The Emergence and Development of English
An Introduction
Published on 25. October 2018
Book
Paperback/Softback
268 pages
978-1-108-45511-4 (ISBN)
Description
This textbook provides a step-by-step introduction to the history of the English language (HEL), offering a fresh perspective on the process of language change. Aimed at undergraduate students, The Emergence and Development of English is accessibly written, and contains a wealth of pedagogical tools, including chapter openers, key terms, chapter summaries, end-of-chapter exercises and suggestions for further reading. A central theme of the book is 'emergence', the key term from the study of complex systems, which describes how massive numbers of random verbal interactions give rise to regularities that 'emerge' without specific causes. This unique approach encourages readers to incorporate complex systems into the mainstream coverage of HEL. Additional resources include examples of language from each period, as well as appendices on terminology, online resources and audio samples.
More details
Series
Language
English
Place of publication
Cambridge
United Kingdom
Target group
College/higher education
Professional and scholarly
Product notice
Paperback (trade)
Illustrations
Worked examples or Exercises
Dimensions
Height: 244 mm
Width: 170 mm
Thickness: 15 mm
Weight
472 gr
ISBN-13
978-1-108-45511-4 (9781108455114)
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Schweitzer Classification
Other editions
Additional editions
E-Book
10/2018
Cambridge University Press
€26.49
Available for download
Book
10/2018
Cambridge University Press
€104.50
Article not available at the moment
Person
William A. Kretzschmar, Jr is the Harry and Jane Willson Professor in Humanities at the University of Georgia, and also has an appointment at the University of Oulu, Finland. He is Editor of the American Linguistic Atlas Project, the oldest and largest national research project surveying how people speak differently across the country, and has provided American pronunciations for the online Oxford English Dictionary and other dictionaries in the Oxford US Dictionaries program. In 2014 he held an American Council of Learned Societies (ACLS) Digital Innovation fellowship, during which he developed a computer simulation to model language change. Recent works include The Routledge Dictionary of Pronunciation for Current English (2017) with Clive Upton, and Exploring Linguistic Science: Language Use, Complexity, and Interaction (Cambridge, 2018) with Allison Burkette.
Content
Introduction; 1. Popular English: what we think we know; 2. Emergence; 3. Indo-European; 4. Origins of English; 5. Old English; 6. Early Middle English; 7. Late Middle English; 8. Early Modern English; 9. Modern English; 10. Contemporary English; 11. Standard English; 12. The future of English; Appendix 1. Terms and concepts for studying the English language: expression of words with sounds; Appendix 2. Terms and concepts for studying the English language: beyond expression to content; Appendix 3. Words in use: meaning and corpora.