WiSe 21/22: PS-Historical Linguistics: From the Age of Migrations to the Age of Explorations
Kirsten Middeke
Information for students
Comments
This seminar introduces students to the history of the English language. The seminar will make students familiar with the structure of Old, Middle and Early Modern English and teach them basic reading/translation skills. They will also be introduced to diachronic linguistics, the study of language change. The aim is to comprehend languages as emergent systems and variation as an integral part of all grammars.
The period covered will be the time between the beginnings of English as a separate language in the Age of Migrations until the Colonial Age, when English began its spread around the world and started developing into several distinct national varieties. Students will gain knowledge about the socio-historical events relevant to the external history of the English language and study the internal history (sound change, mophological change, syntactic change, semantic change). They will be introduced to the most important sources of historical language data and their analysis (text editions, dictionaries, thesauri, corpora) and will be given reading or translation exercises as well as research tasks on all levels of linguistic analysis. Data elicitation (active cqp) will not be expected; all data will be provided.
The exam will be an academic paper of 2000 words based on relevant academic literature and an original empirical investigation. Towards the end of the course, students will create and present academic posters (in groups) in preparation for their individual term papers.
This seminar will be offered live (online or offline) during its allotted time slot. Regular and active participation is obligatory. There will be weekly discussions, preparatory reading assignments and other homework tasks.
The seminar is complemented by an obligatory lecture course.
Credit requirements are:
- regular participation in discussions, based on weekly reading assignments, translation tasks and/or other linguistic exercises
- active participation, including the design (in groups) of an academic poster and the recording of a five-minute video/audio presentation
- an academic paper of c2000 words
16 Class schedule
Regular appointments