English as a Global Language

GYMNASIELÆRERDAG
FOR ARTS-FAGENE
PÅ AARHUS UNIVERSITET
TORSDAG DEN 23. JANUAR 2014
Introduction: language change
What I teach (and research): language change (and variation)
What you could do: ideas and links
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Change: slight differences from the previous generation
Variation: when changes move in different directions;
whenever people are separated physically or socially
Difficult to predict:
e.g. US and British English
“and by that time (a century hence) England, America,
and Australia will be speaking mutually unintelligible
languages, owing to their independent changes of
pronunciation” (Henry Sweet in 1877).
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•
•
Pronunciation: slow but detectable e.g. Queen Elizabeth II.
Vocabulary: fastest and most noticeable : available materials
or borrowing from other languages
e.g. wikipedia
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Semantic: e.g. silly; holiday
•
Morphology: e.g. –gate Watergate, Camillagate, Monicagate
•
Syntax: very slow
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Splurging on baby bling won't
make you a good mother.
(Daily Mail 22 Nov 2007)
Attributed to BG of Cash
Money
added to the Shorter Oxford
Dictionary 2002
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
Americans “invent all sorts of new nouns and verbs and make words that
shouldn't be... We must act now to ensure that English, and that to my
way of thinking means British English, maintains its position as the world
language” (Prince Charles March 1995).
silly (OE, seele) (Dutch zalig, German selig)
(1225) Spiritually blessed, enjoying the blessing of
God
(1290) Innocent, harmless
(1587) Helpless, defenseless; esp. of women and
children
(1721)Weak or deficient in intellect; feeble-minded,
Who behaved themselves with such inhumanity, that they
charged among the silly women (OED 1647)
holiday (holy day) (Germanic)
vacation (French)
1.
2.
If I were rich I would buy that car.
If I was rich I would buy that car.
“Innovation is the introduction of a new variant, possibly initially
characterisable as an error. Innovations may catch on or they may
die off again.”
(Denison& Hogg 2006: 37)
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“What kind of word is "gotten"? It makes me
shudder. Julie Marrs, Warrington
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/mobile/magazine-14201796
They’ve gotten more expensive lately.
(American English and older English)
They’ve got more expensive lately.
(British English)
Am E. get(s)
Br. Eng. get(s)
got
got
(have) gotten
(have) got
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Historical record is incomplete:
rock art: runes
parchment/paper
 fires; worms; rot
 accidental and deliberate destruction (e.g. Viking
raids; dissolution of the monasteries (Henry VIII))
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Beowulf
Manuscript
Beowulf, nephew of
Hygelac, king of the Geats
slays the monster Grendel
and Grendel’s mother
Composed early 700s
Manuscript date ca. 1000
AD
Rescued from a fire at
Ashburnham House in
1731.
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British National Corpus: 100 million words, 10 million
spoken (UK, 1980s-1993)
Corpus of Contemporary American English: over 400
million words, 20 million words each year from 19902009 (equally divided among spoken, fiction, popular
magazines, newspapers, and academic texts).
And many more incl. Spanish:
http://corpus.byu.edu/
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I’ll be there is a couple of minutes.
I’ll be there in a couple minutes.
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Danish (Swedish, Dutch, German)
”real” partitive:
en
gruppe af
turisterne
one
group of
tourists-DEF
‘a group of the tourists’
Pseudopartitive:
en
gruppe
turister
one
group
tourists
‘a group of tourists’
“real” partitive:
pseudopartitive:
part is taken from a definite set
part is taken from an unbounded set
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En isbjørn angreb en gruppe turister og dræbte en
mand.
A polar bear attacked a group of tourists and killed a
man.
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Kate, welcome to the program. I have actually a
couple questions for you please.
(COCA Ray Suarez: NPR Talk of the Nation 1998)
and we've heard them mentioned a couple times
already this week.
 (Trade Union Annual Congress (Busn). Recorded on 8
Jun 1993)
Note there is no of!
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



Only for some speakers, with the special
meaning of ”approximately”
More frequent in American English
Is couple an isolated example or is there a
pattern involving other words?
Will the chnage with couple continue to increase
in frequency?
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Every year end the American Dialect Society and various dictionaries
publish WOTY
http://www.americandialect.org/index.php/amerdial/categories/C178/
How do these words reflect modern culture: current technology;
politics; economic affairs; world news etc.?
2012 because: introducing a noun, adjective, or other part of speech
(e.g., “because reasons,” “because awesome”)
2011 occupy: verb, noun, and combining form referring to the
Occupy protest movement.
2010 app: noun application program for a computer or phone
operating system
2009 tweet: noun, a short message sent via the Twitter.com
2008 bailout: noun. verb, the rescue by the government of companies
on the brink of failure
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2013 WOTY roundup:
http://blog.oup.com/2014/01/word-of-year-woty-2013-round-up/
New words in the dictionary:
http://www.oxforddictionaries.com/words/what-s-new
http://www.merriam-webster.com/help/faq/words_in.htm
(Video interview on new words):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2zYbXIlJ00&feature=player_embedded
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Texting is harming the language, or is it?:
http://ideas.time.com/2013/04/25/is-texting-killing-the-englishlanguage/
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h79V_qUp91M
Texting and teaching:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Boj8VYzDAy8
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Harry Potter series and US/ UK editorial changes
UK edition
holiday
jumper
glove puppet
trainers
jacket potato
mad
mad
US edition
vacation
sweater
hand puppet
sneakers
baked potato
insane
crazy
gray
pajamas
recognise
grey
pyjamas
recognize
Bulgaria have got Viktor Krum, though (UKGF:59)
(US: has got)
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/ps/differences-ps.html
http://www.hp-lexicon.org/about/books/cs/differences-cs.html
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Mishearing word boundaries—mondegreens: coined by the writer Sylvia Wright.
Usually taken to refer to misheard song lyrics:
The Bonnie Earl O' Moray
Ye Highlands and ye Lawlands,
Oh where have you been?
They have slain the Earl O' Moray
And laid him on the green.
Misheard as “And Lady Mondegreen”
See also the Two Ronnies: Fork Handles (comedy sketch built round mishearing)
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Cz2-ukrd2VQ
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Algeo, John & Thomas Pyles. 2005. The Origins and Development of the
English Language. Boston: Wadsworth.
Denison, David & Richard Hogg. 2006. A History of the English
Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.
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