The Subject, aim and objectives of studying the History of the English Language

LECTURE 1

HISTORY OF LANGUAGE AS A LINGUISTIC DISCIPLINE

The Subject, aim and objectives of studying the History of the English Language

Every language has a history; and as in the rest of human culture, changes are constantly taking place in the course of the transmission of a language from one generation to another. Languages change in all their aspects, in their pronunciation, word forms, syntax, and word meanings. These changes, mostly gradual in their operation, become noticeable only cumulatively over the course of several generations. In studying a foreign language, English in our case, the student inevitably compares it to his native tongue and is often astonished to find great differences not only in the structure of the target language but also in the way ideas are expressed in it. There is no denying that English spelling is somewhat difficult for a Belarusian learner of English. This is because the written form of the English word is conventional rather than phonetic. Therefore, some phonetic phenomena cannot be explained from the modern point of view without going into the history of the language. When the Latin alphabet was first used in Britain, writing was phonetic. After the introduction of printing in the 15th century, the written form of the word became fixed, whereas the sounds continued to change. This resulted in a growing discrepancy between letter and sound. Hence, such ‘difficult’ words as light, daughter, speak, great, book and many others where their pronunciation and spelling differ. Moreover, if you ask a little English boy or girl to write the word light (in the meaning of daylight) he or she would rather spell it as lite because they have not learned its spelling yet.On the other hand, modern spellings show how such words were pronounced in the past. For example, the word light sounded as [lix’t] which is easy to prove if you compare it with the Belarusian word лiхтар (something which produces light). As far as English vocabulary is concerned, it contains words which are similar to words found in other languages. For example, English – German (mother – Mutter, father – Vater, winter – Winter, hand – Hand, etc.); English - French (revolution – revolution, autumn – autumne, river – rivière, etc,); English –Russian (float – плот; флот); English –Belarusian (glebe – глеба, must – мусiць, etc.). Without going into the history of English, it is difficult to say whether these words are native or borrowings from the above mentioned languages. English grammar also presents some phenomena which a Belarusian learner of English will find misleading. For example, the irregular plural of nouns (man- men, foot –feet, mouse – mic e, etc), or the same form for both singular and plural of such words as sheep, deer, fish, or the fact that English modal verbs, unlike the other verbs, take no ending –s in the 3d person singular, and many other similar facts. All these things are traced back to a distant past and can be accounted for only by studying the history of the language. Another important aim of this course is of a more theoretical nature. Study of the history of any language is based on applying general principles of linguistics to the language in question. While tracing its evolution through time, students will be confronted with a number of theoretical questions connected with the language development in general and its aspects in particular. To find answers to these questions, students will have to rely on the theory previously studied in the course called Introduction to Linguistics. In this way ties will be established between general principles of linguistics and concrete linguistic facts, in other words, theoretical knowledge will find its application in practice. While studying the history of the English language we will inevitably have to deal with the history of the English nation considering the ‘traces’ it left in the language development. It goes without saying that a systematic study of the language’s development from the earliest times to the present day will enable the student to acquire a more profound understanding of modern English, its role in our world and perspectives of its future development

cumulatively- increasing gradually as more of smth is added or used target languag e the language that you are learning or translating into   conventional- snth that has been used for a long time and is considered the usual type   discrepancy – a difference between two things that should be the same   borrowing – a word or phrase, that has been copied from another language   account for – explain   in question – the things, people etc in question are the ones that are being discussed   inevitable – certain to happen and impossible to avoid

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