LANGUAGE CHANGE AND VARIATION
IN ENGLISH (Chapter 1, pp. 21-62)
MAIN TOPICS
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Concepts of change and variation: how and why
Attitudes to language: standard and non-standard
varieties
The main phases in the history of English
Causes of the spread of English in the world
Present-day English: from English to “Englishes”
English as a global language: advantages and
disadvantages and future predictions
BRAINSTORMING ON LANGUAGE CHANGE
AND VARIATION ( Chapters 1, § 1 and 2)
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
Do languages change in time?
Why do languages change?
How do languages change?
Why, and how, do languages vary at a
given time in history?
What is “the best form” of a language?
Examples of slow and systematic
change in English
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In pronunciation : the Great Vowel Shift from the
15th to the 17° century (“push chain process”)
explains the present discrepancy between spelling
and pronunciation
In morphology the gradual reduction of case
endings (inflection) in nouns, verbs and adjectives
from Old to Modern English
In syntax the gradual fixing of the SVO
(Subject+Veb+ Object) word order and the
development of modal verbs from main verbs to
auxiliaries in Modern English
Examples of ‘sudden’ change in English
NEW WORDS
YUPPIE, DINKY, NIMBY
Since the 1980s YUPPIE( Young Upwardly Mobile Professional People), DINKY (Double
Income No Kids), NIMBY ( Not In My Backyard) to refer to different groups of people
and their life styles
Ms
Since the 1970s Ms was suggested to neutralise the distinction between Mrs and Miss in
order to avoid “linguistic sexism”
BORROWING from other languages, e.g. Words from Italian in classical music ( e.g
allegretto, pizzicato) and to refer to typical Italian food (spaghetti, pizza)
SEMANTIC CHANGE
GAY, MEAT, SUBPRIME
From gay (merry/ cheerful) to gay (male homosexual)
From meat ( meaning food ) to the present more restricted meaning
In 2008 subprime, from adjective into noun to refer to “a subprime loan”
Coexisting variants
Personal pronouns
Thou / you
e.g Thou shalt not kill (The Bible)
You must not kill
A search based on The British National Corpus (BNC) says
that thou is used 748 times in religious or literary texts
and you 668,260 in a variety of contexts
1
2)
The relative pronouns Who/whom
e.g. To whom should I complain?
Who/whom should I complain to?
According to the BNC who is used 200,998 times and whom is used 12,596
Causes for language change
“external”,
e.g. historical events,
inventions, new ideas, contact with
other languages and cultures
“internal” e.g. analogy, regularity,
reorganisation, hypercorrection
Causes for language variation
1. SOCIAL FACTORS LINKED TO LANGUAGE USERS, such as region, social
class or group , education, gender , ethnicity, age
e.g. Labov’s analysis of the pronunciation of [r] in New York city after 1945
according to social class and style (pp. 22/23)
2. SOCIAL FACTORS LINKED TO THE CONTEXT OF SITUATION , i.e.
topic, relationships between participants and the medium chosen
e.g. AVIAN INFLUENZA versus BIRD FLU
influenza aviaria versus l’influenza dei polli
e.g. SWINE INFLUENZA versus SWINE FLU versus inflenza A [H1N1]
influenza suina versus influenza dei maiali
e.g. GREETING DIFFERENT TYPES OF PEOPLE
HI LOVE
HELLO TOM
GOOD MORNING TOM
GOOD MORNING, MR JOHNSON
GOOD MORNING, PROFESSOR PRAT
GOOD MORNING , JOHNSON
GOOD MORNING, SIR/ MADAM
GOOD MORNING, LADIES AND GENTLEMEN
DIFFERENT WAYS OF SAYING
THE SAME THING…
The lesson is beginning!
Can you listen to me, please?
Would you mind keeping silent?
Listen, please!
Be quiet over there
Shut up, will you?
Attendance is not compulsory!!!
(Shut your big mouth)
What is “the best English”?
All the varieties of a language are equally acceptable
and interesting for a linguist and for its users
but
in each epoch there is a more socially accepted
variety, which is considered the standard variety.
A standard is associated to the elites of the
time ( monarchy, the parliament, upper classes,
intellectuals, educated people, the media or
literature writers), and will be gradually elaborated
and codified in grammars, dictionaries and style
books
From general to expert knowledge
SOME CONCEPTS AND TERMS:
Synchrony/diachrony, sociolinguistics,
social variables (related to users and to the
context of situation), historical linguistics,
history of the language, comparative
linguistics, language family, IndoEuropean, Germanic family, Romance or
Neolatin family
A very important question
IS THE STUDY OF THE
HISTORY AND VARIETIES
OF ENGLISH RELEVANT
TO UNIVERSITY
STUDENTS OF ENGLISH?
YES !!!
1.
2.
3.
FOR CULTURAL REASONS
TO UNDERSTAND MORE ABOUT PRESENT-DAY
ENGLISH (e.g. the gap between spelling and
pronunciation; e.g. the mixed nature of its lexis e.g.
“liberty” versus “freedom”; the existence of regular and
irregular verbs; the linguistic situation of present-day UK;
the varieties of English in the world)
TO REINFORCE PRACTICAL COMPETENCE (e.g.
to improve pronunciation and grammatical correctness in
a given variety and to expand lexical competence; to be
prepared to understand different varieties of English)
HISTORICAL PERIODS AND
LINGUISTIC PHASES
1. The Anglo-Saxon period
2. The Norman period
1. OLD ENGLISH, OE (7001150)
2. MIDDLE ENGLISH , ME
( 1150-1500)
3. Modern period
Great Britain and Northern
Ireland united under the British
crown. New territories explored
and stable colonies established in
America, Asia and Africa
4. 20th Century :
From English to “Englishes”
English as a global language
3.
MODERN ENGLISH,
ModEngl. (1500-1900)
4. PRESENT-DAY
ENGLISH (PDE) (to the
present)
OLD ENGLISH
OE (700-1150)
(Chapter 1, § 3.1, 3.2)
THE STORY OF ENGLISH
STARTED IN A SMALL ISLAND…
WAYS OF REFERRING TO IT TODAY:
1. UNITED KINGDOM OF
GREAT BRITAND AND
NORTHERN IRELAND (UK)
composed of
ENGLAND
SCOTLAND
WALES
NORTHERN IRELAND
2.GREAT BRITAIN (GB) / BRITAIN
composed of
ENGLAND
SCOTLAND
WALES
3. THE REPUBLIC OF IRELAND
WHO LIVED IN ENGLAND
BEFORE 700 A.D?
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SOME MYSTERIOUS POPULATIONS
(see Stonehenge , 3000 B.C)
THE CELTIC AND GAELIC
INHABITANTS ( today many areas are
bilingual and some geographic names are
of Celtic origin , e.g. London, Leeds, Kent,
Cornwall, Thames )
THE ROMANS INVADED THE ISLAND
AT THE TIME OF CAESAR ( 50 B.C. )
AND ABANDONED IT IN THE 5th
STONEHENGE, 3000 B.C.
The Roman baths of Bath
Major historical events and monuments before
and during the OE period
5th century A.D: some Germanic tribes (Anglo-Saxons and
Jutes) arrived in England and forced the Celts to move
west and north
•
Since the 6th century: the Christianisation of Britain took
place ( e.g. substitution of the Runic alphabet with the
Latin alphabet) see. P.29
•
In the 8th century: the Scandinavian Vikings tried to invade
part of Britain and in the 9th century King Alfred, king of
the West-Saxon reign, defeated them. West-Saxon was
considered the first written English standard
•
1066 The Anglo- Normans invaded Britain
THE CELTIC/GAELIC COUNTRIES
IN THE BRITISH ISLES
AN EXAMPLE FROM OE
(Ælfric’s Colloquy, c. 998)
OE: We cildra biddaþ þe , eala lareow, þæt þu tæce
us [...].
We cildra þe biddaþ, eala lareow, þæt þu tæce
us [...].
We cildra þe biddaþ, eala lareow, þæt tæce þu
us [...]
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PDE: We children bid you, master, that you
teach us [...].
FEATURES OF OLD ENGLISH
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LATIN ALPHABET, WITH SOME DIFFERENCES FROM PDE
(e.g. the consonant Thorn, or þorn, Þ, þ)
NOUNS, ADJECTIVES AND PRONOUNS WERE INFLECTED
FOR CASE ( nominative, genitive, dative, accusative) ,NUMBER (
singular and plural) AND GENDER ( masculine, feminine, neuter).
Personal pronouns have retained case, number and gender also in
Present-day English
THE DEMONSTRATIVES WERE USED BOTH FOR THE
DEFINITE ARTICLES AND FOR DEMONSTRATIVES
TWO TYPES OF VERBS (STRONG AND WEAK) = IRREGULAR
AND REGULAR VERBS IN PDE. “To be” is the most irregular
verb
WORD ORDER WAS FREE
LEXIS WAS MAINLY GERMANIC BUT INCLUDED WORDS
OF CELTIC (names of places, e.g. London) , LATIN (e.g. schol
from schola) AND SCANDINAVIAN ORIGIN (e.g. landes mann =
native in PDE)
SYNTHETIC VERSUS ANALYTHIC LANGUAGE:
English from synthetic to analytic language
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Synthetic languages express grammatical
and syntactic categories (mainly) through
CASES ( OR INFLECTION)
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Analytic languages express grammatical and
syntactic relations (mainly) through WORD
ORDER and GRAMMATICAL WORDS
such as prepositions and auxiliaries.
MIDDLE ENGLISH, ME
(1066 or 1150-1500)

(Chapter 1, § 3.2)
MAJOR EVENTS IN THE
MIDDLE ENGLISH PERIOD
1066 The Normans invaded England and went into power.
They spoke French (or Anglo-Norman) while Latin was
the language of the Church and education, and AngloSaxon English was still the language of the majority of
the population. Gaelic was spoken in Scotland
1204 The Normans lost their power in favour of English kings
1215 The Magna Charta Libertatum (in Latin)
The most authoritative example of written literary English:
The Canterbury Tales by G. Chaucer (14th century)
1476 Introduction of the printing press in England by William
Caxton
A Norman Castle
Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400)
The Canterbury Tales
From Chaucer’s The Canterbury Tales
1 Thanne were ther yonge
povre scolers two,
PDE: Then there were two young
poor scholars,
2 That dwelten in this halle, of
which I seye.
PDE: Who dwelt (lived) in this hall,
of which I say.
FEATURES OF MIDDLE ENGLISH
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Reduction of the case system in particular in
nouns and adjectives because of the disappearance
of vowels in unstressed final syllables
Development of the future with shall/will, the
present progressive and the passive
Increasingly fixed word order, with some variation
French (e.g. “marry”, “government”) and Latin
(e.g. “psalm” “inferior”) influence on vocabulary
Development of a standard form of English around
the city of London
MODERN ENGLISH
(c. 1500-c.1900)
Chapter 1, § 3.3.
Major historical/cultural events in
the Modern English period
1. BRITAIN BECAME A UNITED AND POWERFUL COUNTRY (
but with only 7 million inhabitants!)
•
Separation of the Church of England from the Roman Catholic
Church
•
Queen Elisabeth I established the power of Britain on the seas
•
Great flourishing of the theatre and literature (Shakespeare, The
Authorized Translation of the Bible)
•
The English Civil War over the power of the Parliament versus the
power of the Monarchy
•
In 1702 England and Scotland were united under the British Crown
2. BRITAIN BECAME A COLONIAL WORLD POWER
•
Since the I7th century English trading companies in India and slave
trade in Africa
•
Since the 17th century stable colonies were established in America,
Australia, New Zealand, Canada, The Caribbean and South Africa
•
19th century colonial empire in Asia and Africa
William SHAKESPEARE (1564-1616)
A quotation from Love’s Labour Lost
by Shakespeare
I praise God for you sir, your reasons at
dinner haue beene sharpe and sententious:
pleasant without scurrillity, witty without
affection, audacious without impudency,
learned without opinion, and strange
without heresie…
From HAMLET by Shakespeare
To be, or not to be: that is the question:
Whether 'tis nobler in the mind to suffer
The slings and arrows of outrageous fortune,
Or to take arms against a sea of troubles,
And by opposing end them? To die: to sleep;
No more; and by a sleep to say we end
The heart-ache and the thousand natural shocks
That flesh is heir to, 'tis a consummation
Devoutly to be wish'd. To die, to sleep;
To sleep: perchance to dream: ay, there's the rub;
For in that sleep of death what dreams may come
…
TRANSLATION
BY A. LOMBARDO
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Essere o non essere – questa è la domanda.
Se è più nobile per la mente sopportare
Le sassate e le frecce dell’oltraggiosa fortuna
O prendere le armi contro un mare di guai
E, combattendo, finirli. Morire, dormire –
Nient’altro – e con un sonno dire che poniamo
Fine al male del cuore e ai mille
Travagli maturali di cui la carne è erede.
Questa è consumazione da desiderare devotamente.
Morire, dormire – dormire, forse sognare.
Ah, qui è l’intoppo. Perché in quel sonno
Di morte quali sogni possono venire
1611 King James’ Authorized Version
of the Bible in English
From the Genesis

15: And the LORD God took the man, and put him into the garden of Eden to
dress it and to keep it.
16: And the LORD God commanded the man, saying, Of every tree of the
garden thou mayest freely eat:
17: But of the tree of the knowledge of good and evil, thou shalt not eat of it: for
in the day that thou eatest thereof thou shalt surely die.
18: And the LORD God said, It is not good that the man should be alone; I will
make him an help meet for him.
…
21: And the LORD God caused a deep sleep to fall upon Adam and he slept:
and he took one of his ribs, and closed up the flesh instead thereof;
22: And the rib, which the LORD God had taken from man, made he a woman,
and brought her unto the man.
23: And Adam said, This is now bone of my bones, and flesh of my flesh: she
shall be called Woman, because she was taken out of Man.
24: Therefore shall a man leave his father and his mother, and shall cleave unto
his wife: and they shall be one flesh.
25: And they were both naked, the man and his wife, and were not ashamed.
(Late) Modern English
(1500-1900)
•
•
•
•
•
•
•
Simplification of inflection (only ‘s genitive and –s plural in nouns, the
comparative and superlative endings in adjectives) with the exception
of pronouns, which have retained inflection
Tendency to fixed word order
Debate between Neologisers (in favour of words of foreign origin) and
Purists (in favour of native word formation processes)
Development of a standard form of English through long processes of
selection (London English) and codification through grammars and
dictionaries
Development of a standard accent in Britain: The Received
Pronunciation (RP)
Development of the so-called colonial standard varieties of English,
e.g. American English, Australian English, New Zealand English
Development of Pidgins and Creoles, which were the result of the
contact between English and local languages and functioned as the
lingua franca for trade and commerce, e.g. in West Africa
The four main periods of English:
a summary
Old English (700-1100 c.)
● fully inflected
● free word order
● mainly Germanic vocabulary
Middle English (1100-1500)
● reduced inflection
● increasingly fixed word order
● French and Latin influence on
vocabulary
Modern English (1500-1900)
● very reduced inflection
● greater use of fixed word order
● codification of language
Present-day English (1900nowdays)
● very reduced inflection and fixed
word order
● formation of new native and nonnative varieties worldwide
● English as a global lingua franca
THE ENGLISH “DIASPORA”
1ST STAGE: The expansion of English
within the British Isles with the reduction of
Gaelic languages to minority languages in
Scotland, Wales and Ireland
2ND STAGE: The colonial empire and the
birth of colonial varieties of English and
Pidgin and Creoles
3RD STAGE: the spread of English as a global
lingua franca
Present-day English
(1900-nowdays)
Chapter 1, §4.1-4.10
RED = where English is the first and often only language of most people
DARK PINK = where English as a native language but there is at least one other significant native tongue
PINK = countries where English is not the native, but only the official language

MAIN POLITICAL AND
CULTURAL EVENTS
1.
English is the official – or main- language of many
important countries in the world (e.g. UK, USA,
Australia, Canada, New Zealand).
2.
English has been retained as the official language
(along with other native languages) in more than 70
former British colonies after their political independence
(e.g. in India, and several African countries).
3.
English has acquired growing importance worldwide in
science, technology, international organisations and
business.
The reasons for the present predominance of
English in the world: a summary
External reasons: the colonial and industrial
power of Great Britain in the 18th and 19h
centuries; the political, economic and
technological power of the USA in the 20th
century; the number of speakers; the geographical
spread; the cultural heritage
and/or
Internal reasons: morphological simplicity,
structural clarity, size and mixed nature of its
vocabulary, flexibility in creating new words,
adaptability to distant contexts.
The present situation of English
in the world
1.
2
3.
4.
Native varieties of English (ENL or L1), such as American
English, British English, Australian English, Canadian English,
New Zealand English, but also regional varieties
such Northern English, Southern American
Varieties of English as a Second Language (ESL or L2),
used intranationally in former British colonies in the institutional,
media and educational fields ( e.g. Indian English, Nigerian
English, South-African English, Singapore English, Hong Hong
English)
English as a Foreign language (EFL), English as a lingua
franca (ELF), English for Special Purposes (ESP), Business English,
English for Academic Purposes (EAP), Airspeak, Policespeak…
Within each variety there is a continuum from an
educated standard (acrolect) to a very limited form of
communication (basilect)
The world Englishes paradigm
by B. Katchru
Katchru’s Three Circle Model: Nonnative speakers of English have
outnumbered native speakers
Who owns English today?
“…the English language
ceased to be the sole
possession of the English
some time ago”
(Salman Rushdie, 1991)
Native varieties are…
…a set of different but related varieties
which share a common core of grammar and
vocabulary. They differ mainly in
pronunciation and lexis, with limited
differences in spelling and in grammar.
The two main ones are British English (BrE )
and American English (AmE). They provide
the norms for EFL learners.
Second language varieties,
or New Englishes …
… have gone through a process of language contact
(i.e. imposition of native norms followed by
nativisation/ hybridisation/acculturation
e.g. “As honest as an elephant, been-to, township,
apartheid, co-wife, younger husband”)
…. have been progressively acknowledged as local
standards (e.g. Indian English, East-African
English), described in dictionaries and grammars
and used by writers
… share common features that are different from
native standard varieties
Are these mistakes or the result of
linguistic creativity? (see. pp. 49-53)
1. I was feeling thirsty, so I bought one
soda
2. Last time she come on Thursday
3. We are having something to do
4. Whenever we go there they be playing
5. She came yesterday, isn’t it?
Quotations by Mahatma Gandhi (1869 - 1948)
Indian political and spiritual leader
You must be the change you want to see in the
world.
Victory attained by violence is tantamount to a
defeat, for it is momentary.
An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.
The weak can never forgive. Forgiveness is the
attribute of the strong.
Nelson Mandela - South African statesman.
Born 1918. Nobel Peace Prize 1993.
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No one is born hating another person because of the colour
of his skin, or his background, or his religion. People must
learn to hate, and if they can learn to hate, they can be
taught to love, for love comes more naturally to the human
heart than its opposite.
True reconciliation does not consist in merely forgetting
the past.
There is no easy walk to freedom anywhere, and many of us
will have to pass through the valley of the shadow of death
again and again before we reach the mountaintop of our
desires.
The greatest glory in living lies not in never falling, but in
rising every time we fall.
Lintonm Kwesi Johnson, A
Jamaican poet born in 1952
 Inglan
is a bitch
 Dere’s no
escaping it
 Ingland is a bitch
 Dere’s no runnin’
fram it
OPTIONS FOR EFL LEARNERS
For production :
- follow one of the native standards chosen on the basis of
proximity, tradition, personal needs or taste (e.g. British
Standard English or American Standard English).
or
- follow a non-native model, English as a Lingua Franca
based on a core of norms drawing on British and American
English and intended to guarantee mutual international
intelligibility in scientific and professional fields
For comprehension:
- be prepared to understand different varieties
Pros
and
cons
of English as the lingua franca of today’s world
World languages have always
existed (e.g. Latin and
French)
A world language is
necessary for mutual
intelligibility in a
globalized world
A post-national language may
be useful to world
democracy and citizenship
English is the vehicle of
different cultures
Non-native writers reach a
world audience
English is killing other languages
and cultures
People are becoming lazy in
learning other languages
English expresses a particular
world view and favours its native
speakers
(cultural imperialism)
English has become uncontrollable
Will interpreters and translators
become useless?
Non-native writers sacrifice their
own identities
WHAT WILL BE THE FUTURE OF
ENGLISH?
FROM
ENGLISH
TO
ENGLISHES
Will English …?
1.
2.
3.
4.
5.
6.
7.
… go on being a polycentric language comprising several
mutually intelligible varieties?
…achieve a balance between national identity and
international intelligibility?
… remain strong until English-speaking countries are
powerful ?
… fragment into mutually unintelligible languages as
was the case with Latin giving birth to romance
languages?
…be rejected as a symbol of colonialism (e.g. Malaysia)
or cultural imperialism?
… be spoken as a simplified lingua franca by non-native
speakers?
…influence other languages so as to create mixed
varieties such as Spanglish, Franglais, Itangliano or
Italiese
The BBC Story of English
9 tapes on the English language and its
development (available at CLIFU)
In particular:
 Tape 1: An English-speaking World
 Tape 2: The Mother Tongue
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BENJAMIN ZEPHANIAH, a British writer, poet
and singer of Jamaican origin

Take some Picts, Celts and Silures
And let them settle,
Then overrun them with Roman conquerors.
Remove the Romans after approximately 400 years
Add lots of Norman French to some
Angles, Saxons, Jutes and Vikings, then stir vigorously.
Mix some hot Chileans, cool Jamaicans, Dominicans,
Trinidadians and Bajans with some Ethiopians, Chinese,
Vietnamese and Sudanese.
Then take a blend of Somalians, Sri Lankans, Nigerians
And Pakistanis,
Combine with some Guyanese
And turn up the heat.
(FOLLOWS)
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Sprinkle some fresh Indians, Malaysians, Bosnians
Iraqis and Bangladeshis together with some
Afghans, Spanish, Turkish, Kurdish, Japanese
And Palestinians
Then add to the melting pot.
Leave the ingredients to simmer.
As they mix and blend allow their languages to flourish
Binding them together with English.
Allow time to be cool.
Add some unity, understanding, and respect for the future,
Serve with justice
And enjoy.
Note: All the ingredients are equally important. Treating one ingredient better
Some issues to discuss…
1)
2)
3)
Should English become the only official
language of international organizations?
Should English become compulsory in
education? Or is it already?
Do you approve of the multilingual policy
of the European Community (two foreign
languages beyond the mother tongue for
the European citizen even though this
choice is very expensive)?
Examples of review questions
(see set book, p. 60)
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Why is Old English (OE) a synthetic
language?

OE is a synthetic language because most
grammatical categories in nouns, adjectives
and verbs are expressed through a system of
case markers, or inflections.
Why is Present-Day English
described as an analytic language?
PdE is an analytic language
because grammatical and syntactic
relations are expressed by fixed
word order and grammatical words
like prepositions rather than
through inflection
What are the most important consequences of the
British colonisation on the English language?
English was brought by colonisers to
different parts of the world during the 17th,
18th and 19th century, first to America and
then to Asia and Africa. Different native and
non-native varieties have gradually
developed thus creating a vast multicultural
speech community.
Who speaks English in the world
today?
Three categories have been identified by the linguist
Katchu:
1. People for whom English is the mother tongue (ENL).
There are several native varieties that partly differ in
pronunciation, lexis, grammar and spelling. The two most
important native standards are British English (BE) and
American English (AmE).
2. people for whom English is the second language (ESL)
in former English colonies, such as India and Kenya. These
Englishes partially differ from native norms and are
gradually recognized as independent standards.
3. people for whom English is a foreign language (EFL)
who usually take a native variety as their model
Why do languages change? Give
some examples for English
Languages change for EXTERNAL and
INTERNAL reasons. The former are major
historical, political and cultural events like the
Norman invasion in 1066, the Industrial
Revolution or the colonial expansion since the
18th century. The latter refer to changes in the
language system such as the Great Vowel Shift
from the 15th to the17th century, and the gradual
loss of inflection in nouns and verbs from Old
English to Present-Day English
Change in language can be both sudden and
slow. Give one example for each in English
Lexical change is usually sudden as new words may
be required to refer to new ideas, objects and
discoveries. For instance, “hippy, yuppy, dinky,
nimby” were created to describe different life styles
in the 20th century
Grammatical change is usually slower. For instance,
the loss of inflection in nouns, adjectives and verbs
took many centuries from 500 to 1900