Storia della Lingua Inglese g g Lecture 2

Transcript

Storia della Lingua Inglese – AA 2012/13
Dott.ssa Maria Ivana Lorenzetti
Storia della Lingua
g Inglese
g
Lecture 2
Module 2
DOTT.SSA MARIA IVANA LORENZETTI
American English

Approximately 85% of the 275 Americans have
English as their native language (Data from the
year 2000)
Speakers of American English outnumber all
native speakers of English outside the USA by 2
to 1 and those of British English by 4 to 1
According
g to a survey
y by
y the American
government in 2007, around 55 million people
had a native language other than English in the
USA
2
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1
Not just American English
3
Other Languages Spoken in the
USA
4
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2
American English and Official
Status

American English is not the official language in
the USA
The English-Only Movement has its roots in
1980s, when 23 states declared English to be
their official language
In 1996, for the first time, the Congress voted on
a bill “The English Language Empowerment Act
of 1996“, designating English as the federal
government’s
t’ sole
l llanguage off official
ffi i l b
business.
i
The targets of the English-only movement were
linguistic minorities, bilingual educators and
Indian tribes
5
The English-Only Movement’s
Motivations

The view that the English language works as a
social glue”
glue in the United States
“social
The idea that the melting-pot myth and the fact that
the government sponsors bilingual programs makes
new immigrants reluctant to learn English
Language diversity is dangerous for the whole
y language
g g
nation, because it leads to ethnic hostility,
conflict and political separatism
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3
The English-Plus Concept

The LULAC (League of United Latin American
g
that advocates the
Citizens)) is the organization
“English-Plus Concept”
About 175 indigenous languages survive today
but only 20 of these are still being learned by
children
It “celebrates the cultural and linguistic
diversification of America and treats this nation's
multiethnic
lti th i and
d multilingual
ltili
l communities
iti as
national resources”
http://lulac.org/
The English Plus Concept’s
Motivations

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Immigrants have much to offer from their
g g and cultural backgrounds
g
diversified languages
“Additive bilingualism creates a language
competent society“: both limited English
proficient individuals and native English
speakers will be able to develop fluency in a
second language
Bilingual students develop a mental agility and
fl ibilit
flexibility
For bilingual students it is easier to study
another foreign language
4
The History of American English
History
y of AE
Colonial period
(1607-1776)
National period
(1776-1898)
International period
(1898-present)
Colonization

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Spanish conquistadores, French explorers and
English colonists dominated the European
interests in North America during the 1500s and
1600s
Eventually,English explorers established
themselves on the East coast, though the
colonies were controlled by Great Britain
Dissatisfaction with this situation led to the
REVOLUTIONARY WAR and the American
Colonies DECLARING their INDEPENDENCE
from Great Britain in 1776
5
Colonial Period

1620 is a fundamental year in American history, being the
year when the Pilgrim Fathers on a ship named the
Mayflower reached the shores of Massachussets and
formed the first English permanent colony, after previous
attempts and the colony of Jamestown in 1607
The Atlantic Ocean served as an effective barrier to oral
communication between the colonists and those who
stayed in England, ensuring that their speech would evolve
in different directions
Changes
g in the motherland were slow to reach the
colonies
Colonists adapted old uses to new purposes and
borrowed from other groups : the Amerindians, the
Dutch, the French.
11
The 13 Colonies
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Colonial Period (2)

The earliest settlers in Virginia and New England,
confronted by plants and animals that were
unfamiliar
f ili to them,
h
either
ih b
borrowed
d the
h IIndian
di
names or invented names of their own
Indian Words

Raccoon, carnivorous mammal with a mask-like face
Chipmunk, a small terrestrial squirrel
Opossum, a marsupial
Squash, the fruit of Cucurbita
Inventions

Bullfrog
Liveoak
Catbird
The National Expansion Period

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The expansion of the 13 origin colonies to the
south and westward,
westward eventually ending to the
Pacific coast, saw the growing need of a
sense of national identity
This was also felt from a linguistic point of
view, leading to the evolution and recognition
of a separate standard English for the USA
the extension of that standard over the whole
nation as it expanded westward
7
Noah Webster and Standard
American
Noah Webster can be viewed as the founding father
of Standard American English
He wanted to prove that the English spoken in
America was distinctively American
”As an independent nation, our honor requires us to
have a system of our own, in language as well as
government. Great Britain, whose children we are, and
whose language we speak, should no longer be our
standard; for the taste of her writers is already
corrupted, and her language on the decline. But if it
were not so, she is at too great a distance to be our
model, and to instruct us in the principles of our own
tongue” (Dissertation on the English Language 1789)

Noah Webster and Standard American
(2)

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“A national language is a band of national union.
Every engine should be employed to render the
people
l off this
hi country national;
i
l to callll their
h i
attachments home to their own country; and to
inspire them with the pride of national character”
“It is not only important, but in a degree necessary,
that the people of this country should have an
American Dictionary of the English Language for,
although
g the body
y of the language
g g is the same as in
England, and. it is desirable to perpetuate that
sameness, yet some differences must exist”
Noah Webster, An American Dictionary of the
English Language (1828)
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Noah Webster and Standard American
(3)

Spelling Reform

He changed the –ce
ce in words like defence,
defence offence,
offence
and pretence to –se ( ex. Defense)
removed the second silent "l" in verbs, such as travel
and cancel when forming the past tense (ex. Traveled)
dropped the "u" from words such as humour and
colour (ex. color)
dropped the "k" from words such as publick and
musick, heritage of the Early Modern English period
and later abandoned in BrE too (ex. music; public)
The Spelling Reform
Changes that were accepted Changes that were rejected
Before
Webster's
Before
Webster's
Webster
Change
Webster
Change
gaol
jail
ache
ake
mould
mold
soup
soop
travelled
traveled
sleigh
sley
honour
honor
sponge
spunge
centre
center
tongue
tung
humour
humor
cloak
cloke
masque
mask
determine
determin
publick
public
women
wimmen
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International Period

From 1865 to 1929, when the immigration laws were
changed
Almost three quarters of immigrants coming from
Southern and Eastern Europe
The USA extended its overseas interests: an Open
Door policy for China; the Panamanian revolution
against Colombia, intervention in Latin American
affairs etc.
The USA played an increasing role in world politics
and economics with a consequent effect on AE
usage
We might as well talk about an additional Global
period extending to the present time
Varieties of American English

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Varieties of AE are more determined by
region than by any other factors such as
ethnicity, gender, age, social class.
AE Dialects are treated under four broad
geographical headings: the North, the
Coastal South, Midland and the West
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Dialects Boundaries (based on Carver’s
Linguistic Atlas of the US 1987)
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Northern Dialect

The most noticeable difference within the
region is that New York and New England
areas are non-rhotic while the western
portion of the North is rhotic in the production
of the /r/ phoneme
Merger of vowels in cot and cought [o:] → [Λ]
might
g be observed in New England
g
Matter and Madder are often nearhomophones in the North > double tt
pronounced as /d/
The Southern Dialects

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This area is characterized by a strong African
p
y on the islands of
influence on AE,, especially
South Carolina and Georgia where Gullah
(language coming from Angola, Africa) is spoken
non-rhotic
Diphthongs are turned into monophthongs:
hide [hΛd] is a near rhyme of both hod and
non-rhotic hard [ai > Λ];
M
Monophthongs
hth
i t di
into
diphthongs:
hth
l ft [lauft]
loft
[l ft]
which results is a near rhyme with lout
[Λ >au];
Merger of vowels in pin and pen [ i ] > [ e ];
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Southern Vocabulary

Archaic expressions:

Amerindian languages: “

Branch - a brook
all-overs - feelings of uneasiness
Hull - the shell of a nut
Kinfolk - relatives
Scat! - Bless you!
T
Terrapin
i - a turtle;
t tl
The French of Louisiana

Armoire - wardrobe,
Bayou - a small river
Midlands

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Midland accent is rhotic
The merger of vowels - tot and taught [O: >Λ]
In the Ohio River valley the vowel of itch
rhymes with each (in both cases [i:]) [ i >i:] ,
so that fish and television have the sound of
the vowel in “meet” [i:]
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Western Pronunciation

The merger of long and short vowels in "don"
and "dawn" is universal [o:] [^].
[^]
The vowel in measure, fresh is pronounced
as a diphthong [ei], so such words as edge
and age are homophones [e] [ei]
Vowels in seal and sill are almost identical
[i:] [i].
Western Vocabulary

Borrowings from Mexican Spanish:

adios - goodbye”,
bronco - wild,
hombre – guy
Names of places: Los Angeles, San Francisco,
Sacramento, Santa Cruz
Other languages have contributed words:

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Parking - a band of grass between sidewalk and curb;
chesterfield - a sofa.
aloha - farewell (Hawaiian),
kung fu (Chinese)
nisei - a person of Japanese descent born in the US
(Japanese).
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American Pronunciation
Other Influences

The usage of American English, regardless of
dialect is influenced by other factors as:
dialect,

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ethnic background;
gender;
age;
social class;
occupation or profession.
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Ethnic Varieties of American
English

Black English or Ebonics or Vernacular
English;
Hispanic English;
Indian English,
Jewish English,
Pennsylvania Dutch English;
The Cajun English of Louisiana and some
others (mixture of English and French)
Links

American Community Data Survey on Language
Use

Commentary to the Survey

http://aschmann.net/AmEng/
p
g
Speech Accent Archive (with audio samples of
the language)

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http://www.census.gov/newsroom/releases/archives/a
merican_community_survey_acs/cb10-cn58.html
American English Dialects

http://www.census.gov/hhes/socdemo/language/data/
acs/index.html
/i d ht l
http://accent.gmu.edu/browse_maps/namerica.php
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