Course title: History of the English Language
Summer term: 2012-2013
ECTS: 5 points
Course convenor: Professor Milena Žic Fuchs
Lecturer: Vlatko Broz
Language: English
Term: Second term of graduate studies
Requisites: Attending this course does not require any requisites, except being enrolled in the term in which the course is given.
Course format: 4 lecture classes a week
Objective: Gaining an insight into the development of the English language and its characteristics in relation to society and its development. This is a general educational course for all students of English.
Contents: The course gives an overview of social happenings and their interplay with the language use, from settling the British Isle to this day, as well as an overview of the most important factors that cause changes or stop them.
| Week | Topic |
| 1 | Introduction. Periodization. Language Types. Indo-European Languages. Germanic Languages. Old English. |
| 2 | Comparative Method. Grimm’s Law and Proto-Germanic.Old English Spelling and Phonology.Old English Names and Old English Dialects. Runes. |
| 3 | Old English Morphology – paradigms (nouns, verbs, pronouns). |
| 4 | Old English Lexicon and Semantics, Scandinavian influence |
| 5 | Old English Syntax and Verb Phrase |
| 6 | Translating Old English texts (Aelfric, Anglo-Saxon Chronicle, Alfred and Beowulf). |
| 7 | Middle English. Introduction.Consequences of Norman Invasion. New phonemes. Lost inflections. |
| 8 | Middle English dialects.Orthography. Word formation. |
| 9 | Middle English Vocabulary. Loanwords. Syntax. |
| 10 | Reading Middle English texts (The Peterborough Chronicle, The Canterbury Tales, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight). |
| 11 | Early Modern English. Caxton and printing.Emergence of Standard English. |
| 12 | The Great Vowel Shift.Grammaticalization. |
| 13 | Rise of prescriptivism. Dictionaries and Grammars.Vocabulary. |
| 14 | Shakespeare. Status of English. The rise of world standard Englishes.Late Modern English. |
| 15 | Modern EnglishRevisionExam |
Class methods and procedures:
Students should regularly attend classes and participate in class discussions.
Evaluation:
Exam 70 %
Seminar papers 30 %
Compulsory literature:
– Baugh, Albert C. and Cable, Thomas (2002), A History of the English
– Language. Fifth Edition. Routledge. London.
– Barber, Charles (1993), The English Language. A Historical Introduction.
– Cambridge University Press. Cambridge
– Crystal, David. (1995), The Cambridge Encyclopaedia of the English
– Language, Cambridge University Press. Cambridge. (Chapters 2 &3; 7)
Additional literature:
– Baker, Peter (2003). Introduction to Old English. Blackwell publishing.
– The Cambridge History of the English Language. Volumes I – III. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
– Crystal, David. (2004), The Stories of English. Allen Lane, Penguin. London
– Fennell, Barbara. (2001), A History of English, A Sociolinguistic Approach. Blackwell Publishing. Cornwall.
– Freeborn, Dennis. (1998), From Old English to Standard English. Second Edition. Palgrave. Handmills
– Görlach, Manfred. (1994), The Linguistic History of English. Palgrave Macmillan.
– Görlach, Manfred. (1991), Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge University Press. Cambridge.
– Hogg, Richard. (2002), An Introduction to Old English. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh
– Horobin, Simon i Smith, Jeremy (2002), An Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh University Press. Edinburgh.
– Millward, C.M. (1996), A Biography of the English Language. Boston: Holt, Rinehart and Winston, Inc.
– Pyles, Thomas i Algeo, John. (1993), The Origins and Development of the English Language. Fourth Edition. Ted Buchholz. Boston.
– Smith, Jeremy. (1999) Essentials of Early English. Routledge
