Sociolinguistic Impact of English Language Evolution
Sociolinguistic Impact of the Norman Arrival
1. Explain the sociolinguistic effects that the arrival of the Normans had.
The arrival of the Normans had a set of sociolinguistic effects:
- Anglo-Saxon chronicles ceased and would come to be written in Latin from then onwards.
- The Western Anglo-Saxon aristocracy disappeared, and cultural, religious, and military nobility would be of French origin.
- Anglo-Saxon was no longer taught at school, replaced by French, which became an instrument for social and cultural promotion.
Selection of London Dialect in Middle English
2. Why was the London dialect chosen as the representative variety of English at the end of the Middle English period? The reasons for that choice were the following:
- The region was in an intermediate position between the South and the North and shared linguistic features with both areas.
- It was the socioeconomic and aristocratic center, apart from the location of the best-known universities, Oxford and Cambridge.
- Commercial and official documents were written in London.
- The most popular writers, like Chaucer, Wycliffe, Gower, and Langland, used this dialect.
- The establishment of the press in London in 1476, where W. Caxton distributed thousands of editions and translations of original works written in the London dialect.
Vocabulary Enrichment in Early Modern English
3. Explain the different ways in which the vocabulary of English was enriched in the Early Modern English period.
Due to the need to increase and dignify the vocabulary of English, a number of strategies were used:
- Direct loan of Latin terms, or even Italian and French, like affirmation and negation.
- Introduction of prefixes (con-, ex-, pre-) and suffixes (-ence, -ity, -ment). These new terms were not understood by English native speakers; thus, writers often used glossaries, and they were likely to write pairs of synonyms or triplets.
- Usage of international resources: (1) By affixation and composition. (2) By providing new meaning to outdated or archaic words.
Samuel Johnson’s Dictionary and Standardization
4. Explain the relevance of Samuel Johnson’s dictionary in the standardization of English.
S. Johnson wrote an introduction in his Dictionary of the English Language.
It was an attempt to impose on English the paradigm of Rationalism. It was urgent to rule and give the English language the frame so as not to make errors and to provide it with stability so that future generations could still use and make sense of it.
For this reason, it was urgent to have a finely-elaborated grammar and an exhaustive dictionary to regulate the usage of the language. This was the challenge undertaken by S. Johnson. He tried to offer adequate and complete examples for their usage on the basis of the best authors, thus giving stability to the future use of the language.
This concern about the purity of language had already existed on the Continent, resulting in the different academies:
- 1582 Italy, Academia della Crusca
- 1635 France, Académie Française
- 1700 Germany, Deutsche Akademie
- 1713 Spain, Real Academia Española de la Lengua
Pronunciation Evolution in Modern English
5. Give an explanation for the current pronunciation of the following words in terms of the vocalic and consonant phonological evolution in Modern English.
- Fire > Long vowels /i:/ turned to /ai/.
- Valley > Short vowel /a/ + velar /l/ > /au/ > /o:/.
- Weather > The plosive /d/ became /ð/ fricative.
- Room > Long vowel /o:/ turned to /u:/.
- Shoulder > Short vowel /u/ > /ou/.
- Here > er became [iə].
- Tree > Long vowel /e:/ turned to /i:/.
- Wing > Uprising of two new phonemes /ŋ/; the sound /g/ became /ŋ/.
- Derby > er became [a:].
- Car > ar became [a:].
- Saw > /au/ became [ᴐ:].
- Day > /ai/ [æi] became [ei].
Origin of Irregular Plural Forms
6. Explain the origin of irregular plural forms existing in Modern English.
A group of nouns kept their original plural forms:
- Weak declension in “n”: Children.
- Old English small declensions: Feet.
- Due to lack of inflection in ancient neuter nouns with a long vowel: Sheep.
- The original plural forms in Latin-origin or French-origin nouns: Criteria.