English Language eMode History

The Americans who Risked Everything "Our lives, our fortunes, our sacred honor" Standing up to tyranny for the cause of freedom Braveheart The Lord of the Ring This is what Jesus did for us Luke 19:10 Romans 8:1,2English at the Onset of Normative Tradition EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Introduction Mobility: Geographical & Social Spoken English Letter Writing Social Networks & Linguistic Influence Conclusion Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010English at the Onset of Normative Tradition EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Introduction 18th Century – The desire and push for a standard language -Royal Society assigned the task – But Shakespeare broke the rules Codification was the process – the goal, not done by the Royal Society, but by private individuals Grammar, lexicon, punctuation books developed to establish a standard Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Mobility: Geographical & Social EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Accents & dialects from geographical region, intimacy, and social class Regional accents were shibboleths People were embarrassed of their linguistic heritage Should they have been? Explain Others changed out of necessity – to get ahead – and in so doing – morphed their dialect and the standard dialect Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Spoken English Evidence also exists that demonstrate changes in spoken language Letters & Journals reveal spoken grammar and vocab Double negatives Play scripts, novelists, poets also wrote dialects – fictional ones Boswell & Burney kept journals of life's events – they reveal different dialects for private & public Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010 EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 The great Age of the Personal Letter – Who writes letters and mails them today? Many letters – personal & formal – demonstrate different language (syntax, lexicon, punctuation) The letters help linguists reconstruct social systems Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Social Networks – embrace a specific language and allow or disallow outside influence Closed network (rural/working class) – More of a fixed linguistic system that exists to ID members; outside influence is resisted. Open Network (middle class /merchants)– less connection to the group; greater mobility Analyzing linguistic networks enables linguists to describe linguistic change Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Codification – subjugation of the language to prescriptive rules of syntax, punctuation, spelling. Setting the rules in texts normalizes the language Language continues to evolve; the evolution has been restrained due to codification Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Letter writing was an art; it had to be learned It included formalized greetings, conclusions, syntax. Receiving a letter was a social event; it was shared publicly. Do you modify your email writing based on the intended audience? Explain Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Language: Grammar is basically established; some new vocabulary added Spelling: Osselton discovered that 18th century writers appeared to have two spelling styles – private and public It was also a gauge revealing intimacy Spelling was decided by the authors --NOT the publishers & printers; Today it is the opposite Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Grammar: Different grammars used for formal and informal – Why The hyper-correctors did this using Latin as the foudation, not English usage. The Androcentric Rule -Sex indefinite You was, he/she don't -self pronouns instead of pronouns as a form of modesty – 261 Double negatives Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Letter Writing EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Vocabulary Many entries in the OED come from a few writes during that time & suggest social class. Dr. Johnson's 'Dictionary' recorded new words at the time and included in the OED Suffixes were also evolving --ess, un Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Social Networks & Linguistic Influence EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Iron sharpened iron Social networks influenced it members lexically, morphologically The impetus, the drivers of language change are the up and comers, the aspiring socialites who want to move up the social ladder and use language to aid in their quest. Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010Conclusions EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 The networks that evolved did not make up a single universal social network. It included specific subsets. All appeared to stress a universal and were moving toward that codified standard – at least in public Personal letters, etc. painted a different picture of greater freedom in spelling, grammar, and word choice. Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010English at the Onset of Normative Tradition EDU352 The History of the English Lang Week 9 Introduction Mobility: Geographical & Social Spoken English Letter Writing Social Networks & Linguistic Influence Conclusion Dr. Frank Tuzi Nyack College Fall 2010