Inventing English: A Portable History of the LanguageColumbia University Press, 2007 - 305 oldal Why is there such a striking difference between English spelling and English pronunciation? How did our seemingly relatively simple grammar rules develop? What are the origins of regional dialect, literary language, and everyday speech, and what do they have to do with you? Seth Lerer's Inventing English is a masterful, engaging history of the English language from the age of Beowulf to the rap of Eminem. Many have written about the evolution of our grammar, pronunciation, and vocabulary, but only Lerer situates these developments in the larger history of English, America, and literature. Lerer begins in the seventh century with the poet Caedmon learning to sing what would become the earliest poem in English. He then looks at the medieval scribes and poets who gave shape to Middle English. He finds the traces of the Great Vowel Shift in the spelling choices of letter writers of the fifteenth century and explores the achievements of Samuel Johnson's Dictionary of 1755 and The Oxford English Dictionary of the late nineteenth and early twentieth centuries. He describes the differences between English and American usage and, through the example of Mark Twain, the link between regional dialect and race, class, and gender. Finally, he muses on the ways in which contact with foreign languages, popular culture, advertising, the Internet, and e-mail continue to shape English for future generations. Each concise chapter illuminates a moment of invention-a time when people discovered a new form of expression or changed the way they spoke or wrote. In conclusion, Lerer wonders whether globalization and technology have turned English into a world language and reflects on what has been preserved and what has been lost. A unique blend of historical and personal narrative, Inventing English is the surprising tale of a language that is as dynamic as the people to whom it belongs. |
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8. oldal
... words make up a language's core vocabulary . In English , that core vocabulary consists of short words often of one syllable for basic natural concepts ( e.g. , sky , sun , moon , God , man , woman ) , parts of the body ( e.g. , head ...
... words make up a language's core vocabulary . In English , that core vocabulary consists of short words often of one syllable for basic natural concepts ( e.g. , sky , sun , moon , God , man , woman ) , parts of the body ( e.g. , head ...
143. oldal
... words vie for usage and acceptance . And in such contexts , too , words vie almost within themselves for mean- ing . What characterizes the English of the Renaissance is not only the wealth of words but the wealth of word meanings ...
... words vie for usage and acceptance . And in such contexts , too , words vie almost within themselves for mean- ing . What characterizes the English of the Renaissance is not only the wealth of words but the wealth of word meanings ...
259. oldal
... word histories for a history - free generation . Beyond the humor of this little story lie some basic questions . Are words commodities , and can we sell them as we sell commercial products ? Can we shape a generation's taste in ...
... word histories for a history - free generation . Beyond the humor of this little story lie some basic questions . Are words commodities , and can we sell them as we sell commercial products ? Can we shape a generation's taste in ...
Tartalomjegyzék
Old English and the Origins of Poetry | 12 |
From Beowulf to Wulfstan | 25 |
In This Year | 39 |
Copyright | |
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African American English alliterations alliterative Anglo-Saxon appear Beowulf Caedmon Caedmon's Hymn called calque Caxton century Chancery Chaucer connotation consonant culture diction dude early Early Modern English England English language entry etymology evokes example Falstaff figure forms French Germanic languages grammar grammatical gender guage Henry Hobson-Jobson idiom illustrate imagination James A. H. Murray Johnson kind King Latin learned letters lexicographer lexicography lexicon linguistic lish literary literature lord meaning medieval Middle English Middlemarch Milton Modern English Norman nouns original orthoepists Oxford passage patterns Peterborough Peterborough Chronicle philology phonetic phrase poem poet poetry political pronounced pronunciation prose quotations readers Reeve's Tale regional rhetoric rhyme scholars scribes seid sense Shakespeare sixteenth slang social sound speak speakers speech spelling story texts things tion tongue translation Twain University Press verb verbal vernacular verse vocabulary voice Vowel Shift Webster William writing written þat
Hivatkozások erre a könyvre
Language Anxiety: Conflict and Change in the History of English Tim William Machan Korlátozott előnézet - 2009 |