What external causes of changes do you know?

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УЧЕБНО-МЕТОДИЧЕСКИЙ КОМПЛЕКС ПО ИСТОРИИ АНГЛИЙСКОГО ЯЗЫКА

Для обучающихся специальности «Начальное образование»

Рудный 2015

INTRODUCTION.

THE SUBJECT AND THE AIMS OF THE HISTORY OF LANGUAGE

ACTIVATING THE STUDENTS’ BACKGROUND KNOWLEDGE

Unscramble the proverbs below, translate into your native language

Leern e new lengeege end get e new seel.

A daffarant langaaga as a daffarant vasaan af lafa.

Find out what is this in English?

German	English	French	English
Winter Fuss Lang Mutter		Automne Riviere Modeste Changer

Transcribe and read the following words

Speak, great, bear, heart, heard

Give the plurals of the following

Girl, man, book, foot, goose, mouse, sheep, deer

DATA BASE - The History of English Language in Brief

Learning any language we usually compare it with our mother tongue or other languages known to us. And as a rule we are faced with the fact that some of the languages have considerable lexical, phonetic or grammatical similarities. Or sometimes we run over the rules the origin of which we cannot explain.

Read the information below and define the following glossary

· Subject: language …

· Subdivision: …

· Purpose: systematic study …

· Approaches to study: …

· Causes of changes: …

The answers are usually in the history of the language which investigates the language itself, its origin and the laws of development.

The purpose of the history of the language is a systematic study of the language’s development from the earliest times to the present day.

The aim of this course is of a more theoretical nature. While tracing the evolution of the English language the students are often confronted with a number of theoretical questions which provide them with a wider philological outlook. The HEL shows the place of English in the linguistic world; it reveals its ties and contacts with other languages.

The language is also investigated by phonetics, grammar and lexicology. Accordingly the history of the language is subdivided into historical phonetics, historical morphology, historical syntax and historical lexicology.

Any language can be investigated both synchronically and diachronically. In studying Modern English we regard the language as fixed in time and describe each linguistic level – phonetics, grammar or lexis – synchronically, taking no account of the origin of present-day features. When considered diachronically, every linguistic fact is interpreted as a stage or step in the never-ending evolution of language.

In studying the history of a language we are faced with a number of problems concerning the driving forces or causes of changes in the language. These causes can apparently be of two kinds: external and internal. In the first case, language is influenced by factors lying outside it or extralinguistic factors. Such historic events as social changes, wars, conquests, migrations, cultural contacts can hardly fail to influence a language, more especially its vocabulary. On the other hand, many changes occur in the history of language which cannot be traced to any extralinguistic causes; the driving power in such cases is within the language itself. Most changes in the phonetic structure of a language and also in its grammatical structure are due to internal causes.

REVIEW

Complete the following definition with the term

1) _____________ is the language itself, its origin and the laws of development.

2) ______________ is a systematic study of the language’s development from the earliest times to the present day.

3) ______________ is subdivided into historical phonetics, historical morphology, historical syntax and historical lexicology.

Are synchronical and diachronical.

Are external and internal.

Answer the questions

What approach to study should we use if we want to compare English grammar 6 centuries ago and nowadays?

What approach is used to compare English and American vocabulary of the Present Day?

What approach do we usually use studying English Grammar?

What causes of changes do we usually speak about when we investigate such phonetic phenomena as reduction, accommodation?