A Handbook OF Present-DAY English PDF

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A HANDBOOK OF VIRGINIA cap. 1, 2, 3, 1 LANGUAGE CHANGE AND VARIATION IN Language change, variation and this chapter we will discuss some central issues concerning the study of language change in English. As all social aspects of human life, languages are subject to constant process which can take pl...

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A HANDBOOK OF PRESENT-DAY ENGLISH DI VIRGINIA PULCINI Riassunto cap. 1, 2, 3, 4

CHAPTER 1 – LANGUAGE CHANGE AND VARIATION IN ENGLISH 1. Language change, variation and history In this chapter we will discuss some central issues concerning the study of language change and variation in English. As all social aspects of human life, languages are subject to constant process of change which can take place either suddenly (synchronically), as in the case of the introduction of new words, or slowly (diachronically), as for example the change of pronunciation from one generation to the next. There are no static or uniform languages. They can all be considered as dynamic entities which adapt to the history and culture of the speech communities in which they are in use. Even though change contributes to making language structures irregular, the necessity to communicate efficiently demands a certain level of “regularity”. This tendency is evident in the process of native language acquisition, during which children tend to regularize any irregular form ( go, goed instead of went). Language change happens through the adoption of a certain language form, or variant. As a consequence, equivalent variants may coexist within a speech community until one predominates over the other. All languages show a surprising level of variability: the study of language variability commonly deals with how language varies among its speakers and what the social and linguistic significance of such variation is. In major modern languages we analyze language variability in relation to its standard variety, which is considered the language par excellence. Sociolinguistics, the study of the relation between language and society, has mainly contributed to the understanding of how language behavior and language variability are influenced by social factors such as social class, social network, gender, ethnicity and age. Language behavior is conditioned by factors like language attitude towards a specific language or variety: a positive attitude favors the adoption and diffusion of a variant, thus contributing to language change. Languages, in fact, encode a particular social meaning which is determined by their speakers. Language change and variation do not emerge exclusively in relation to the structural and social status at a given time, or synchronically, but they take place along a historical continuum, or diachronically. Diachronic linguistics has been the main paradigm of investigation of language change over time. There are two approaches to historical language change.  COMPARATIVE LINGUISTICS, which is based on the concept of “proto-language” (which is usually a reconstructed language) and “language family”. For example, English is a Germanic language, which originated from Indo-European and which belongs to the so-called Anglo-Frisian sub-group of Germanic.  THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE, which is the study of the changes undergone by a single language over the centuries. The causes for change can be external or internal: external causes are extra-

linguistic or social factors which contribute to language change, such as technological innovation; internal causes are changes leading to balance in the system. The writing of history of a language is always selective. Traditional histories of the English language ( HEL) have mainly focused on the history of the standard variety and its speakers, and have conceived the HEL as divided into three main periods: Old English (700-1150), Middle English (1150-1500) and Modern English (1500-1900). In what follows, we have attempted to expand our historical account of the language to present-day English (PDE) in order to include both historical/diachronic and social/synchronic dimensions of language. 2. Types of language change 2.1 Phonological change Phonological change deals with any mutation within the sound system and can be both sporadic or regular. Sporadic change refers to changes which affect the sounds of a limited number of words. Regular change implies changes leading to the re-organization of the phonological inventory of a language. A further distinction concerning phonological change refers to the differentiation between an unconditioned and a conditioned change. An unconditioned change refers to sound change regardless of the phonetic context in which it happens, as in the case of the so-called Great Vowel Shift (GVS) that affected Middle English long vowels: the vowel /i:/ was the first to change, becoming a diphthong ([bi:t] → [b it] ԑ → [b it] ə → [b it] ʌ present-day English bite). A conditioned change refers to a phonological change which is conditioned by a specific phonetic environment. 2.2 Morpho-syntactic change Morpho-syntactic change refers to a change in both the morpho-phonematic and syntactic systems of a language. Its main mechanisms are the following.  ANALOGY – The process of modeling a language form in relation to an already existing form of that language.  HYPERCORRECTION – It’s speakers’ awareness of the social value of the different language varieties within their speech community. For example the form umbrellow, which in some varieties of American English, represents an attempt to avoid forms like fella (fellow) and yella (yellow).  BACKFORMATION – Or the creation of a language form which is not historically documented (to laze from the adjective lazy). Two main examples of syntactic change are: word order, or the order of the elements within the sentence, and grammaticalisation, or the phenomenon by which a grammatical function is given to a previously autonomous word. 2.3 Semantic change Semantic change refers to any mutation in the meaning of individual lexical items, which is influenced by external factors such as socio-cultural change, scientific innovation and foreign language influence.

There are different kinds of semantic change. The first two types involve a change of meaning, and the two other types affect connotation.  WIDENING, or use of a particular item in more than one context (present-day English dog, which originally meant “a particular powerful breed of dog”).  NARROWING, which indicates the opposite process: meat was originally used with the meaning of “food”.  PEJORATION, which is lined to speakers’ social attitude and prejudice: present-day English silly derives from middle English sely meaning “happy, innocent”.  AMELIORATION, which refers to a change denoting a positive attitude towards a certain word: present-day English queen comes from old English cwēn meaning “woman, wife”. 3. The history of English 3.1 Old English Historically English is a Germanic language. It is, however, difficult to locate or give a date to the origin of Germanic languages and their speakers. The progenitor of Germanic is the Indo-European language, which is also considered to be the ancestor of classical languages like Latin, Greek, Slavic and Sanskrit, and, as a consequence, of today’s modern languages. The resemblance among these languages is testified by sound correspondences is words like present-day English three, Sanskrit tràyas, Greek treîs, Latin trēs, and so on. The OE (Old English) period – The term OE refers to the Germanic dialects, like Kentish, West-Saxon, Mercian and Northumbrian, spoken at that time in England by Germanic populations who were called Jutes, Angles and Saxons, and who arrived in the British Isles, a former partly Romanized Celtic-speaking area, in the 5th century A.D.. The event that mostly contributed to the shaping of the OE language was the Christianization of the Island, starting from the 6th century, the main consequence of this being the introduction of the Latin alphabet and the abandonment by the Anglo-Saxons of the Runic alphabet. During the period from 9th to 11th centuries several manuscripts were written, copied and translated from Latin into OE, namely the West-Saxon dialect of OE. This dialect is associated with King Alfred, who was the head of the West-Saxon reign. Two important historical episodes profoundly changed the history of English during this period: the arrival and occupation of England by Scandinavian populations from the 8th century on, and the Norman conquest by William the Conqueror in 1066. The first Scandinavian settlers were located in the north-eastern part of England and by the year 867 had almost conquered the island. King Alfred defeated them and pushed them out of his kingdom and reconquered part of the Scandinavian possessions. The Norman conquest mainly contributed to changing Anglo-Saxon England socially, politically and culturally. Besides the increased use of Latin, the major language change was represented by the abandonment of the West-Saxon variety of OE as the standard language of England. West-Saxon was replaced by Anglo-Norman, the variety of French spoken by the conquerors.

The term OE refers to a highly synthetic language. Synthetic means that language functions grammatical categories and relations are expressed by the use of a system of case markers, or inflections. A synthetic language is characterized by morphology. Present-day English is, by contrast, an analytic language in which grammatical and syntactic relations are expressed by word order. An analytic language has very poor morphology. 3.2 Middle English The Norman conquest of England in 1066 is traditionally considered as the starting point of the so-called middle English (ME) period. We can distinguish three main stages for ME.  TRANSITIONAL STAGE (1066 – 1150), when important sociolinguistic changes occurred. The Norman conquest represented the end of the advanced Anglo-Saxon social and cultural systems. This meant that the role and functions of the vernacular, or West-Saxon, in domains such as administration, the Church, education and culture were reduced.  EARLY ME PERIOD (1150 – 1350), during which English gradually recovered its status of official language as is testified be the increasing number of legal documents and literary writings in vernacular.  LATE ME PERIOD (1350 – 1430). From the 14th century on, many socio-cultural changes took place in England, such as urbanization and technological discoveries. These events are linked to matters of education and standard language. Literacy, the access to education by a larger number of people, and the influence of Chancery and legal writings increased the need for a common and fixed standard language. During the ME period three main languages were spoken in England: French, Latin and English. French was the language of power, bureaucracy and partly literature; Latin continued as the language of learning, education and the Church; English was still the language of the majority of the population, although a certain degree of bilingualism was not an exception in society. The ME period has been described as the stage of the language in which complex phenomena of dialectal variation, language contact and attempts to standardize language co-exist. We will limit our discussion to the so-called classical ME variety and refer to the main language changes operating during this period, in particular:  The leveling of the OE inflectional case system;  The fixing of SVO word order as in present-day English;  A marked foreign influence on ME vocabulary. The most innovative aspect of the ME verbal system is the development of new tenses, in particular the future tense, the continuous tense and the passive voice. The tendency towards grammatical reduction influenced the patterns of word order. ME is also the period in which a large number of French words entered the English language. The supremacy of French concerned only a limited number of people, especially the French-speaking ruling nobility and the royal family. During the 12th and the 13th centuries a certain degree of French-English bilingualism existed among both upper and middle classes. This condition lasted until the end of the 13 th century, when more and more bilingual speakers shifted to English. By the end of this period nearly 900 French words had entered the language, like age, lesson, government, justice, honest, action and so on.

Latin continued to exercise great power on English as the language of the Church and scholarship and to a lesser extent of the law. 3.3 Modern English The Modern English period (1500 – 1900) is considered as the stage when a new “consciousness” about linguistic matters increased the need “to fix” both the vocabulary and the grammar of English, or, in other words, to standardize it. The growth of standard English took place through a long process of selection, acceptance, elaboration of functions and codification. In the course of these centuries English became the language of those domains where Latin and French were previously used (government, law, literature, religion). The expansion of vocabulary gave rise to the opposition between the so-called Neologisers and Purists. The former contributed to introducing a certain number of new words into English, mainly from Latin and French. Purists believed in the preservation of native vocabulary through, for example, processes of word formation, like prefixation and suffixation. During the ModEngl period several glossaries and both monolingual and bilingual dictionaries were compiled. Another significant aspect of the debate on language codification concerns the idea of a “correct” pronunciation. It is only in the 19th century that the standardization of pronunciation is achieved through the new ‘universal’ educational system. From a linguistic point of view, we can say that ModEngl is very close to Present-Day English written standard. However, there are still many inconsistencies in both spelling and grammar: we can mention, for example, the interchangeable use of the graphemes /u/ and /v/ in words such as euery (PDE every) and vnder (PDE under). It is usually assumed that by the end of the 19th century the process of standardization of the language was almost complete, even though we know that languages change continuously for both internal and external reasons. However, late ModEngl is also the period of the so-called fragmentation of the standard in which the English language, or more precisely its speakers, spread and settled in different geographical and socio-cultural contexts worldwide, because of British colonialism and imperialism. Three main stages can be distinguished.  The increasing activity of British trading companies and the slave trade. From the contact between English and West African languages, for example, new varieties of English emerged.  The establishment of stable colonial settlements in America, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. The contact between English and native but also other European languages resulted in the formation of the so-called colonial standard varieties of English.  The institutionalization of English within colonies. This means that English started to be used as a second language. 4. The sociolinguistic status of present-day English Since the beginning of the 20th century the term English has been used mainly to indicate the varieties of British English. Since the middle of the 1980s, however, a new paradigm of studies and terminology about its status, functions and structures has emerged. This new framework of language investigation is commonly defined as the English paradigm and can be explained in terms of “research interests” focusing on:

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GEOGRAPHICAL LOCATION (American English, African English…); LINGUISTIC AND ETHNIC ASSOCIATION (Chinese English, Indian English…); ACTIVITIES SUCH AS COMMERCE, EDUCATION, CULTURE AND TECHNOLOGY (legal English, standard English, seaspeak…); COMBINATIONS OF LOCATION AND ACTIVITY (American legal English, British medical English…); FUSION OF ENGLISH WITH OTHER LANGUAGES (Frenglish, Chiglish…).

4.1 The diaspora of English The diaspora of English worldwide is characterized by three main stages. The first stage refers to the expansion of English within the British Isles, namely Scotland, Wales and afterwards Ireland. The major sociolinguistic consequence of this process was the gradual linguistic, cultural, political and economic subjugation of the Gaelic speaking populations of the British Isles. The second stage is associated with the discovery of the new territories and the establishment of the British colonies in USA, Canada, Australia, New Zealand and South Africa. This stage of the spread of English mainly regards the formation of the colonial standards, or new Englishes. The third stage, or the second diaspora of English, concerns its diffusion and use as L 2 (English as a Second Language) in continents such as Africa and Asia and it mainly refers to the 19 th and 20th century American imperialism, including what we commonly define as globalization. 4.2 The countries and speakers of English The geographical spread of PDE has been described in terms of three concentric circles.  INNER CIRCLE – Where English has a multifunctional role and is used as a native language (ENL or L1). In ENL contexts English is transmitted through the family and institutional agencies such as the media and school.  OUTER CIRCLE – Where English has the status of second language (ESL or L2), or additional language. Within such a context English acts as an intra-national means of communication or as the language of government, media, religion and education.  EXPANDING CIRCLE – Where English is used as a foreign language (EFL). In EFL countries English functions in international domains such as diplomacy, scientific research, business negotiations and international organizations like the European Union (EU). 4.3 English as a global language It is thus clear from the above that PDE has acquired the status of global language. The World Englishes Paradigm, which has been initiated by the sociolinguist Braj B. Kachru, is probably the most relevant one. Its focus on the functional aspects of the spread of English, on its cross-cultural nature and changing identity has contributed to re-thinking English in both sociolinguistic and educational contexts. In addition, a pragmatic-oriented view of global English, or English for Specific Purposes (ESP) has interpreted its use and functions in terms of utility and instrumentality. English has been considered as a useful means of communication, serving the need of different communities of speakers around the world. Three major aspects of English as a global language can be identified.

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The establishment of new English-speaking communities in new geographical and socio-cultural contexts. The contact and mutual influence between English and other non-genetically related languages. The formation of non-native varieties of English or global Englishes.

4.4 The speech community of contemporary English The speech community of PDE is a multicultural place, which is characterized by strong ethnic and social differentiation and where social bi/multi–linguism is the norm. The use of two or more varieties or languages within the same speech event is the most powerful marker of language identity. It signals that sociolinguistic identities are not fixed constructs, but they are constantly changed and challenged by phenomena of language contact. 4.5 The varieties of English Different labels have been used to describe the varieties of English worldwide.  REGIONAL – Yorkshire English  SOCIAL ENGLISHES – Cockney English  COLONIAL ENGLISHES – American, Canadian, Australian…  IMMIGRANT ENGLISHES – Chicano English  PIDGIN ENGLISHES AND CREOLES – Nigerian English and Tok Pisin  SHIFT ENGLISHES – Aboriginal English  ENGLISH AS A LINGUA FRANCA 4.6 The genesis of global Englishes Different accounts of the emergence of global Englishes have recently been put forward. The so-called deviationist perspective, according to which global Englishes are the result of imperfect learning of L 1 varieties of English, has dominated studies of global Englishes for a considerable time. This approach, however, has been challenged for not considering linguistic creativity, or the capacity of non-native speakers of English to create their own norms independently in relation to a specific geographical and sociocultural context. According to this approach we need to distinguish betwe...