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SoSe 14: S-Historical Linguistics: History of English II

Berit Johannsen

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Die letzten fünf Sitzungen dieses Kurses finden in Blockveranstaltungen am 14.06., 10-16 Uhr, und 15.06., 10-13.30 Uhr, statt. When reading Shakespeare, we recognize that his English is very different from the English that is spoken and written today, about 400 years later. But how did these changes in language come about? What does English look like if we go even further back in time? And when did English actually start to be English? These are only some of the questions that will guide us through this course. It is based on the idea that studying the history of English unveils general principles of language change. Besides tracing the history of the English language in an outline of different stages and varieties of English, the students will explore mechanisms of language change by focussing on different levels of linguistic structure (phonology, morphology and syntax, lexicon), illustrated by exemplary cases drawn from the history of English. On our way through the history of English, we will also touch upon methodological issues of historical linguistics, such as the access to earlier language stages and the reliance on written sources. In a two-day weekend seminar towards the end of the semester, students will then delve into historical sources themselves, which will be the basis for their own research projects. Course requirements are regular attendance, weekly readings, a short presentation and a short paper (~2000 words). close