or Decay? (4th ed.) Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Allan, Kathryn and Justyna A. Robinson (eds.). 2012. Current Methods in HistoricalSemantics. Berlin: De Gruyter.

Bailey, Richard W. 1992. Images of English: A Cultural History of the Language. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Barber, Charles, Joan Beal & Philip A. Shaw. 2009. The English Language: A HistoricalIntroduction, 2nd ed. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Baker, Peter S. 2012. Introduction to Old English, 3rd ed. Chichester: Blackwell. Also see

Blake, Norman Francis (ed.) 2004. The Cambridge History of the English Language. Vol. 2:1066-1476. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Brinton, L. and L. Arnovick. 201.) The English Language. A Linguistic History. Second Edition. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Campbell, Lyle. 1998. Historical Linguistics: An Introduction. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Crystal, David. 2005. The Stories of English. London: Penguin.

Denison, David, Ricardo Bermúdez-Otero, Chris McCully, & Emma Moore (eds.) 2011.Analysing Older English. Cambridge: CUP.

Durkin, Philip. 2009 The Oxford Guide to Etymology. Oxford: Oxford University Press.Fennel, Barbara. 2001 A History of English: A Sociolinguistic Approach. Oxford: Blackwell.

Freeborn, Dennis. 2006 From Old English to Standard English: A Module Book in LanguageVariation across Time, 3rd ed. Basingstoke: Palgrave MacMillan.

Gramley, Stephan. 2011. The History of English. An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Hock, Hans-Henrich. 1991. Principles of Historical Linguistics (2nd ed.). Berlin: de Gruyter.

Hock, Hans-Henrich & Brian D. Joseph. 1996. Language History, Language Change andLanguage Relationship: An Introduction to Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Berlin: de Gruyter.

Hogg, Richard. 2002. An Introduction to Old English. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Hogg, Richard. & David Denison (eds.) 2006. A History of the English Language.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Hopper, Paul and Traugott, Elizabeth. 1993. Grammaticalization. Cambridge: CambridgeUniversity Press.

Horobin, Simon. 2009. Studying the history of early English. Basingstoke: Palgrave.

Horobin, Simon and J.J. Smith. 2002. An Introduction to Middle English.Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Hunt, Tony. 2000. ‘Code-Switching in Medical Texts’. In Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain, ed. D. A. Trotter. Cambridge: Brewer, 2000. Pp. 131-47.

Ingham, Richard P. 2012. The Transmission of Anglo-Norman: Language history and language acquisition. Amsterdam: John Benjamins

Labov, William. 1994. Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors. Oxford: Blackwell.Lass, Roger and John M. Anderson. 2010. Old English Phonology. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Lehmann, Winfred. 1992. Historical Linguistics: an Introduction (3rd ed.). London: Routledge.

Leith, Dick. 1997. A Social History of English, 2nd ed. London: Routledge. [Also availableas an ebook at:

McCully, Chris and Sharon Hilles. 2004. The Earliest English: An Introduction to Old EnglishLanguage. London: Longman.

Millward, C. M. 1996. A Biography of the English Language. Fort Worth: Holt, Rinehart & Winston.

Mitchell, Bruce & Fred C. Robinson. 2007. A Guide to Old English (7th ed.). Oxford: Blackwell.

Mugglestone, Linda. 2006 The Oxford History of the English Language. Oxford: OxfordUniversity Press.

Nevalainen, T. & Elizabeth C. Traugott (Eds.) 2012. The Oxford Handbook of the History of English. Oxford: Oxford University Press. [very useful for methods and evidence in the History of English].

Pyles, Thomas and John Algeo (2009) The Origins and Development of the English Language, 6th edition. Boston: Wadsworth

Schendl, Herbert and Laura Wright, eds.2011. Code-switching in Early English. Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Singh, Ishtla. 2005. The History of English. London: Hodder Arnold.

Smith, J.J. 2005. Essentials of Early English, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.

Trask, Larry. 2000. The Dictionary of Historical and Comparative Linguistics. Edinburgh:Edinburgh University Press.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Dasher, Richard B. 2001. Regularity in Semantic Change.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Traugott, Elizabeth Closs, and Heine, Bernd (eds). 1991. Approaches toGrammaticalization. Benjamins.

van Kemenade, Ans. & Bettelou Los. 2006. The Handbook of the History of English.London: Blackwell. [Also available as an ebook at:

Wright, Laura (ed.) 2000. The Development of Standard English, 1300-1800: Theories,Descriptions, Conflicts. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wright, Laura 2011. “Semantic shift of the colour-terms maroon and magenta in British Standard English”.Revista de Lengua para Fines Específicos, 17, 341-374.

Further reading:

Burnley, J.D. 2000 The History of the English Language: A Source-Book, 2nd ed. London:Longman.

Crowley, Tony. 1996. Language in History: Theories and Texts. London: Routledge.

Crystal, David. 2003 The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, 2nd ed.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Part One: The History of English].

Crowley, Terry. 1992. An Introduction to Historical Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford UniversityPress.

Fitzmaurice, Susan & Irma Taavitsainen (Eds.). 2007. Methods in Historical Pragmatics.Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Fitzmaurice, Susan & Donka Minkova (Eds.). 2008. Empirical and Analytical Advances inthe Study of English Language Change Berlin: Mouton de Gruyter.

Fox, Anthony. 1995. Linguistic Reconstruction: An Introduction to Theory and Method.Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Harris, Alice C., and Campbell, Lyle. 1995. Historical Syntax in Cross-linguistic Perspective.Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Haspelmath, Martin. 1993. The diachronic externalization of inflection. Linguistics 31: 279-309.

Hawkins, John A. 1979. Implicational universals as predictors of word order change.Language 55: 618-48.

Hibbert, C. 1992 .The Story of England. London: Phaidon.Hickey, Raymond, 2003. Motives for Language Change. Cambridge: Cambridge UniversityPress.

Joseph, Brian D., and Janda, Richard D. (eds.) 2002. Handbook of Historical Linguistics.

Blackwell.

Knowles, Gerry. 1997. A Cultural History of the English Language. London: Arnold.Lass, Roger. 1987. The Shape of English: Structure and History. London: Edward Arnold.

Lightfoot, David. 1999. The Development of Language: Acquisition, Change and Evolution.Blackwell.

McCrum, Robert, William Cran & Robert MacNeil. 2002. The Story of English (rev. ed.).London: Faber & Faber

McIntyre, Dan. 2009. History of English: A Resource Book for Students. London:Routledge.

McMahon, April. 2000. Lexical Phonology and the History of English. Cambridge:Cambridge University Press.

Milroy, James. 1992. Linguistic Variation and Change: On the Historical Sociolinguistics ofEnglish. Blackwell.

Moder, Carol Lynn. 1992. Rules and analogy. In Explanation in Historical Linguistics, eds.Garry W. Davis and Gregory K. Iverson. Benjamins, 179-91.

Sebba, Mark. 1997. Contact Languages: Pidgins and Creoles. London: Macmillan.Singh, Gurmit. 2005. History of English: A Student’s Guide. London: Hodder

Smith, J.J. 1996. An Historical Study of English: Function, Form and Change. London:Routledge.

Thomason, Sarah G. & Terrence Kaufman. 1988. Language Contact, Creolization andGenetic Linguistics. Berkeley: University of California Press.

Trotter, D. A., ed. 2000. Multilingualism in Later Medieval Britain. Cambridge: Brewer.

van Gelderen, Elly. 2006. A History of the English Language. Amsterdam: John Benjamins.Voyles, J. B. 1992. Early Germanic Grammar. London: Academic Press.

van Kemenade, A. & B. Los (2006) A Handbook of the History of English. London: Blackwell.Also available as an ebook at:

Academic Journals:

Anglo-Norman Studies

Diachronica: International Journal for Historical Linguistics

English Studies

Journal of English Linguistics

Language Variation and Change

Transactions of the Philological Society

Electronic resources:

 The Labyrinth: Medieval studies resources at Georgetwon University:

 Anglo-Saxon and Medieval studies links at UC Santa Barbara:

 Old English at University of Virginia (links, fonts, annotated texts, exercises …)

 Beowulf in cyberspace (Bewowulf on Steorarume)

 The Canterbury Tales online

 Baker, Peter S. The Electronic Introduction to Old English:

 An Old English on-line dictionary:

 The University of Michigan Middle English Dictionary:

 University of Glasgow Electronic Thesaurus of Old English:

Anglo-Norman Hub (dictionary, original texts, research papers)

 An Annotated Bibliography of Printed and Online Primary Sources for the Middle Ages

Corpus of Narrative Etymologies

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