Historical English Linguistics

6 ECTS credits
180 h study time

Offer 1 with catalog number 4020166FNR for all students in the 1st semester at a (F) Master - specialised level.

Semester

1st semester

Enrollment based on exam contract

Impossible

Grading method

Grading (scale from 0 to 20)

Can retake in second session

Yes

Taught in

English

Faculty

Faculty of Languages & Humanities

Department

Linguistics and Literary Studies

Educational team

Bastien De Clercq
Ludovic De Cuypere (course titular)

Activities and contact hours

13 contact hours Lecture
13 contact hours Seminar, Exercises or Practicals
75 contact hours Independent or External Form of Study

Course Content

Although its roots can be traced back to a handful of Germanic tribes that settled in Britain around 500 ce, English is currently one of the world-dominating languages, With nearly 400 million first-language speakers. The original settlers spoke different but probably mutually intelligible West-Germanic dialects, from which a common “language”, or, better still, a set of dialects nowadays refered to as “Old English” emerged. Old English was vastly different from present day English(es). As a matter of fact, the language is simply incomprehensible without some form of translation.

This course looks at the extra- and intralinguistic forces that shaped Old English into Present Day English(es). Taking a rather factual approach, the course keeps linguistic theory to a bare minimum. Starting with a introduction to language change in general and a with a short outline of Proto-Indo-European and Proto-Germanic, the mother languages that gave birth to English, the course then looks at the major chronological stages of English: from Old English (500–1100) and Middle English (1100–1500) to Early Modern English (1500–1800) and Modern English (1800–present). Each stage is amply illustrated with actual text data. Sociological factors that have contributed to the evolution of English are additionally discussed.

Course material

Digital course material (Required) : Historical English Linguistics, Ludovic De Cuypere

Additional info

For more information about the concrete organization of this course: see CANVAS.

Learning Outcomes

Algemene competenties

Upon succesful completion of this course the student is able to:

1. recognize different types of language change in the history of English

2. apply the correct terminology to describe different types of language change in the history of English

3. define and illustrate major phonological, morphological, syntactic and lexical changes in English

4. identify the historical period of an unfamiliar English text (Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English, Modern English)

5. describe aspects of the interaction of language change and major socio-political events in the history of English

6. identify, analyze and describe larger sets of changes found in the history of English (e.g., great vowel shift, standardization, declension, fixation of constituent order)

7. select and use the appropriate online resources to analyse (historical) language material (e.g. Bosworth & Toller's Anglo-Saxon dictionary, Oxford English Dictionary, Old English Translator)

8. provide a diachronic explanation for linguistic features of present day English (e.g., foot (sg.) vs. feet (pl.), *yesterday went he..., do you understand vs. *understand you?, see - sea, I don't see the book vs. *I see not the book)

9. recognize synchronic variation in the different diachronic stages of English (e.g., variation in Middle English)

Grading

The final grade is composed based on the following categories:
Oral Exam determines 40% of the final mark.
Written Exam determines 60% of the final mark.

Within the Oral Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Oral Presentation with a relative weight of 40 which comprises 40% of the final mark.

Note: Tell an engaging story (15 minutes) about a topic related to the history of the English language.

Within the Written Exam category, the following assignments need to be completed:

Written Exam with a relative weight of 60 which comprises 60% of the final mark.

Note: Students receive several questions that they have to answer within one week.

Additional info regarding evaluation

Oral presentation: 15 min presentation on a topic dealing with the history of English. (If on campus presentations are not possible, the presentation can take place online via CANVAS (Big Blue Button).

Written exam: 2 hour exam, students are allowed to use a personal cheat sheet (one sided A4 paper).

II. Nonattendance

Unlawful absence of the presentation or the written exam results in a zero mark

III Second exam session

A pass mark can be transferred to the next exam session and to the following academic year.

A retake of the written exam is offered in the second exam session.

The Presentation can be retaken in the form of an oral exam (Presentation to the Lecturer)

The final mark for the second exam session is calculated as follows: written exam (60%) + oral presentation (40%)

Allowed unsatisfactory mark

The supplementary Teaching and Examination Regulations of your faculty stipulate whether an allowed unsatisfactory mark for this programme unit is permitted.

Academic context