Javier Ruano García (fjrg@usal.

es) 1

UNIT 1. General Introduction to the History of the English Language (before 1500)

HANDOUT
RECOMMENDED READING FOR UNIT 1
o Trask R. Larry. “The Fact of Language Change.” Ed. Robert McColl Millar. Trask’s Historical
Linguistics. Abingdon: Routledge, 2015 [1996]. 1-15.

SOME USEFUL REFERENCES FOR UNIT 1

o Beal, Joan C. “Index of Terms.” In Language and Region. Lodon: Routledge, 2006. 111-117.
o Gordon, Mathew J. Labov: A Guide for the Perplexed. London: Bloomsbury, 2013.
o Görlach, Manfred. An Introduction to Early Modern English. Cambridge: Cambridge UP, 1991.
o Hickey, Raymond (ed.). A Dictionary of Varieties of English. Oxford: Wiley Blakwell, 2014.
o Matthews, P. H. Oxford Concise Dictionary of Linguistics. Oxford: Oxford UP, 2007.
o Upton, Clive. “Doing Dialects Today. Bringing Grandad up to Date (Four Parts).” National
Dialect Festival 2016, Leeds Yorkshire. Uploaded by National Dialect Festival,
November 2016. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=l557Xi9qF78
o Trask, R. Larry. Key Concepts in Language and Linguistics. London: Routledge, 1999.

1.1. Language Variation and Change: What does Variation refer to?
a. Variation and change
. “Language change is ceaseless and remorseless” (Trask 2015 [1996]: 10)
. “Without variation there would be no change, and embracing that variation brings new
dimensions to the study of change” (Gordon 2013: 161-167)
. “variation is the vehicle of change” (Trask 1999: 176)
b. What does variation refer to?
. Types of variation
* levels of language
* users / uses of the language
. Interspeaker variation vs Intraspeaker variation
i. Looking back in time...why?
. “In English linguistics. . .there is not enough emphasis on the historical. . .People who
are talking about, say, variation, don’t necessarily know where that variation came
from. They’re taught in linguistics but know nothing about the history of English” (Beal
2008, interview at ISLE 2008)

Department of English Studies EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

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. “the essence of dialectology as we inherited it from the 19th century [is] a study of
the dialects of essentially rural areas for what it [can] tell us about the history of the
language, that is, dialectology is historical linguistics” (Upton 2016)
ii. Focus 1: Why Early Modern English (1500-1700)?
. “Any discussion of present-day variation will...have to look closely at the historical
foundations of this diversification, most of which developed in the period under
discussion [Early Modern English]” (Görlach 1999: 460)
iii. Focus 2: Why regional dialect variation in Early Modern English (1500-1700)?
. “Every educated speaker...of English had to make a decision as to what kind of
English he considered more respectable or correct for formal use (possibly his
vernacular) form and show this attitude by conforming with...‘formal, written
London English’. This implied distancing himself from regional uses...increasingly
marked as ‘spoken, informal, less prestigious, uneducated, lower-class’.”
(Görlach 1999: 463)

c. Keywords

THESE KEYWORDS SHOULD NOT BE CONFUSED, SO PLEASE BE CAREFUL

ü DIALECT. A distinct (social or regional) variety in which grammar and vocabulary as well as
pronunciation are different from tjose of other dialects [from Beal].
ü STANDARD. The dialect used in formal or official writing and speech, and taught as a second
or foreign language. This may differ from one country to another, so that standard British
English (rather, English) is different from Standard Australian English, etc. [from Beal].
ü NON-STANDARD. A dialect or a word, pronunciation or grammatical construction that is
different from, but not inferior to, the standard or that used in the standard [from Beal].
ü VARIETY. Any form of a language which can be sufficiently delimited from another form of
that language on account of geographical, social, etc. factors; e.g. northern English. [from
Hickey]
ü VARIABLE. A linguistic feature that, in a particular variety, is subject to variation, i.e. it can
have different realizations, generally socially meaningful; e.g. (h) in British English is a
variable that has two possible realizations (or variants): /h/ and /ø/, as in /hAUs/ and
/AUs/ for house. [from Hickey and Beal]
ü VARIANT. Each of the realizations of a variable, or a form which is one of at least two
which are the realizations of the same linguistic feature; e.g. the variable (h) has two
variants in British English: /h/ and /ø/ in words like house. [from Hickey]

Department of English Studies EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

University of Salamanca CODE 102542
Javier Ruano García (fjrg@usal.es) 3

1.2. Old English (449-1066)

a. Extralinguistic
. Arrival of the Anglo-Saxon tribes (449)
. Scandinavian invasions (9th-10thc)
v The Danelaw — linguistic consequences

b. Intralinguistic

. Dialectal variation

v West Saxon

OE dialects
(c) 2009 Encyclopedia Britannica

1.3. Middle English (1066-1500)

a. Extralinguistic
. The Battle of Hastings (1066)

b. Intralinguistic
. Development of Anglo-Norman (AN): socio-linguistic implications

v Diglossia

. Reemergence of English — Provisions of Oxford (1258)

Department of English Studies EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

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. Great dialectal variation

v linguistic ‘instability’

ME dialects
(c) 2009 Encyclopedia Britannica

Department of English Studies EARLY MODERN ENGLISH

University of Salamanca CODE 102542