国際文化学部Faculty of Intercultural Communication

Towards the end of this course, students will be able:

1. to study the history of the English language, which, good or bad, has become an 'international language' in our modern world; and
2. to develop a general interest in the language itself through doing a lot of reading.

1. To get a general idea how the English language has evolved,
2. To try to explain various apparent 'mysteries' of English in historical terms,
3. To begin to develop a general theory of linguistic change,
4. To study English in its general sense. (You see, you must keep that level of English acquired through your SA experience!)

国際文化学部のディプロマポリシーのうち、「DP1」「DP2」「DP3」に関連。

英語 / English

Actual class sessions are all based on the Powerpoint slides (More than 200 slides in all!) all prepared beforehand. So, in order to make the most of them you should:

- download and print out the slides and skim over them;
- attend the class w/the printed-out slides, concentrate on the contents of the lecture, and take as many notes as you can;
- visit our Learning Management System (LMS)site and check the comments made by the instructor; and
- read the books/articles mentioned on the LMS site for further comprehension.

Please note that feedbacks to the lecture contents will be amply given on the LMS site. After each class session given, the detailed review articles will be given on the web; so please make the most of them.

Should you have any trouble in taking realtime online class session, you can get access to the recorded educational material. Please check the LMS site for details.

なし / No

なし / No

授業形態/methods of teaching：オンライン/online

※各回の授業形態は予定です。教員の指示に従ってください。

1[オンライン/online]：Introduction; early history

- Introduction
- IE studies & comparative linguistics
- Proto-Indo-European

2[オンライン/online]：Early history (cont'd)

- Proto-Indo-European (cont’d)
- Celts
- Romans

3[オンライン/online]：Early history (cont'd) and Old English

- Latin influence on English
- Anglo-Saxon invasion
- Germanic languages sub-divisions

4[オンライン/online]：Old English (cont'd)

- Place name studies
- Angli vs wealas
- Christianisation
- Viking raids
- King Alfred’s reign
- OE runic inscriptions
- Undley Bracteate and Franks casket

5[オンライン/online]：Old English (cont'd)

- Old English Pronunciation
- ‘Back to front’ movements

6[オンライン/online]：Old English (cont'd)

- Old English documents and poems
(Law of Æthelberht, Ælfric’s Colloquy, Lindisfarne Gospels, Beowulf)
- Oral tradition, alliteration, and OE compounding

7[オンライン/online]：Old English (cont'd)and Middle English

- OE poems and alliteration
- Norman Conquest
- Social bilingualism in England

8[オンライン/online]：Middle English (cont'd)

- ME: social bilingualism
- English started to be spoken!
- Middle English (Grammar and lexis, OE and ME dialects, word order, etc.)

9[オンライン/online]：Middle English (cont'd)

ME documents (Sumer is Icumen in, The Canterbury Tales, Piers Plowman)
- Social changes
- Great Vowel Shift

10[オンライン/online]：Modern English

- Great Vowel Shift (cont’d)
- English becoming commoner!
- Borrowed words
- Shakespeare and the King James Bible

11[オンライン/online]：Modern English (cont'd)

- Biblical parallel texts
- Shakespeare in original pronunciation
- Spelling innovations

12[オンライン/online]：Modern English (cont'd)

- The first dictionaries (A Table Alphabeticall, Johnson’s dictionary)
- Linguistic prescriptivism
- New words
- The Oxford English Dictionary

13[オンライン/online]：Modern English (cont'd) and Present-day English

- The Oxford English Dictionary (cont’d)
- Received Pronunciation and General American
- Regional varieties

14[オンライン/online]：Present-day English (cont'd)

- Regional varieties (cont’d)
- Jargon and slang
- The future of English

Students are expected to visit the relevant LMS site and get as much information as needed.

Admittedly, this is not an easy course with all those unfamiliar terms and concepts. So, it is strongly recommended to read the relevant materials suggested on the LMS site posted immediately after each class session by the instructor.Approximately two hours of preparation and reviewing are necessary for this course.

Viney, Brigit (2008). The History of the English Language. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Suggested reading materials to enhance students' comprehension will be mentioned through LMS in due course. However, the following are worth reading prior to the opening of the course:

- Algeo, John (2010). The Origins and Development of the English Language. Sixth edition. Boston: Wadsworth. [Based on the original work of Thomas Pyles. Careful about special phonetic notations used.]
- Barber, Charles, Joan C. Beal, and Philip A. Shaw (2009). The English Language: A Historical Introduction. Second edition. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. [Offers clear explanations of linguistic ideas.]
- Bradley, Henry (1970). The Making of English. Tokyo: Seibido. [A bit out of date, but still a good introduction. Japanese translation available from Iwanami.]
- Schmitt, Norbert and Richard Marsden (2009). Why Is English Like That? Historical Answers to Hard ELT Questions. Ann Arbor: The University of Michigan Press. [A recent book; easy to read; written for English language teachers. ]

- Please note that attendance is taken for granted. However, if you miss a class, the following rule is applied: 1 demerit for each class missed. 3 demerits = -10% on your grade (roughly one letter grade). 5 demerits = failure for the course.
- The Final exam scheduled on the day of the final class session is very important, literally determining your grade. Please see my message on the LMS site for more information.

Any modification to the above shall be known to you by using LMS

Based on the grading criteria set by the instructor, students that successfully achieve 60% or more of course goals will be able to earn a passing grade for the course.

Overall, the instructor gets favourable comments from the students.

Using a personal computer is recommended, which enables you to get accustomed to make use of phonetic fonts as well as tree-drawing applications. Also, there are many interesting sites on the web which the instructor recommends you to visit.

In terms of its content, this course is the same as 「英語圏の文化VIII（英語の歴史）」taught in Japanese. Therefore, if you have obtained credits taking that course, you cannot obtain credits by taking this course.

This course is just a half-year (semestral) course about the history of the English language. Students are highly encouraged to study various matters not treated in class sessions.

Also, as is shown in Goals above, always having a strong interest in English per se is important. So, please study English hard and try to develop a 'feel' for the language.

Open for the third- and fourth-year FIC students (many of them probably being the SA-English students). Also open for non-FIC students. Appropriate for those who have strong interest in the English language and historical linguistics.