English: History of a Language

What happened to English between Beowulf and Virginia Woolf? What’s happening to it now? The first semester of this course introduces students to some basic concepts in linguistics, tracing the evolution of pronunciation, vocabulary, and grammar from Old English (Anglo-Saxon), through the Middle English of Chaucer and the Early Modern English of Shakespeare and the 18th century, to an English that we recognize—for all its variety—as our own. Second semester turns from the history of English and the study of language change over time to the varieties of contemporary English and a sociolinguistic approach to the ways language differs from one community of speakers to another. Among the topics for second semester are: pidgins and creoles, American Sign Language, language and gender, and African American English (Ebonics). This course is intended for anyone who loves language and literature; students may choose their conference work from a range of topics in either language or linguistics or both.