First Class: 2 September 2020 (Wednesday), 12.30-2:20
The English language began as a set of obscure dialects on a small island at the edge of the world. Today, it is spoken by almost two billion people, and functions as the lingua franca of a vast global network.
The story of the growth and spread of English is also the story of politics, power, religion, gender, technology, commerce, music and literature, the oppressor and the oppressed. This senior examines the history of English, and the technologies that have shaped and facilitated its development.
The course of study begins with modern varieties of English, and traces the language back through the centuries. How has English changed? How can we recognize and interpret the English of a given place or time? And what do the words we use reveal about ourselves?
Students completing this course will gain a sense of the development and spread of the English language, and the phonological, orthographic, morphological, syntactic, and semantic features of its varieties across time and place.
Students completing the course will:
- Gain knowledge of the main periods of English and an understanding of some of its major structural developments.
- Appreciate the various approaches to language and change as espoused by different schools of linguistics.
- Achieve familiarity with many of the key socio-cultural and political debates which have accompanied the historical development and spread of English.
- Develop research skills relating to aspects of the history of English.
The course is organised into four units:
Unit 1: Contemporary Global Englishes and the Internet
Unit 2: From Early Modern English to the 19th Century
Unit 3: The Middle English Period
Unit 4: The Roots of English: Old English and its Ancestors
Assessment for this course is 100% coursework. This will break down as follows:
1. Short Homework Preparations, Class Presentations and Participation: 40%
2. Final Research Essay: 60%
(Students may be asked to develop an annotated bibliography as part of the preparation for the final research essay.)
Required and optional readings will be made available on Moodle throughout the semester.