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History of the English Language (ENGL
5150) |
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English 5150 History of the English
Language Fall 2010 W, 6:00-8:40 L 160 |
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Instructor:
Perrello Office: L195K Phone: 209-667-3274 Email: tperrello@csustan.edu Office hours: TTH
11-12; 1:45-2:45 and by appointment |
Purpose of Course: English 5150 offers a historical study of the English language including consideration of Old, Middle, Modern, and American English. We will address the nature and mechanisms of language change over time as well as social, political, and other historical conditions related to such changes. We will also attend to phonology, morphology, syntax, lexicon, and semantics as well as to the literature and culture of the different historical periods. Class activities will involve lecture, discussion, group work, and presentations. You are on a strict weekly schedule of reading assignments from Seth Lerer's book, Inventing English. You will have several homework assignments due, and these might be shared, reviewed, analyzed, or otherwise used to jump-start class activities. You will present on a course topic and write a report. We will read literature throughout the history of English, from the sad, allusive music of the Anglo-Saxon to the argot of twentieth-century war.
Learning Objectives:
Students who successfully complete this course will demonstrate…
· knowledge of the principles of etymology and semantic change as well as the ability to use a historical dictionary
· A familiarity with major texts and genres of literature throughout the history of English
· knowledge of general features of Old and Middle English
· an understanding of the social contexts and mechanisms of language change
· awareness of some of the problems in the origin and nature of language
Course Requirements: Students must successfully complete a number of written homework assignments involving translation, analysis, close reading, research, and the use of resources such as the Oxford English Dictionary; must make presentations to the class based on research; must have access to the Lerer book and the course packet and come to class having read and thought about the material for the week; must attend class regularly and participate in the activities of the classroom community.
Required Texts: Seth Lerer, Inventing
English: A Portable History of the Language (
Resource Materials: Resource materials available online or in the
University library include a copy of the Oxford
English Dictionary, the Old English
Dictionary, the Middle English
Dictionary, and a map of
Grading:
The grading option for this class will be option 3: letter grade only. We will use the optional plus/minus system for grades. Letter grades correspond to numerical values in accordance with the chart below. Note that you must complete all assigned work to receive a passing grade. Incompletes will only be given in the most dire of circumstances and require documentation.
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A |
A- |
B+ |
B |
B- |
F |
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100-92 |
91-90 |
89-88 |
87-82 |
81-80 |
< 80 |
Your final grade in this class will be weighted as follows:
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7 homework assignments: |
70% |
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Presentation: |
10% |
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Presentation Write-up |
10% |
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Class Participation: |
10% |
The seven homework assignments (see below) will be weighted equally, totaling 70% of your final grade in the class. Homework assignments must be typed and printed-out before class begins. They must adhere to the most rigorous standards of neatness and professionalism.
Whereas you'll be asked to present some of the homework assignments to the class on an ad hoc basis, you must also select a topic from a separate list and make a presentation to the class. A week after your presentation, you must submit a short paper on the topic. Here is the list of Presentation Topics. Here are instructions for the Presentation Write-Up.
An average class participation grade indicates that you are present, prompt, and prepared for class. A superior grade in this area indicates that you offer constructive, thoughtful feedback and respect others and their opinions. A superior grade in this area also stems from having all homework assignments done on time, week-in and week-out. Serious participation in group and class projects, effort, and classroom demeanor also play a part in your participation grade. Note that an above average grade in this area is not automatic; you must earn a good participation grade through honest effort and serious input. If you are shy or otherwise unwilling or unable to offer feedback in class, explain your difficulties to me and offer feedback during my office hours.
Rules and Regulations
Attendance and Tardiness: You should attend every class meeting. I will take attendance during the first five minutes of class each day. Anyone not present during roll will be marked absent. If you are late and miss roll, it is up to you to see that I correct the roll that same evening; failure to do so means the absence is permanent. If tardiness becomes excessive, I reserve the right to treat a tardy as an absence. Each student is allowed one absence without penalty. If you miss more than one class I’ll take sanctions, which may include a reduction of your final grade in the class. Further, you are responsible for keeping up with the syllabus during any absence. I value your presence in class, so please come.
Late Work: For the purposes of this class, late means late. All work is due at the beginning of class on the due date. Missing class or coming late on the day an assignment is due in no way excuses you from submitting work on time. I will not accept late work without having given prior permission. Please make every attempt to contact me if something goes wrong, and the sooner the better—preferably, I’d like to know about any problems a day in advance. Class meetings will often be driven by your homework assignments, so I want you to show-up to class prepared and ready to go.
Academic Honesty: You are responsible for
knowing what plagiarism is and avoiding it. This, and any other form of
cheating, such as downloading or buying papers off of the internet, having
someone else write a paper for you, having Gertrude, who happens to be your
mother-in-law and a graduate student at UC Davis, “edit” your essay for you,
etc., can’t be tolerated in college. Copying from another person’s test
paper or other forms of cheating on in-class written assignments is just as
egregious. Your integrity, as well as that of the entire academic
community, is at stake. Please make sure all work is original,
individual, and done specifically for this class. The
Academic honesty is an important principle to ensure that all authors, including students, are acknowledged for their original expressions of ideas.
Instructors have a responsibility to demonstrate to students in their courses the difference in acceptable and unacceptable use of others’ work. Students have a responsibility to ask their instructor for guidance whenever they are uncertain about fair use of someone else’s work.
Students, in submitting work, certify that the work is their own original work except that all information garnered from others whether quoted, summarized, or paraphrased has been appropriately cited. Dishonesty by failing to acknowledge the work of others constitutes plagiarism and is a serious offense. Normally, the penalty for plagiarism is failure in the course. More serious penalties may also be invoked.*
In cases of plagiarism instructors should also submit the Student Discipline: Academic Dishonesty Incident Report Form to the Coordinator of Student Discipline for tracking or for disciplinary investigation. http://www.csustan.edu/english/dept/AcademicDishonestyIncident.pdf
Click on the URL below to read the text of the above policy: http://www.csustan.edu/english/dept/plagiarism.html in their syllabi.
*Title 5, California Code of Regulations, Section 41301 notes that students may be “expelled, suspended, placed on probation, or given a lesser sanction for one or more of the following causes which must be campus related: 1. Cheating or plagiarism in connection with an academic program at a campus. . . .” (see Appendix F of the current CSU, Stanislaus catalog).
Failure of the course will be the penalty for first time offenders. You may be subject to expulsion from the university for repeated offenses.
Students with special needs: Students who require
extra help, space, or time to complete assignments should speak to me as soon
as possible.
Schedule of
8-25: Introductions
9-1: Lerer, Introduction and Chapter 1; Cotton Vitellius A xv., fol. 132r; "An Undiscovered
Riddle..."; Colloquies; Riddles; The Dream of the Rood; Alfred’s Preface to Pastoral Care
9-8: Lerer, 2; The Battle of Maldon; The
Wanderer; The Wife's Lament; The Ruin; Assignment #1 Due: Old English Translation
9-15: Lerer, 3; Beowulf
9-22: Lerer, 4-5; ME Trotula texts; Preface to a Wycliffite Biblical Concordance; A fifteenth century text on phonetics; Bible verses; Malory; Assignment #2 Due: Middle English Translation
9-29: Lerer, 6-7; The Reeve's Tale; The Pearl; The Bestiary; A letter from the Corporation of London to Henry V (1417)
Presentation by Jason Lindo: Old English elegy: history of the elegy itself, how the elegy has altered through the ages, and popular elegies over the years. Comparison of the messages and tones found within certain elegies and how these messages may have changed. “Deor” and “The Ruin” will be featured.
10-6: Lerer, 8; Caxton's Advertisement; Wilson, The Arte of Rhetorique; Puttenham, The Arte of English Poesie; Lyly, Euphues or The Anatomie of Wit; Letters
of Queen Elizabeth and King James; Wyatt and Surrey's Sonnets; Assignment #3
Due: Semantics
Presentation by Sarah Shackelford: King James Bible comparison
10-13: No Class
10-20: Lerer, 9; from Henry
V; from Hamlet; Nashe, excerpts
from the Preface to Christ's
Teares over
Presentation by Adam Jaffray: a
comparison of the original folio version of Shakespeare's Hamlet and a modern version.
10-27: Lerer, 10; Dekker, The Guls Horne-booke; John Donne, Seventeenth Meditation; "Song,"; "The good-morrow,"; The letters of Brilliana Harley; John Milton, from Paradise Lost; Sir Isaac Newton, Opticks; Fanny Burney, letter from Bath (1791)
Presentation by Lisa Rigdon: An examination of idioms throughout Old English, Middle English, and Modern English, including a discussion of their etymology within the different forms of English, and possibly a review of a few American idioms versus British idioms and how those relate to older forms.
11-3: Lerer, 11-13; from the Preface to Johnson's Dictionary; Charles Darwin, The Descent of Man; from the General
Explanations to the New English
Dictionary; Bradley, Review of The
New English Dictionary; Sweet, The
Practical Study of Languages; Assignment #5 Due: Moby
Dick
Presentation by Nicole Brown: jokes/comedy as linguistic and cultural phenomena; history of comedy and origins of many stock jokes.
Presentation by Helen G. and Helen S.: Bawdy
language: a trip to the raunchy side
11-10: Lerer, 14-16; Assignment #6
Due: Dialect in Film
Presentation by Philip Schmidt: Anthony Burgess's A Clockwork
Orange as a modern example of what translators of Old English encounter in
their efforts, i.e., figuring out what word #1 means by examining how it's used
in different contexts/ drawing conjecture from its origins, etc., and then
using that knowledge to inform the reader what words #2 or #3 might mean when
found in proximity to word #1. The movie
will be used (selected scenes, of course, not the whole thing), but I want to
approach this presentation in terms of the literature itself. I could
also do something with handouts, allowing the class to decipher some tricky
passages from the novel using the techniques you've been referring to thus far.
Some are easy (cancer= cigarette, biblio= library, warble= song), and
others are trickier (appy polly loggy= apology, pee and em= parents).
Attention to criticism on the combining of Russian, cockney English, and
Burgess's own creations.
Presentation by Yvonne De La Cruz: The Navajo Code Talkers during WW II
11-17: Lerer, 17-18; Soldiers' Letters Home in World War I; Early Newspaper Advertisements
Presentation by Kyle Montero: An exploration of "Dread
Talk," or the language of Rastafari. The Rastafari movement arose
in
- "I" replaces "me": "Me" turns the person into an object, "I" emphasizes the individual's subjectivity.
- "Downpress" rather than "Oppress": Since one is being pressed down by injustice, this pressure cannot be "up" (op).
- "Ovastand" replaces "Understand": To understand an idea, you must be over it.
- "Politricks" replaces "politics" because politicians turn out to be tricksters.
Presentation by MaryAnn Macedo: Starbucks Lingo: a deliberate mishmash of cultures and words; a jargon that requires a barista in order to translate.
11-24: No Class
12-1: Lerer, 19; Assignment #7
Due: The Story of Language Development
Presentation by Anne Engert: The influences of electronically mediated communication on language; specifically, some of the ways that computer gaming and cell-phone texting have begun to change English spelling (and in some cases vocabulary) in their native environments, as well as making increasing incursions into non-electronic contexts. The Internet-spawned word w00t recently made its debut in Merriam-Webster’s dictionary, and teachers are beginning to see notations such as lol and ;-) in student essays.
Presentation by Rebecca Alvernaz: National languages, with a primary
focus on the history of the movement and
debate over establishing English as the national language of the
12-8: Last Day of Class