Engelse taalkunde III: geschiedenis van het Engels
1. Introduction to language variation and change and history of the
English Language
1.1 The field of Language Variation and Change
● Language Variation and Change, often abbreviated to LVC
○ Overlaps with historical linguistics (involves the study of earlier stages of languages
and of how languages change) and sociolinguistics (focuses on how social aspects
interact with language(s)).
● Five problems (or goals) for the theory of language change, which are seen as central to field
of LVC:
1. CONSTRAINTS PROBLEM. What sort of linguistic variation is there in the world?
What sort of language changes are possible? There are constraints on what types of
linguistic variation (and thus also language change) are found in the languages of the
world.
2. TRANSITION PROBLEM. When a speaker introduces a new linguistic feature into
their language, and thus the language of their community (assum- ing the community
has more than a single speaker!), how does this newly innovated feature spread
throughout the community? Does it actually always spread? Relates to questions on
how linguistic innovations propagate, get transmitted from one generation to another,
and generally spread within a society.
3. EMBEDDING PROBLEM. Deals with what factors can affect linguistic variation
and is thus very similar to the constraints problem. However, the embedding problem
focuses on how possible types of language change are affected by various factors.
What social and other factors can possibly affect whether and how a speaker or a
group of speakers produce this phenomenon? Understanding the linguistic systems in
which we find linguistic variation is crucial for our understanding of how certain
features develop in some languages but not others. Linguistic innovations need to also
be considered in their linguistic and social contexts.
4. EVALUATION PROBLEM. The evaluation problem is all about how the speakers
within a community assess, or evaluate, linguistic variation. In other words, how do
members of a community evaluate this linguistic phenomenon that’s been spreading
in some varieties of English?
5. ACTUATION PROBLEM. Why does a new linguistic feature get introduced in a
language at one specific time and in one spe- cific place rather than at some other
time and in some other place(s)?
1.2 What can vary and change in language?
We can delineate the following linguistic levels: phonetics, phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon,
semantics, and pragmatics.
1.2.1 Phonetics and phonology
● Phonetics and phonology represent linguistic levels (and fields) that focus on the sounds of
languages.
● Distinction between sounds and spelling
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, ○ The same letter can correspond to multiple sounds, a single sound may be represented
by a range of letters, and some letters are not pronounced in English; or they are, but
only in some dialects.
● Distinction between phonetics and phonology
○ Two different linguistic levels
○ Phonology focuses on the lexically contrastive variation that there is in how we
pronounce things
○ Phoneticsfocuses on the lexically non-contrastive variation that there is in how we
pronounce things.
1.2.2 Morphology
● The field of morphology focuses on the structure of words.
● Variation in morphology in grammatical morphemes
○ Inflectional morphology: the part of morphology that deals with grammatical
morphemes
○ Multiple different word-forms can belong to the same lexeme.
○ Paradigm: the set of word-forms that belongs to a lexeme
● Variation in morphology in word formation (creation of new words)
○ Through derivation: the addition of an affix to an independent word
○ Through compounding: putting together two independent words
1.2.3 Syntax
● The level of the language that focuses on the structure of phrases, clauses and sentences,
above the level of the word.
● Many phenomena that are syntactic in nature could often be seen as falling within the remit of
morphology, and even phonetics and phonology
○ Phenomena which are both morphological and syntactic can be said to fall within the
area of morphosyntax.
● Tree diagram: the words of the language as being attached to an abstract structure of a
sentence. In this view of syntax, sentences are made up of hierarchically structured phrases.
● X-bar theory: elements of a syntactic tree having mothers and sisters, like in a family tree.
● Syntactic variation: Sometimes, variation will involve words appearing in different places in
the tree while the abstract structure may stay the same. Sometimes, the tree structure itself
changes; over its long life, the branches of a tree may move, and new branches may be grown.
1.2.4 Lexicon
● Variation can be found regarding, for example, what word X means in dialect A as opposed to
dialect B, and what words are used for idea Z in which dialect.
● Lexical variation is not limited to nouns:
1.2.5 Pragmatics/discourse
● Pragmatics: looks at units of language in context rather than in an abstract vacuum: linguistic
context, situational context, and social context.
● Discourse: language use and linguistic structure beyond the level of the sentence.
● Discourse and pragmatics are really about how the whole communication process happens,
which requires various aspects of language to be considered.
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, ● Phenomena from various other linguistic levels could easily fall within the scope of
pragmatics. → Any aspect of language can potentially have a pragmatic function of some
sort, and contribute to the structure of the whole conversation.
1.3 The field of History of the English Language
● Concerned with the history of the English language
● The history of the English language is typically divided into the following periods:
● The Old English and the Middle English periods can also be further divided into Early Old
English and Late Old English, and Early Middle English and Late Mid- dle English periods.
● Important to remember, however:
○ Any periodization of the history of a language is an idealization, because languages
don’t change overnight and resist being chopped up into discrete historical chunks.
○ How interdisiplinary the history of English is
1.4 Why study History of the English Language?
2. Change in English today
2.1 History and context
2.1.1 What is English?
● What do we mean by English today?
○ Present Day English (PDE)
○ Starting in 1945 and continuing until today (largely conventional)
● What is English?
○ Both standard and non-standard varieties are part of English, and so are both native
and non-native varieties.
○ For some varieties, called pidgins and creoles, there is a debate regard- ing whether
they can or should fall within what we call the English language.
■ Pidgins: usually defined as a form of language with no native speakers,
arising in language contact situations and functioning as a lingua franca.
■ But the contexts have to come about on a regular basis. In history, the typical
contexts in which pidgins arise have been those of trade, migration, and
slavery.
■ Pidgins by definition don’t have any native speakers, and it is sometimes
claimed that they tend to have less complex structures. However, if speakers
of pidgins have children and those children acquire the pidgin as their mother
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, tongue, they will add new and expanded struc- tural possibilities to the
former “pidgin”, and then we refer to these forms of language as creoles, not
pidgins.
○ It's possible to find general differences of English, but fairly often, we can also find a
lot of homogeneity (or similarity) across the globe in the different varieties of the
language.
■ Some of the general differences most likely come down to the individual
histories of the speakers of different varieties of English.
● In all cases, English became a language spoken in regions in which
other languages had existed, including Britain. These local languages
have often influenced the English spoken in the area.
● Another general reason is that those who brought English to many
areas of the world did not necessarily bring standard English with
them, nor did they bring English which was necessarily uniform
across all the newcomers.
■ The similarities found across varieties of contemporary English
● May be the advent of a range of digital media, generalization of
compulsory education, and the increasing ease of travel- ling
opportunities.
● Although we could think of these as possible causes of homogeneity,
they could also be thought of as causes of further diversifica- tion.
● But most importantly, researchers looking into this topic have found
that the technological innovations either do not lead to significant
language change or that such a change is difficult to establish in the
first place.
2.1.2 English in Britain and Ireland
● The English language came into existence in Britain and has therefore had its longest history
there (about 15 centuries old).
● Due to historical events such as the formation of the British Empire and the rise of the US as a
superpower over the past two centuries, English is now fairly widespread across the globe.
○ English is now being spoken as a first language on a global basis, including Africa
(e.g. South Africa), Asia (e.g. Singapore), Aus- tralia, Europe (Ireland and the UK),
North America (Canada and the US), and New Zealand.
○ It is also recognized as an official language in a number of countries (e.g. Belize,
Guyana, Nigeria, Papua New Guinea, Eswatini, Tanza- nia, Zambia).
○ English is also taught widely as a foreign language.
● Anglicization of Ireland:
○ although English is about 15 centuries old, it is not equally old everywhere.
○ The first English speak ers in Ireland that we know of date back to the 12th century;
however, it was not until the 16th and the 17th centuries when English was
introduced rather more invasively into Ireland with the Plantations.
○ Today, Irish English is the mother tongue of most inhabitants of the isle of Ireland,
with very few native speakers of Irish (a Celtic language).
● Anglicization of Scotland:
○ English became the official written language in the 18th century, when Scotland and
England had come under the rule of a single parliament and a single monarch
○ Few native speakers of Scottish Gaelic (celtic language) are to be found today.
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, ● Anglicization of Wales:
○ In the 16th century with the Acts of Union.
○ The Welsh language has seen a decline in the number of native speakers; nonetheless,
Welsh seems to be the strongest of the Celtic languages spoken in Britain and Ireland
today.
● Celtic languages in Britain and Ireland are important:
○ They have influenced the respective varieties of English spoken on these isles as we
know them today.
○ The use of these languages is imbued with political significance as well.
● The 20th and the 21st centuries have brought further important factors to consider regarding
today’s linguistic variation in Britain and Ireland:
○ Contemporary multicultural, multiethnic, and often multilingual populations in
Britain and Ireland
○ It remains to be seen whether the Breit may have linguistic consequences, such as
(further) diversification in English spoken in Northern Ireland and the Republic of
Ireland in particular.
2.1.3 English in North America
● Together with Ireland, Wales, and Scotland, North America can be considered the first
colonies and dominions of England.
● American English ultimately goes back to the first settlers in 1607, when Jamestown was
founded.
● The United States of America were the first to claim their independence in 1776, with a
strong sense of national identity, which went hand in hand with linguistic national identity.
● The Dominion of Canada became self-governing in 1867.
● A range of English varieties is to be found in the US because of a high degree of language
contact, as well as contact between various dialects of English:
○ North America had already been populated by the time English speakers arrived by
the Indigenous peoples of the Americas, who spoke a vast array of languages
belonging to several language families.
○ English speakers were not the only settlers, nor were they the only incomers: today,
the US includes ethnic minorities such as Hispanic and Latino Americans and Asian
Americans and of course the largest “minority”, African Americans.
● There is increasing linguistic diversity in Canadian English as well, despite the fact that
Canadian English is usually considered fairly homogeneous.
2.1.4 English in Australia and New Zealand
● Go back to 1788 and to 1840, respectively.
● After the American Independence, and at this point a clearly distinct set of varieties of
American English (as compared to British English) had already emerged.
● Thus, relatively “young” varieties of English.
● Australia became independent in 1901 and New Zealand in 1907.
● The presence of languages other than English in both Australia and New Zealand has
contributed to the linguistic diversity found in Australian English and New Zealand English:
○ The first settlers had brought their own dialects, which would later give rise to what
we now know as Australian English and New Zealand English.
○ Australia and New Zealand were already inhabited by speakers of a range of
Australian Aboriginal languages and Maori.
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, 2.1.5 English in India and South Africa
● They represent examples of English as an official language introduced as a result of British
imperialism, without being adopted as the mother tongue by the majority of the population.
The speakers of the local languages have for the most part resisted the shift to English.
● India:
○ English was introduced into India in 1602, with the formation of the English East
India Company.
○ India gained independence from the UK in 1947.
● South Africa
○ The beginnings of South African English lie in 1795.
○ South Africa gained its nominal independence in 1910 and full independence in 1931.
● The downfall of the British Empire goes hand in hand with local independence, which is
reflected in the linguistic diversity that tends to be more pronounced at such times.
○ India
■ A vast range of languages had been spoken in the region before the arrival of
the English language, falling within a number of different language families,
e.g. Austroasiatic, Dravidian, Indo-European, Munda, and others.
■ A high degree of language contact of various types has contributed to the
variation we find in Indian English.
○ South Africa
■ With a range of Bantu and other indigenous African languages as well as
another Indo-European language (Afrikaans) present in the region, South
African English represents a variety of English sociolinguistically distinct
from other English varieties and involves a range of locally relevant varieties.
⇒ Standard native Englishes as we know them today once emerged and were further shaped by
contact with languages other than English
Language, dialect, or variety?
● Typically, the decision is made using political rather than linguistic criteria.
○ E.g. Czech and Slovak:
■ Czech and Slovak are mutually intelligible and a Czech and a Slovak can
easily communicate without having to learn each other’s language.
■ Awareness that the two are separate languages has increased dramatically
since the division of the 20th-century state of Czechoslovakia into two
countries in 1993.
● Linguistic criteria:
○ On the other hand, and perhaps more intuitively, languages can show differences in
their linguistic structures. However, the boundaries are not always so clear. That’s
because, historically, dialects may develop into distinct languages, so there is a whole
cline of possibilities.
○ Because there are two sets of criteria to use, political criteria and linguistic criteria,
but also because the term dialect may be associated with negative connotations in lay
use, linguists often resort to the term variety instead.
2.1.6 Studying variation in contemporary English
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