History of the English Language 3301-L2HEL
The classes give students the opportunity to understand the nature of linguistic changes and the process of shaping English against the background of historical, cultural and social events. They shed light on the structure of contemporary English, its exceptions and irregularities discussing the latter in the light of general linguistic processes.
Topics:
1. Old English: graphemic-phonemic correspondences, phonology, morphology, syntax and lexis based on the corpus of OE sentences and short excerpts from prose and poetry; OE dialects
2. Middle English: morphological and phonological changes in the transition period (vowel reduction, monophthongization, levelling of inflectional cases);
dialectal features based on an analysis of selected ME texts; ME phonological processes (Homorganic Lengthening, Trisyllabic Shortening, CC-Shortening; Open Syllable Lengthening); selected fragments from Geoffrey Chaucer’s Canterbury Tales (metre and rhythm, pronunciation and lexis)
4. The Great Vowel Shift
3. Early Modern English: analysis of selected fragments from William Shakespeare’s plays (pronunciation, lexis); selected early ModE phonological processes
Type of course
Course coordinators
Learning outcomes
A student is able to place in time the most important events connected with the evolution of English. S/he can perform a linguistic analysis of texts representing different stages of the history of that language on the phonological, morphological, syntactic, lexical and semantic levels. S/he can identify variants of English in the worldrepresented by written texts or spoken language
Knowledge
K_W06 The graduate has familiarity with historical development of the English language and its variability in diferent areas of language description at an advanced level
Abilities: the graduate is able to
K_U06 Recognize and describe at an advanced level phenomena related to the development and variation of the English language
Social competence: the graduate is ready to
K-K01 Critically appraise the knowledge and content obtained from various sources
Assessment criteria
Education at language level B2+
Obligatory course for the first-level (BA) students.
Grading: based on four short tests during the semester; final exam based on the material discussed in lectures and in practical classes; a retake exam during the retake exam session.
Three absences are allowed.
Practical placement
Non-applicable
Bibliography
Bough, A. C. and T. Cable, 2002 (6th ed.) A History of the English Language. Routledge. (selected chapters)
Fisiak, Jacek. 1993. An Outline History of English. Volume I: External History. Poznań.
Hogg, Richard, 2002. An Introduction to Old English. OUP.
Hogg, Richard, 2002. An Introduction to Middle English. Edinburgh University Press.
Pyles, Th. and J. Algeo, 2010 (6th ed.) The Origins and Development of the English Language. Wadsworth.
Wełna, J. 1996. A Brief Outline of the History of English. Warszawa: WUW.
Additional information
Additional information (registration calendar, class conductors, localization and schedules of classes), might be available in the USOSweb system: