Language Diversity Edexcel Unit 3

MIDDLE ENGLISH

1450 - Great vowel shift began

1476 - Caxton printing press came to England

1485 - the Renaissance

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

1526 - Tyndale's english bible

1660 - Royal society formed

MODERN ENGLISH

1704 - Newton wrote in English

1755 - Johnsons dictionary

Lexis

• Semantic fields and origins of words, lots of borrowings of words from latin, french and german
• Change in word meaning, register drift (worse) amelioration (better)

Orthography

• cw for qu - cween
• o for oo - fod
• s/z interchangable
• terminal e
• Runic symbol (thorn) Þ
• i/y interchangeable

Grammar

• Use of inflections
• syntax placement
• plural inflections

Historical Context

• Caxtons prining press 1476
• Renaissance 1500
• Mulcaster's Elementarie 1582
• Tyndale's bible printed 1526

Orthography

• u/v interchangable - v for intial, u for medial. U was seen in the old English as the lower case V
• Terminal -e - Pronouciation, magic e not consistantly established, may reflect earlier inflections, typographical reasons

Graphology

• Y as th - rune thorn letter, looked more like a y. Caxton had no thorn so used y and then th
• Long S - not used for terminals, overlapping on print and confused with f.

Morphology

• Third person singular inflection 'eth' - simplification to s. Shakespere used both eth and s
• Second person singular inflection 'est' - simplification to become archaic

Grammar

• Archaic 2nd person pronouns - thou (singular informal subject) thee (singular informal object) ye (plural or formal subject) you (plural or formal object)

Historical Context

• Johnsons Dictionary 1755
• Lowth's English Grammar 1799
• Websters American Dictionary 1828
• Education compulsary up to 12 1870

Process of standardisation due to dictionary and grammar books. The progression between early modern and current standard English

Historical Context

• 1620 - Pilgrim fathers land on America
• 1633-1732 - More immigrants arrive from all over Europe
• 1783 - Webster Blue back speller; changes the way many English words are spelt

Wild Wild West

• Phonetic pronouciation
• Idomatic and figurative expressions
• Dialoge to represent spoken voice

Pidgin - A simplified language that develops as a means of communication between people that do not share a language

Creole - a stable language that orginated from a pidgin language that has been nativised (Acrolect is closest. Basilect is most remote)

Decreolisation - The concept of loosing conventional language features due to the pollution of other languages

Phonology

• Loss of distinction between /i/ and /e/ e.g pin pen
• Loss of distinction between th unvoiced and /f/ and between th voiced /th/ and /v/ or /d/ interdental and labiodental sounds

Morphology

• Ellision and contraction eg. he gonna be mad, he cryin'

Grammar

• Negation; Double negative and negative constructions - He don't know nothing
• Ommision of auxiliary verbs eg. he happy
• Verb to be indicates a regular or continuous action eg. he be dancing
• Deletion of the copula verb eg. that 'feels' nice
• 3rd person singular uninflected for person eg. he walk to school
• Nouns uninflected for possession eg. his sister doctor
• Syntax in questions reversed eg. who that is?
• Simplification of pronouns

Lexis

• Many convicts came from london so strong cockney influence
• Slang used
• Vivid idioms
• Informalisation
• Frequent use of taboo (amelioration)

Grammar

• Reversal of politeness features
• tmesis - inserting a word inside another eg. kanga-freaking-roo

Phonology

• Indistingishble /ai/ /ei/ eg. main and mine
• additional schwa sound before nasal phonemes
• Heavy use of HRT

South Asian English (indian)

Phonology

• stress timed so all syllables are said in equal time
• lack of difference between /v/ and /w/
• voiced dental fricative replaced with d
• Voiceless dental fricative replaced with t

Grammar

• use of plural on non countable nouns eg. litters
• Prepositions vary to standard eg. pay attention on
• Use of the continuous verb eg. i am understanding it
• use of agreement eg. the man didnt go to the shop // yes

Kachru

• Inner circle - norm providing (uk, usa, australia)
• Outer Circle - norm developing (india, creoles)
• Expanding circle - norm dependant (English as a second language)

Schnieder - post colonial English

• exonormative stabilisation (seperate social group)
• nativisation
• endonormative stabilisaion (political independence, language is a variety in its own right)
• differentiation (social and regional dialects)

English as a lingua franca (ELF)

• Crystal - bidialectalism (know local language but be able to speak a world language
• 89% of european school kids learn English

Future of English (Crystal)

Disintegration

• Each country has own English
• Corrupted by local language
• adapts itself to local context

Uniformity

• world standard emerging through globalisation (technology)
• number of different languages reducing