Aims

Aims

To give you an understanding of the development of the English language from the Old English period to the present day within a framework of ideas about the causation and progress of linguistic change.

Prerequisites

Prerequisites

Students must have successfully completed:

• L110 Elementary phonetics and phonology (4110110)
• L120 Elementary sociolinguistic variation and change (4110120)
• L130 Elementary syntax (4110130)
• E152 History of English I (4110152)

Programme

Programme

Contact hours

Three hours per week.

Teaching programme

The module covers:

• the general sociolinguistic history of English from the earliest periods, including discussion of the impact of contact and processes of standardization
• the analysis of the historical development of a few historically central, specific areas of phonology, morphology and syntax. You will be required to read and analyse materials from earlier English for presentation and discussion in seminars

Teaching materials

Reference will particularly be made to the following books:

• Barber, Charles (1993) The English Language: A Historical Introduction (Cambridge: CUP)
• Baugh, A.C. and T. Cable (4th edition 1993) A History of the English Language (London: Routledge)
• Crystal, David (2004) The Stories of English (Penguin)
• Mugglestone, Lynda (2006) The Oxford History of English (Oxford: OUP)
• Smith, Jeremy (1996) An Historical Study of English: Function, Form and Change (London: Routledge)

Assessment and feedback

Assessment and feedback

Feedback on formative work

In the second half of term students will write an exam answer from the preceding year’s paper in a seminar session, and will mark another student’s answer. Aspects of the criteria and of essay writing will be discussed. Essays will also be marked and commented on by the course convenor, and returned individually to students a week after being handed in.

Assessment and feedback

• Two hour closed examination
  Writing three essays: students will be given written comments on each of their essays, and a mark for each, in week six of the term in which the exam was taken