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Linguistica inglese 1 Alexandra Gabriela Neamtu
Lingue, culture, letterature, traduzioni
Sapienza - Università di Roma
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Linguistica inglese 1: [David Crystal: the English Language]
Prima di iniziare ecco alcune nozioni base:
- Metalinguistico= riflessione sulla lingua stessa, parlare della lingua usando la lingua stessa
- Aspetto fonico/fonologico= pronuncia
- Aspetto morfosintattico= grammatica
- Aspetto lessico/semantico= vocaboli
- Produzione diacronica= storia della lingua
- Pragmatica= analisi delle intenzioni di chi parla usando esempi più o meno contemporanei come dialoghi di serie tv, testi teatrali...
The history of English language can be devided in three periods:
- Old English period (499 CE* – 12th century CE) that can be devided in two subperiods: i) Early Old English (499 CE – 1066 CE) ii) Late Old English/Early Middle English (1066 CE – 12th century CE)
- Middle English period (12th century – 15th century more or less 1476)
- Modern English period (15th century – today) that can be devided in two subperiods: i) Early Modern English (15th century – mid-17th century) Modern ii) Late Modern English (mid-17th century - today) *Before was used BC (before Christ) e AD (anno domini) -> now, English people have deleted the religous references and use BCE (before the Common Era) e CE (Common Era)
{This is Bede’s Ecclesiastical History of the English Nation, reporting the invasion of Britain in 449 CE. It was written in Latin in 731 DE.}
OLD ENGLISH / ANGLO-SAXON (features)
499 —> Angles, Saxons and Jutes (from Jutland Denmark, Netherlands and Germany) arrived in Britain from the north-west Europe (English and German are considered cousins because they’re similar) Angles and Saxons melt to gether creating a warrior society (we don’t have many informations about the Jutes) The invadors were first called Saxons but Latin called them Angles (Angli)
1000 CE —> Until this date, Britain was known as Angelcynn (nation of Angles) and then Englalond (land of Angles) and language was know as Englisc (sc —> sh) (oggi England dagli Angles) (the word Anglo-Saxon did not exist, it was introduced only after the Renaissance, also the language is not called so. People who studied the history of the language of this period prefer to use ‘Old English’, referring to this period).
Weird spelling —> they spoke a complicated and complex language (northen German language) but people (Romans) who lived here couldn’t understand —> there were sounds that were not present in the latin alphabet ( thorn, eth and ash ) that are very common in modern English. The first two had the sounds of “th” in “this” and “thin”. The other one was a mid-way between “a” and “e” and the sound as the same of “set” or “sat”. Romans added so some symbols to the latin alphabeth for these sound.
The vocabulary presents a mixed picture but the majority of the words are closer then we can imagine to the current English. This similarty is often obscured by the spelling or a prefix or a suffix (singan —> sing, ondswerede —> answered, (ge)leornode—> learned) (ge rimasto nel tedesco attuale). There are some words that looks very strange (Gelimplice —> fitting, swefn —> dream). Something really curious about the manuscript of
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names of their major settlements (towns now ending with “-chester” and a small number of word like street, that derives from strada, that did not exist before)
- Anglo-Saxon -> arrived in V century CE and destroyed many Celtic communities. They escaped in some areas that today are known as Cornwall, Wales, Cumbria and Scotland (Gaelic languages are spoken today and they are very differents from the English spoken today). Only a few of words came into English (crag, combe, cross...), the name of same cities (the one that ends with “-wich”—> Greenwich), the name of some rivers and also “Kent”.
- Dark age -> it is defined like that because we don’t have any news/ document from this period, only late documents (from 449 to 597); it’s between the arrival of Anglo-Saxons and the first Old English manuscripts. The literary age began only after the arrival of Roman missionaries, led by Augustine, who came to Kent in 597 CE, christianazing England, so large numbers of Latin manuscripts were produced, especially of the Bible (only about the christianization) (before we had a mixed religion: roman / celtic and pagan of the north of Germany).
- Latin MSS with lists of Old English Glosses (700 CE) —> Old English manuscripts began to be written (glossaries of Latin words translated into Old English). Most MSS date back to the reign of Alfred the Great of Wessex (849-899) Maybe many manuscripts were burned during the eight-century Viking invasions. The main literary work survived in only one copy: “Beowulf” (it is a part of Cotton Vitellus). The total corpus is composed by: -Junius -Exter Book -Vercelli Book -Cotton Vitellius OR Norwell codex
- Viking/Danes invasions (787-IX cent.) -> 878 Alfred the Great (was named the Great because he was the king of one of the seven Anglo-Saxon kingdoms, Wessex between Galles and Cornwell) managed to stop the Vikings at Edington in 878 (they wanted to take treasures and etc. but after that they wanted to settle in England) and he understood that people couldn’t read latin. So he decided to translate all the latin manuscripts, like Venerable Bede’s Ecclesistical History (that’s why we know the dates of the Anglo-Saxon history) and began the writing of Anglo-Saxon Chronicle that highlighted his conquers (it’s not a literary work but an historical work). The Vikings (from Scandinavia: Sweden, Norway, Denmark) come in 787 and left only at the beginning of the eleventh century, controlling the most of eastern England. When they were defeat by the King Alfred, they agreed to settle only in the north-east third of country, an area that was subject to Danish law (Danelaw). In 991 they brought a series of victories for Danish army. The king Aethelred couldn’t stop them and England stayed under Danish rule for 25 years. They were not Christians, so they started to plunder and to burn churches (they needed richness, gold, treasures so they started to sack monasteries).
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There are a lot of effects on language (1800 words) (several thousand more still to be found in regional dialects): -names of cities in “-by”, “-thorp”, “-thwaite” and “-toft” -nouns in sk- (ex: skirt, sky, skin...) -the third personal plural pronouns “they”-“them” and possessive “their” -the present tense of to be -> “are” -the most important -> articles and prepositions -> no more declensions and cases from german and latin (the closeness of the contact between these culture is shown by the extensive borrowings; ex: both, same, get...)
Old English dialects:
There was no single system of spelling at the time. Scribes would spell words as they sounded, and these spellings suggest differente accents (hundreds of such spelling differences exist). There were so 4 different dialects
- Northumbrian dialect -> the north one, similar to English spoken in Scotland
- Merciant dialect -> at the base of modern English because it was in the middle of the accent of the south and of the north of England so everybody in England could understand (in Midlands, between the River Thames and the River Humber) and was the accent spoken in London (Londinium -> born as the capital and now it still being the capital; Romans build it on Thames to be the capital of their reign, because of the river, so they could use it for economical purposes)
- Kentish dialect -> (spoken by Jutes) area of Kent and Isle of Wight
- West Saxon dialect -> is the dialect we know better because Alfred (was from there) ordered to write the manuscripts in this this dialect
Runed and Futhark: Old English was written using the runic alphabet Runes are series of characters that form an alphabet called futhark (from the six first letters of the alphabet). We don’t know actually who invented them but probably were invented in Rhine area because of commercial contacts between Germanic tribes and the romans because they couldn’t understand eachother (it resembles the latin alphabet) Originally it had 24 letters but when it arrived in Britain they become 31 to cover all the sounds of Old English. The inscriptions in Anglo-Saxon were found on weapons, jewellery, monuments.. telling eho made them or owned them. Then they were used in rituals because they have a mystical significance
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—> William of Normandy (or the Conquer) decided to conquer Britain because he thought he was the right king for England (he had an Anglo- Saxon ancestor) —> battle of Hastings (for the first and last time an enemy from a foreign country managed to conquer the british islands, no one else after William managed to conquer England; Hitler in the WWII tried to repeat William’s undertaking but he failed). William came with all his court and Anglo-Saxons became farmers and so and so... French did not have immediate effects on English language as we can see in texts written in West Saxon dialect. Something started changing from 1166 because most of monastery at Peterborough was destroyed by fire, along with many manuscripts, so the monks started replacing the writings until 1131, when stopped for the civil war during the reign of King Stephen. When he died, in 1154, the style was quite different. (writers were starting again using vocabulary and grammatical patterns which reflected the language of their time and locality) —> The Peterborough Chronicle (1137) is written in a new dialect, East Midland (from which modern standard English developed) but still no French words (Old English started developing but not with the French language) —> The first French influence can be seen in the upper classes (barons and clergy) because they spoke French to communicate with the king so if people wanted to stay within the upper class, they had to be understood by the king so they had to speak French. —> Basically, in this period co-existed 3 languages:
- French (upper class/court)
- Latin (church)
- Old English (lower class) There was no MIDDLE CLASS, that appears later and speaks Middle English (it’s a bridge between French and Old English) (they invented a new language to speak with everyone when they traded, so for an economical demand) important dates of middle English period:
- 1204 —> king John lost Normandy (John Lackland because he lack the land) —> this event brought to the rise of English nationalism (the connection with France was lost and the few people who spoke French were isolated)
- 1215 —> Baron’s revolt —> English people wanted to governate itself and John was forced to sign the magna carta (great charter) that was the first constitution of the history and in middle English (the most important paper in middle English on a political and written level)
- 1362 —> English was used for the first time on a political level at the
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Parliament and orally. By the end of the century, Henry IV’s speeches at the Parliament were made in English and in 1425 it appears they English was universally used in England, in writing as well as in speech. The reason why the language managed to survive the French invasion is because it was too well established for it to be supplanted by another language.
MIDDLE ENGLISH VOCABOLARY:
- 10 French words entered Middle English vocabulary concerning in law, administration but also fashion, medicine and art (3/4 still being used today); law for example does not exist in Anglo-Saxon (French had a written constitution and Britain did not because English people were warriors meanwhile French were more sensitive with art and fashion).
- new French words substituted the Old English one, because were difficult for French people, so they decided to change them in French but in most cases the two versions co-existed. -XIV-XV cent. —> new flux of Latin words with (1348) John Wycliffe’s Bible translated in Middle English from Latin and he decided also to enrich the Middle English with Latin words because it was very poor (so we have sets of 3 words expressing the same concept (ex: old English ‘time’, French ‘age’, latin ‘epoch’) —> the most used were the anglo-saxon ones, French was the literary one and latin was used and learned by the clerge.
-many words need to be glossed because are really different or because are similar but with different meaning (false friends). Some word seems different but actually, thanks to the pronunciation, they are really close (wreccemen was pronounced wretch-man that’s close to wretched)
MIDDLE ENGLISH: GRAMMAR, SPELLING AND PRONUNCIATION:
(Grammar) -Declensions died away when Vikings left Britain (that’s because with Vikings that had articles were useless, and with French they died for good except for the possessive and some accusative forms of personal pronouns (I,me, he/him, ecc)) —>words order becomes strict and simpler (object after
the first feminist of the history) that’s why we understand the Middle English. It contains many variations in word order, especially which are dictated by the rhythms of the lines and many literary allusions and turns phrase. It provides also a major source of information about medieval grammar, vocabulary and sounds
THE GREAT VOWEL SHIFT:
(1500) (1600) (1700) ... name: ———————-> [ ]—> [ ]——-> [ ]——> [ ]
-it’s the phenomenon which is responsible for the complete detachment between the spelling and the way it is written (it marks the last major barrier between early English and standard language of the present day; sound continues to change, but less dramatically, the grammar continues to develop, but in ways which do not affect the language’s basic structure. Only in vocabulary are the further major developments) -1400-1600 —> 7 long vowels varied ( they became higher and forward very quickly) —> the pronunciation changed -1476 -> Caxton brought printing in English (German scholar who has a printing press so decided to use an Unic way to print the works, so he decided to use the Chaucer’s language) —> so the spelling was fixed by the printing of The Canterbury Tales but the pronounciation continued developing. While pronunciation evolves even today, we use the same spelling that Chaucer used.
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MIDDLE ENGLISH DIALECTS:
There were more than Old english dialects (today is the same division)
- Lowland Scots
- Northern
- West Midland
- East Midland (was the most important because of the “Golden Triangle” [London, oxford and Cambridge, for the trade and universities] and it was and agricultural area and wool (trade) (Chaucer also was a trader); it is also a bridge between southern and northen dialects; Caxton set up his printing press in Westminster, London —> at the base of modern standard English
- South Eastern
- South Western The spelling of several verb endings changed from area to area. Ex: the “-ing” ending (running) (elsewhere) —> “-and(e)” Northern English —> “-end(e)” East Midlands —> “-ind(e)” West Midlands Ex: the “-th” ending (goeth) —> “-s” Northern English and northern part of Midland dialects Ex: the verb ending used in the present tense with such forms as we and they also varied: —> “-es” —> Northern English and northern parts of the East Midlands —> “-eth” —> Southern, Kentish and southern parts of West Midlands —> “-en” —> elsewhere Ex: they, their, them —> Northern and West Middle English —> “Hi, here, hem” —> south —> “Shall, should” —> south —> “sall, sould” —> north
“Love is life” poem written by Richard Rolle about 1400, that contains words like “sal, dose, lastand, ane...” —> he’s from north.
Often there are words spelled different because the author may lived in a boundary area or three person who’s copying the manuscripts cames from another place. By the end of the 15th cent. The distinction between central and provincial life was firmly established (standard and regional speech which is still with us today).
-purists objected to the way classical terms were pouring into the language, calling them “inkhorn terms” and condemned them for their obscurity and for the way they interfered with the development of native English vocabulary. (Over 50 foreign languages form the conversation with other cultures and the exploration voyages during the reigns of Elizabeth I and James I) -Some writer like Edmund Spencer attempted instead to revive obsolete English words (“Chaucerisms”) and to make use of little-known words English dialects (also English equivalents for classical terms)
SHAKESPEARE AND THE BIBLE:
The 2 influences which dominate from a linguistic point of the final decades of Renaissance are:
- Shakespeare —> is considered the most important writer in Early Modern English and the inventor of about 20 words even if he actually was only the introducer of a lot of idioms, using 20 vocabularies. He’s the one that wrote more than his contemporaries so that’s why he used so many words. The quotations he used and the way of the words he used, probably was used in the spoken but none had recorded it, so he was the first who did it. Many of the words he used, remained in the language but not all.
- King James Bible —> Elizabeth I, the virgin queen because she had no heir, died in 1603, letting the throne to Mary Stuart’s son, James VI of Scotland who became James I of England (the date he got the crown is the day of the unification of England; XII cent. they also got wales, so of the United Kingdom) There was a problem concerning the bible because Mary Stuart was catholic and also James was catholic in Scotland and Anglican in England to reign. He wanted a bible that combined the Anglican and Catholic functions, so he translated from Latin and German and mixed the two versions by removing some parts or explaining others, published in 1611, having a conservative language style. The aim of translation was to make a good principal translation. The idioms that were introduced were many but limitated to the ones used in the Bible and there were used form of the old language even when modern alternatives were available, looking backwards in grammar. It contained 8 words. Another version was compiled in 1549 and published in 1662, the Bookm of Common Prayer.
DIFFERENTES BETWEEN THEM:
- irregular verbs: in the Bible were founded in their older form Ex: “spoke” (in Shakespeare) “spake” (in Bible) “helped” (in Shakespeare) “holpen” (in Bible)
- Old words are still in use: Shakespeare alternates the use of “do” in questions and negatives and in Bible it is not used at all
- the northen form of the 3rd person’s “-s” is found sometimes in
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Shakespeare but Bible still to use -eth;
- 2nd person singular subject pronoun was “thou”, the object “thee”, the possessive adjective “thy” and the possessive “thine” (same in Shakespeare and in the Bible)
- 2nd person plural subject pronoun was “ye”, the object “you”, the possessive adjective “your” and the possessive pronoun “yours” (same in Shakespeare and in the Bible)
- His was used also for its
- will was found in informal context (sometime found in the Bible) and shall in formal context (Shakespeare)
- double superlatives (Ex: the most highest) (same in Shakespeare and in the Bible)
- preopositions were used differently from today (same in Shakespeare and in the Bible) In Middle English the last syllable was stressed like in French. In Early Modern English (Shakespeare) —> To be or not to be was spelt (tu be or not tu be) proving the the Great Vowel Shift was going on. In this period we have also other writers, which influence is less obvious but they can’t be ignored.
LATE MODERN ENGLISH: THE AGE OF DICTIONARY/ THE AGE OF JOHNSON
The problem of this time was the existence of new and learned words which many people did not understand. So we have:
- 1604 —> A Table Alphabeticall published by Robert Cawdrey that contained 3 words that he considered difficult, borrowed from Latin, Greek, French and other languages, explained with English words. It was a commercial success and was followed by several other compilations along similar lines
- 1721 —> The Universal Etymological English Dictionary published by Nathaniel Bailey but was only a list of words and only the origin of some words was explained.
- XVII-XVIII cent. —> there was a strong feeling of unease about the way the language was going (the sensation that English language was not well defined as other romances languages and also as German too because in the continental Europe in those century all the languages knew themselves meanwhile English had so many origins that couldn’t define itself ) Critics were worried about the uncontrolled way in which foreign words had come into the language and saw increasing variety in everyday usage (abbreviations and contracted forms). Actually writers followed their own instincts and there was no norms of spelling or punctuation
- Scholars attempted to reform the spelling but they had trouble defining and cataloguing and listing the words in some kind of quantitative (how many were Latin, German, French), in fact some words had different origins like “island” (they added an extra letter “s” because they thought it cames from Latin, meanwhile it cames from German —> “Land”; we can
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Australia and New Zeland too, sending there English prisoners So we can see a contact between English and local language -American English (Ex: tomato / potato) -Indian English (ex: jungle / pyjamas / shampoo) -Australian English (ex: boomerang / kangaroo) 3) new technologies and internet (ex: to text / to google) (the first one who uses “to google” was a character in a TV series) Some of the words introduced during the 1960s and 1970s —> aerobics, Afro, biofeedback, childproof, frisbee, gay, software...) Pay attention, the one underlined were the same used in Victorian times but now they have different meanings. Some of the words introduced during the 1980s and 1990s —> toyboy, Cd, craker, cyberspace, DVD, e-mail
ENGLISH TODAY
There are regional and social diversification of English and it is because English history is the story of the way it has become heterogeneous, as it has come to be adapted by different communities around the world and adapted by them to meet their social needs. Different social groups use distinctive language as a means of achieving public identity. —> we can say that accents and dialect underline the regional and social diversification. Loan words:
- The best-known current of external influence causing language change is the “Americanization” of world culture, which appear in cities all over the world, reflecting the dominance of that culture’s popular songs, films, TV series... (the American way is considered modern, fashionable and desirable to the younger, fund in all developed countries —> foreign groups record in English)
- Of course the main influence of English is in vocabulary in other languages (in Italian we use several English words like cheesecake, computer, CD, software... —> loans) and from other languages
- We get also the impression that a mixed language has emerged and this is often given a name which reflects the mixture Ex: Tex-Mex English (Spanglish) is a mix between American English and Spanish spoken in Mexico (is very very important) Franglais (mix between French and English) Spanglish (in 2050, probably it will be the most spoken language in the world) Swedlish Japlish The phenomenon happens only in in communities where there is a regular contact between people of different language backgrounds who have varying degrees of knowledge of each other’s language.
Pay attention: people who do not approve of American values or who are disturbed by rapidity of change are often strongly critical of the impact of English in their language. In 1977 France passed a law banning the use of
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English words in official contexts if an equivalent French expression existed and some other countries have considered introducing a similar law. Not everyone is critical, in fact, commercial firms and advertisers are well aware of the potential selling power that the use of English vocabulary can bring. Ex: in Japan, English is used in television commercials, in Dutch, clubs with English names are more successful.
SOCIAL IDENTITY:
English speakers can have different dialect backgrounds and people vary their speech as they go through the day, depending on whom they are addressing. There is a strong tendency for people to express their identity by emphasizing features of their accent or dialect which convey where they are from. Regional identity is only one factor; another is sex and the most important change which had happened to English has to do with the attitude society had adopted towards the practices and consequences of sexism. English was the most affected because has internal characteristics that allowed it to adapt to changes (age, occupation and gender) and because of early American feminism who critics the biases that constitute a male- orientation view of world, which have led to unfair sexual discrimination and the law status of women in society, affecting both
- Vocabulary (replacement of “male” by neutral words; Ex: chairman —> chairperson; salesman —> sales assistant; postman —> postperson; it brought also to new words like transgender or bromance) (also the vocabulary of marital has been affected, notably in the introduction of MS as a neutral alternative to MISS or MR)
- Grammar (focus on the lack of a sex-neutral 3rd person singular pronoun in English which becomes a problem when it is used after sexual- neutral noun as “students” or after indefinite pronoun such “someone” —> he or she is sometimes used, or in writing (s)he / s/he or they, the last one after words like “anyone” and often, the singular noun is turned into a plural) The effects of these changes in social attitudes had been far more noticeable in writing than in speech, in fact, publishing companies now usually issue guidelines recommending that authors should avoid sexist language (se la maggiornaza del pubblico è femminile si usa “she”). It will take much longer before we can say whether the changes are having any real impact on the spoken language, with its greater spontaneity.
GENDER ISSUES:
- A. He is a master of intricacies of academic politics. b. She is a mistress of the intricacies of academic politics. (mistress; amante, prostitute, proprietaria di bordello —> dal punto di vista grammaticale non ci sono discriminazioni)
- A. He is a professional. b. She is a professional. (escort —> in questo caso, la parola è addirittura
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skills are involved (spelling involves a set of active, productive, conscious process that are not required for reading). Spelling is not just a visual matter, but a matter of relating letters to sounds. The children spell the word as they hear in their heads. People don’t learn to spell by studying the shape of the word and remembering that, by a visual memory but words didn’t always turn up in the right order. Most traditional spelling rules are based on the written language only.
- to form the plural nouns ending in “y”, change “y” to “I” and add “es” —> cry = cries; “I” goes before “e” except after “c”
- when adding “ing” to a verb that ends in a consonant, if the vowel is short, the last consonant will be doubled (Ex: hop —> hopping); if the vowel is long, nothing changes (Ex: beat —> beating)
- if we have a verb with two syllables, if the first syllable is stressed, there is no doubling (Ex: enter —> entering) ; if the second syllable is stressed, there is a doubling (Ex: permit —> permitting) There are also some exceptions:
- if a verb already ends in a double consonant, it keeps it (Ex: purr —> purring)
- verbs with a short vowel sound spelled with two vowel letters don’t double the consonant (Ex: dread —> dreading)
- verbs ending in l, m, g and p tend to double the consonant (Ex: cancelling, programming, humbugging, kidnapping)
- with a very few verbs ending in “s”, both forms are possible (Ex: focusing/ focussing)
- With verbs ending in a vowel followed by c, the doubling of c is spelled ck (Ex: panic —> panicking)
THE ORIGIN OF IRREGULARITIES:
The English spelling system is the result of a process of development that has been going on for over 1 years. So, irregularities comes from:
- Roman missionaries who didn’t understand some sounds of Old English, because they used the 23-letter Latin alphabet and they had not enough letters to reproduce them. They decided to use extra sound from the runic alphabet (Ex: th); some new graphemes that could reproduce different sounds (Ex: the grapheme ‘g’ for / / and /g/);
- French scribes after 1066 that replaced some Old English spelling because they didn’t understand it (Ex: ‘cw’ —> ‘qu’ such as in ‘queen’ / ‘h’ —> ‘gh’ such as in ‘night’, ‘enough’ / ‘c’ —> ‘ch’ such as in ‘chair’, ‘church’ / ‘u’ —> ‘ou’ such as in ‘neighbour’ / when ‘u’ was next to ‘v’ ‘n’ or ‘m’ it —> ‘o’ because they were written similarly as in ‘one’, ‘come’, ‘love’; also ‘c’ began to be used after ‘e’ or ‘I’ in such words as ‘circle’, ‘cell’);
- in 1476 Willian Caxton introduced the printing in England and choose the system which reflected the speech of London, standardized for the first time the spelling. So in those centuries the spelling was fixed but the pronunciation began to change (Great Vowel Shift); it explains the ‘k’ of such word as knee, know, knight, that were pronounced before;
- XVI century there was a fashion for etymology in spelling (Ex: they
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added a ‘b’ in ‘debt’ to underline its Latin origin) and attempts to amalgamate some spelling forms (Ex: ‘gh’ was added in ‘delight’ because ‘light’ was spelled with ‘gh’); 5) XVII century with some loans words arrived in English from French, Latin, Greek, Spanish, Italian... —> they brought with them a host of un- English-looking spellings like bizarre, cocoa, gazette...
SPELLING REFORM:
Proposals for spelling reform develop both in America and Britain in 19th cent.
- 1876 —> Spelling Reform Association (USA); it was born before in the USA than in the UK because USA was colonialized and didn’t know the history behind the language that was pronounced in a way and written in another
- 1908 —> British Simplified Spelling Society (UK) but was not successful, so in 1949 Nue Spelling was presented to Parliament (Nue -> new way to write ‘new’) and 1980s International English Spelling by v. Hule at Harvard failed again: pros:
- language easier to learn (for children and foreigns)
- writing quicker cons:
- practical introduction —> if grammar and writing changing in a night, they couldn’t introduce new spelling)
- acceptance by everyone —> not everyone would have accepted it
- gradual or neat change —> to find the right moment to change the spelling (impossible) or do it gradually (impossible) (il cambiamento netto è innaturale) Americans are trying to simplify the language. (Ex: night —> nite; light —> lite...)
THE USE OF ENGLISH: LANGUAGE VARIETY:
Today we have the tendency to refer to “English languages” (Englishes):
- Accents —> way of pronouncing which identifies the speaker’s place of origin —> standard
- Dialects —> includes not only pronunciation, but also variation in grammar, vocabulary and spelling and are used in informal contexts (natura socio-geografica) —> not standard
- Speech —> inexplicit, spontaneous, informal and domestic vocabulary, manoeuvring strategies, tone of voice
- Writing —> explicit, structurally intricate (more complex like subordinate, because we have time to apply grammatical rules...), precise vocabulary, organization, graphic features
- social group’s slang (Cockney) (adottato dai gangster e dale classi povere, quindi non è solo geografico) —> social role
THE EFFECTS OF TECHNOLOGY:
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Linguistica inglese 1 Alexandra Gabriela Neamtu
Corso: Lingue, culture, letterature, traduzioni
Università: Sapienza - Università di Roma
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