Dr. Johanna Rubba
English Department (Linguistics)
California Polytechnic State University ~ San Luis Obispo
Last updated 2/17/10

 

Changes to this page will be announced in class or via e-mail.

Week
Topics/Events
Reading Assignments
IMPORTANT: Consult Course Objectives before you read
Week 1 - 1/6-8
  • Course logistics
  • Unit 1: Background & Prehistory
    • Historical linguistics
    • Video: In Search of the First Language
    • Overview of the nature and component systems of language
    • Language 'Families': What are they and how did they arise?
  • The Prehistory Of English: Indo-European; Common Germanic; The Roman Empire; Latin; Britain before the Anglo-Saxons; Periods in the history of the English language
#1 Language Families of the World (by Finegan) - ON BLACKBOARD   This is a long reading with many details. Look at the course objectives before you read to focus your reading.
#2 Language Files 12.2, 12.11 (12.12 is 'A' material) - ON BLACKBOARD
#3 Crystal (Encyclopedia): Modelling English pp. 2-3
#4 Watkins, Calvert "Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans" on the Web at http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html
Week 2 - 1/13-15
  • Unit 1  cont'd
  • Unit 2: The Old English Period - ca. 500 CE to ca. 1100 CE
    •  Anglo-Saxon Britain: Raiding, Conquest and Settlement of Romano-Celtic Britain by the Anglo-Saxons; conversion to Christianity and England's first Golden Age
    • The Viking Invasions and Viking/Anglo-Saxon Mixing: The Wars with the Danes; King Alfred's Achievements and Legacy; Famous Works of Old English
    • Why Old English looks and sounds so foreign to the modern ear
    • Sound and spelling: Old vs. Modern English sounds and spelling
#5 Crystal p. 5 and Chs. 2 & 3 "The origins of English" and "Old English" 
#6 Crystal Ch. 17: "The Sound System", pp. 234-249. Read all of this material to get a general idea of English sounds, but see course objectives for material that will be tested from this section. You do not have to learn all of the details presented in this chapter.
#7 Crystal Ch. 18: "The Writing System",  pp. 256-265. As with #10, read all of the assigned pages, but consult our course objectives for the material that will be tested.
 #8 Crystal Ch. 18: "English Spelling", pp. 272-277. 
Week 3 - 1/20-22
  • Unit 2 cont'd
Week 4 - 1/27-29
  • Unit 3: The Middle English Period - ca. 1100 CE to ca. 1500 CE
    • 1066 and All That: The Norman Conquest & Medieval England
    • Norman & Parisian French at the top of English society
    • England becomes a diglossic/triglossic society
    • Lexicon: General information about vocabulary and change in vocabulary
    • Lexicon: French influence on English vocabulary & spelling
    • French fades and English takes over high-function uses
    • Literature: Chaucer and other Middle English poets
#9 Crystal Ch. 4 "Middle English", pp. 30-55.
#10 Crystal Ch. 8 "The Nature of the Lexicon", pp. 118, 119, pp. 120-123
#11 Crystal Ch. 9 "The Sources of the Lexicon", pp. 124-131, pp. 132-135
#12 Crystal Ch. 10 "Etymology", pp. 136-139
Week 5 - 2/3-5
  • Unit 3 cont'd
Week 6 - 2/10-12
  • Unit 4: The Early Modern English Period - ca. 1500 CE to 1800 CE
    • Early Modern English: English becomes recognizable to the modern ear and eye
    • The Great Vowel Shift
    • Changes in economics and class structure in England
    • The Renaissance & the Enlightenment: Revival of Greek and Latin classics; the beginnings of science and technology; massive borrowing of "big words" from Latin and Greek
    • Midterm Mon., 5/3
#13 Crystal Ch. 5 Early Modern English pp. 56-75
#14 Crystal Ch. 6 Modern English pp. 76-77
Week 7 - 2/17-19
  • Unit 4 cont'd
Week 8 - 2/24-26
Unit 5: The Origins and Ongoing Process of the Standardization of English
  • Variation in English: Standardization in England and America
  • Class anxiety leads to linguistic insecurity
  • The first English dictionaries and grammars
  • The rise of prescriptive grammar
  • Printing and the slow standardization of spelling
  • The major standard-setting (codifying) works of English scholarship and literature
#15 The Origins of Standard English - Crystal pp. 54-55
#16 The Search for Stability & Johnson's Dictionary - Crystal pp. 74-75
#17 The Rise of Prescriptive Grammar - Crystal pp. 78-79
#18 ON BLACKBOARD: "Standardisation and Writing", from Dick Leith's A Social History of English pp. 31-57
Week 9 - 3/3-5
  • Unit 5 cont'd
 
Week 10 - 3/10-12
  • Unit 6: The Modern Period: Modern English; Empire & World English: The Origins and Ongoing Process by Which English Has Been Carried to Far Corners of the Globe
    • English expands beyond Britain with first the British Empire, then American world power
    • New Englishes develop in British colonies: India, the Americas, Australia, and elsewhere
    • English as a major second language around the world
    • English-based pidgins and creoles emerge around the world
    • Borrowings from many languages into the English lexicon
    • Language policy in English-speaking countries: Contrasting the USA with Australia, South Africa
#19 TBA
#20 Finish Crystal Ch. 6 Modern English, pp.  80-91
#21 Crystal Ch. 7 World English, pp. 92-97, 106-115. (Pp. 98-105 A - level reading)
Exam Week - 3/16-20
Final Exam Fri., 6/11, 4:10 pm

Some websites for History of the English Language (many more website links are available on the Course Objectives page):

For links to sites with rich material, including for projects:
http://ebbs.english.vt.edu/hel/hel.html
Also has rich material for projects (images, manuscripts, objects, etc.)
http://www.georgetown.edu/cball/oe/old_english.html
 View the collections of the Metropolitan Museum in New York City - all kinds of artifacts and art from the Classical Greek period (pre-200 B.C.) onwards. Find models for artifact projects or information for other projects:
www.metmuseum.org

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