Language History

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Leonard Neidorf
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Mechanical Reproduction ◽  
Language History ◽  
History Of

This chapter assesses the particular language quirks of Beowulf’s transmission. The failure of the scribes to comprehend the language of Beowulf would not be relevant to the transmission of the text if the task of the scribe were to reproduce the letters encountered in the exemplar without modification. However, for the Anglo-Saxon scribe, the task of the mechanical reproduction of the text was complicated by the imperative to modify its superficial, nonstructural features. Language change frequently induced the scribes to make minor alterations to the text that inadvertently deprived it of sense, grammar, alliteration, or meter. These alterations offer valuable insights into the history of the English language—particularly, into some specific ways that the language had changed between the period when Beowulf was composed and the period when its extant manuscript was produced.

The History of Meter

2012 ◽  
Author(s):  
Meredith Martin
Keyword(s):  
English Language ◽  
Test Case ◽  
Methodological Framework ◽  
Anglo Saxon ◽  
Gerard Manley Hopkins ◽  
English Poet ◽  
History Of ◽  
Material History ◽  
English Culture

This chapter sets out the book's historical and methodological framework. Despite the modernist characterization of Victorian tradition as unified and steadfast, the various approaches to Victorian meter in English histories, grammars, and metrical studies reveal ideologically charged histories of English culture, often presented as Roman or Anglo-Saxon. Gerard Manley Hopkins was himself a mediator between various metrical discourses and theories. As a Catholic priest who taught the classics and an English poet who attempted to valorize the material history of the English language in his syntax and through his use of sprung rhythm, Hopkins is a test case for the personal and national ideologies of English meter.

Modal Categories in Contact: The Case of Heritage Ambon Malay in the Netherlands

2015 ◽  
Vol 12 (3) ◽  
pp. 271-291
Author(s):  
Francesca R. Moro
Keyword(s):  
The Netherlands ◽  
Heritage Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Dominant Language ◽  
Language History ◽  
Universal Principles ◽  
Language Variety ◽  
History Of ◽  
Discourse Grammar ◽  
Study Support

This article reports the preliminary findings of a study examining the semantics of modal verbs in heritage Ambon Malay, a language variety spoken by Dutch-Ambon Malay bilinguals in the Netherlands whose dominant language is Dutch. In this study, I examined the use of the necessity modal musti [must] in the speech of heritage language (HL) speakers and compared it to that of monolingual homeland Ambon Malay speakers and monolingual Dutch speakers. The findings show convergence between the modal system of the heritage language (Ambon Malay) and that of the dominant language (Dutch). More precisely, the heritage necessity modal musti [must] has extended its semantic range to resemble its Dutch equivalent moeten [must.] I discuss three main factors that account for this innovation, namely (i) psychological factors – semantic convergence is one of the strategies adopted by bilinguals to reduce their cognitive load, (ii) universal principles of language development in contact settings ̶conceptual naturalness facilitates semantic influence from Dutch, and (iii) social factors ̶the language history of HL speakers shows that the innovation correlates with type of bilingualism and amount of exposure to Ambon Malay. Finally, the findings of this study support the Functional Discourse Grammar hierarchy of language change and, to a lesser extent, the typological hierarchy of Matras (2007).

scholarly journals Language history from below: Standardization and Koineization in Renaissance Italy

2020 ◽  
Vol 6 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Josh Brown
Keyword(s):  
Language Change ◽  
Common Language ◽  
Language History ◽  
Major Process ◽  
History Of ◽  
Renaissance Italy ◽  
Exclusive Processes ◽  
The Relationship ◽  
Insight Into ◽  
Complex Question

AbstractThe paper returns to the complex question of the sociolinguistic history of Italy during the Renaissance. The traditional historiography of the Italian language adopts a teleological perspective, often defining the codification of Italian in 1525 with the publication of Pietro Bembo’s Prose della volgar lingua. This approach means that less attention has been devoted to other processes of language change, as well as less focus on areas outside Tuscany. Using the major historical grammars of Italian, I highlight cases of variation which emphasize the non-uniformitarian nature of the standard. One major process while the standard was evolving was the formation of a koine or ‘common language’. This was the main feature of language change throughout much of north Italy. Recent research into the histories of non-Italo Romance varieties have suggested that standardization and koineization are not mutually exclusive processes. Rather, they are best characterised by a ‘top-down’ vs. ‘bottom-up’ approach respectively, with many points of intersection. The paper transposes these notions onto the sociolinguistic landscape of Renaissance Italy, allowing for further insight into how Italian was codified in particular, and the relationship between standards and koines more generally.

Key to the New World

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Luis Martínez-Fernández
Keyword(s):  
Social Structure ◽  
English Language ◽  
New World ◽  
Sugar Production ◽  
Language History ◽  
Early Colonial ◽  
Geological Formation ◽  
History Of ◽  
Cultural Developments

Key to the New World is the first comprehensive English-language history of early colonial Cuba published in the last 100 years. It is divided into eight chapters that cover a range of topics since the island’s geological formation up to 1700, including geography; the indigenous inhabitants; first encounters between Europeans and Amerindians (otherwise known as the discovery of the New World); the conquest and colonization of Cuba; demographic realities such as race, gender, and social structure; cultural developments such as transculturation; piracy and other forms of aggression; slavery; and sugar production.

A Social History of Language Change in Highland East Java

1989 ◽  
Vol 48 (2) ◽  
pp. 257-271 ◽  
Author(s):  
Nancy J. Smith-Hefner
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Social Identities ◽  
Language History ◽  
Speech Communities ◽  
Political Forces ◽  
East And Southeast Asia ◽  
History Of ◽  
National Languages ◽  
Regional Languages

Throughout east and southeast asia multilingual speech communities are the norm rather than the exception. In most countries in the region, nonstandard dialects and ethnic languages survive and even thrive despite the introduction of national languages and their utilization in government, business, and education. Where communicative isolation is not the cause of their survival, the persistence of such regional languages often signals the continuing importance of distinctive infranational identities, operating within (and sometimes across) the boundaries of the modern nation state. Although surely not the only important marker of ethnic or social distinctiveness, language is a particularly rich medium for the expression of social identity. Conversely, the adoption of a new linguistic standard often requires the resolution of what are perceived as competing social identities. In much of developing Asia, therefore, researchers on language history regularly encounter some variant of the same question: what social and historical conditions determine the ways that speakers in multilingual communities resolve problems of language and identity? More specifically, what mix of cultural and political forces ensures that some linguistic varieties persist while others decline or even disappear?

The relative clause marker in Scots English: Diffusion, complexity, and style as dimensions of syntactic change

1980 ◽  
Vol 9 (2) ◽  
pp. 221-247 ◽  
Author(s):  
Suzanne Romaine
Keyword(s):  
Relative Clause ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
Qualitative Change ◽  
Spoken Language ◽  
Written Language ◽  
Historical Study ◽  
Syntactic Complexity ◽  
History Of

ABSTRACTA historical study of variation in the relative clause marker in Scottish English indicates that sociolinguistic methodology has some important contributions to make to historical linguistics. The use of the frequency with which NPs in certain syntactic positions are relativized as a measure of syntactic complexity reveals that the WH relativization strategy appears to have entered the language in the most complex styles and least frequently relativized syntactic positions, until it eventually spread or diffused throughout the system. The addition of the WH relativization strategy seems to have resulted in a ‘squish’ of two strategies which are opposed in stylistic meaning rather than in actual qualitative change in the relative system. The process of diffusion can be seen as completed as far as the more formal styles of the modern written language are concerned, but it has not really affected the spoken language, where the native TH strategy prevails. (Sociolinguistic methodology, historical linguistics, language change, relativization, history of tle English language)

scholarly journals Między przekładem, komentarzem a interpretacją — uwagi na marginesie anglojęzycznego podręcznika literatury polskiej

1970 ◽  
Vol 9 (1) ◽  
Author(s):  
Marta Skwara
Keyword(s):  
English Translation ◽  
English Language ◽  
Polish Literature ◽  
Language History ◽  
Reciprocal Connections ◽  
Theoretical Assumptions ◽  
History Of

In-between Translation, Commentary and Interpretation — Remarks on the Margins of an English Language History of Polish LiteratureThe paper is devoted to the reciprocal connections among three “metatexts”: translation, commentary, and interpretation. On the basis of Antoine Berman’s theoretical assumptions I demonstrate how these three “reformulations” are intertwined in order to analyze chosen pieces of Polish poetry in English translation. My aim is to explore various roles which translation, commentary and interpretation can play in presenting Polish literature to foreign readers.KEY WORDS: translation, commentary, interpretation, intertextuality, Polish literature

The History of the English Language and the Medievalist

2017 ◽  
Author(s):  
Seth Lerer
Keyword(s):  
National Identity ◽  
Recent Work ◽  
English Language ◽  
Language Change ◽  
First Century ◽  
Linguistic Change ◽  
Languages In Contact ◽  
History Of ◽  
Vowel Shift ◽  
Vernacular Literacy

The History of the English Language (HEL) is a largely ideological enterprise keyed to fitting literary evidence into expected categories, and yet recent work has suggested that we can no longer simply assume that phenomena such as the Great Vowel Shift were “real,” historical, systematic changes. Contemporary debates on language change and use have historical precedent; social arguments about language are part of a very long tradition; languages in contact have generated linguistic change and adaptation, and language and national identity, as well as personal self-consciousness, have long gone together. This chapter will explore the ways in which the historical and institutional associations of HEL and the “medievalist” are contingently driven, and then to suggest some ways in which the redefinition of the “medievalist” in the twenty-first century can productively include a newer, critical sensibility about the place of HEL in the teachings of social vernacular literacy.

Historical linguistics, language change and the history of French

1994 ◽  
Vol 4 (1) ◽  
pp. 75-97 ◽  
Author(s):  
Rebecca Posner
Keyword(s):  
Social History ◽  
Language Change ◽  
Historical Linguistics ◽  
French Language ◽  
Time Dimension ◽  
The Past ◽  
Language History ◽  
Linguistic History ◽  
Modern Methods ◽  
History Of

AbstractThis is a personal delineation of part of a methodology for the History of the French Language, aiming to combine the methodology of linguistics with that of history proper. Both traditional and modern methods of ‘historical linguistics’ fail to take account of a real time dimension, whereas ‘language history’ often resembles institutional, cultural and social history. We ask how we identify the ‘event’ and the ‘object’ of linguistic history, and how we distinguish variation, innovation, shift and change. We ask also what the linguist can contribute to the historian's reconstruction of the past.

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