History of the English Language


English 202 - 01
Term: Summer 2000
Time: 10:15 a.m.-12:15 p.m., Monday-Thursday
Room: Bliss 114
Prof. G. Steinberg
Office: Bliss 216
Office Phone: 771-2106
Office Hours: by appointment
E-mail: gsteinbe@tcnj.edu

 
TEXTBOOKS:
Thomas Pyles and John Algeo, The Origins and Development of the English Language (4th ed.)
Paul R. Frommer and Edward Finegan, Looking at Languages (2nd ed.)
 

COURSE DESCRIPTION.  I can assure you that this course will be one of the most difficult but also one of the best classes you will ever take. As a user of language, you already know a great deal about English intuitively. In this course, we are going to learn about the history of our language, and as we do so, we'll also learn about the nuts and bolts of how languages work and change. We'll take a lot of knowledge that you currently possess on an intuitive level and make you more conscious of it. When you finish the course, you will have a better understanding of why English is the way it is (usually because of either historical accident or a universal linguistic rule), and you will have a store of conversation starters and fun facts to know and tell about your mother tongue. Most of the material we will cover in this class is inherently interesting. Who doesn't want to know the answers to such questions as

    1. How do two people know when their conversation is over?
    2. Why do people talk funny to babies?
    3. How can anyone seriously propose that English, Russian, and Persian are all descended from a common language when they're so different from one another?
    4. Why is English spelling so screwy?
But you will have to work hard to master a large amount of new material in order to be able to answer these questions adequately. In this course, you will be introduced to a lot of information that will be entirely new to you. You will need to digest, memorize, and assimilate a great deal as the term goes along. But I will help you in every way I can, and your classmates will be there with you the whole way.  NOTE THAT THIS COURSE DOES NOT CARRY ANY GENERAL EDUCATION CREDIT OR MEET ANY GENERAL EDUCATION REQUIREMENTS.
 

GOALS.  As my goals for this course, I want you

    1. to develop your appreciation -- and respect -- for the complexity and beauty of our language,
    2. to become more conscious of what you are actually doing when you use language,
    3. to know in basic outline the major events of the history of English,
    4. to recognize that variations in language are not necessarily signs of inferiority, and
    5. to be able to apply what you learn in this class to real-life situations and everyday language use.


REQUIREMENTS.  This course consists of four graded assignments:

    1. a mid-term exam (260 points),
    2. two short papers (240 points each), and
    3. a comprehensive final exam (260 points).
Your final grade will be based on a 1000-point scale:  A = 930-1000 points, A- = 900-929, B+ = 870-899, B = 830-869, B- = 800-829, C+ = 770-799, C = 730-769, C- = 700-729, D = 600-699, and F = below 600.  In addition to the graded assignments, I will periodically give ungraded quizzes.  These quizzes are primarily a diagnostic tool.  They help me see what you as a class are having trouble with, and they help you see what you still need to study before the exam.  I intend them to be a low-stress experience and therefore do not grade them, but I do collect and look them over in order to get a sense of what you have learned and what you may still need to learn in order to do well in the class.
 

ATTENDANCE.  Regular attendance is a virtual necessity for successful completion of the exams and papers in this class. Class exercises and discussion constitute important, useful preparation for the course's graded assignments. If you miss a class, you will essentially lose out on that day's contribution to your preparation, since it is never really possible to reproduce or recapture the dynamics and flow of information for a missed class meeting (even if you get notes from someone). If, however, you positively must miss a class, I will expect you to find out what you missed and to come fully prepared -- without excuses -- to the next class meeting.
 

OFFICE HOURS.  My office is Bliss 216. My office hours this summer will be by appointment. Please, feel free as needed to call my office (771-2106) or talk to me before or after class to arrange an appointment to see me. You may also contact me by e-mail (gsteinbe@tcnj.edu), or you may leave a message for me in my box at the English department offices in Bliss 124.
 

ELECTRONIC RESOURCES.  An e-mail discussion list has been created for this course. To subscribe, send the message, "SUBSCRIBE HOTEL-L your name" to listproc@list.TCNJ.EDU.  Note that you must send the subscribe message from your own personal e-mail account (not from one of the generic "student@tcnj.edu" accounts in the computer labs). After you have subscribed to the list, you may circulate messages to all the members of the list just by sending what you want to circulate to HOTEL-L@list.TCNJ.EDU (although, again, you must send such messages from your personal e-mail account). This is a great way to get in touch with your classmates, form study groups, ask me or your classmates questions, and generally share information about class.  I encourage you to use the discussion list a great deal.  I even sometimes use the list to make important announcements that I may have forgotten to make in class.  NOTE: You can always access your personal TCNJ e-mail account from the web anywhere -- including from the computer labs on campus or from your aunt's brother-in-law's sister's computer in her den -- just by going to https://secure-web.tcnj.edu/imp/index.php3.
 

COURSE SCHEDULE.  (This schedule is subject to revision at the discretion of the professor.)
 
Date Topic Assignment
M May 22 Introductions; Language as Communication ----------
T May 23 Language as Human (language acquisition); Language as Convention (conversation) Pyles and Algeo, pp. 1-24
W May 24 Language as System (phonetics) Looking at Languages 6.06-6.07; handouts from class; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 25-35
R May 25 Language as System (phonetics and phonology) handout from class; Looking at Languages 2.01, 2.06, 2.10
M May 29 MEMORIAL DAY NO CLASS -- A makeup day is scheduled for Friday, June 2.
T May 30 Language as System (phonology and sound change) Looking at Languages 3.06, 3.07, 3.08 (Part I only), 3.10, 3.13, 3.15; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 35-41
W May 31 Language as System (sound change); Indo-European and Germanic Looking at Languages 10.06 (A-C and F only); handout from class; Looking at Languages 10.10 (A-B only); Pyles and Algeo, pp. 61-94
R June 1 Indo-European and Germanic; Language as System (inflection) handout from class; PAPER 1 DUE
F June 2 Language as System (inflection); Old English Looking at Languages 1.08, 1.09 (A, C-F only), 1.10 (A-B only), 1.12; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 95-133
M June 5 Old English handout from class
T June 6 MID-TERM EXAM ----------
W June 7 Middle English; Creoles and Pidgins; Language as Sign (semantics) Pyles and Algeo, pp. 134-164, 237-257
R June 8 Middle English; Language as Sign (semantics and morphology) handout from class; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 258-285
M June 12 Language as Sign (morphology); Great Vowel Shift and Early Modern English Looking at Languages 1.01, 1.03 (A only), 1.05; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 165-181
T June 13 Great Vowel Shift; Language as System (syntax) handout from class; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 182-211
W June 14 Language as System (syntax and transformations) handout from class
R June 15 Language as System (transformations); Language as Convention (standardization) handout from class; PAPER 2 DUE
M June 19 Language as System (transformations); Language as Sign (borrowing) handout from class; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 286-311
T June 20 Language as Sign (borrowing); Recent English; Language as Convention (dialect and register) handout from class; Pyles and Algeo, pp. 212-236
W June 21 Recent English; Language as Convention (dialect and register) Looking at Languages 7.04, 7.05, 8.01, 8.05
R June 22 FINAL EXAM ----------


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