英語(yǔ)語(yǔ)言文化史

1、A Cultural History of the English Language1AgendaIntroduction Old EnglishMiddle English Early Modern English Present-Day English World Englishes2Introduction Definition of LanguageFunctions of the LanguageThe Origin of LanguageFamilies of Languages The Indo-European FamilyLanguages Change3What is La

2、nguage? Language is a purely human and non-instinctive method of communicating ideas,emotions and desires by means of voluntarily produced symbols. Sapir (1921) 薩丕爾（1921）: 語(yǔ)言是人類的非本能的交際方式，通過(guò)有意發(fā)出的聲音或?qū)懗稣Z(yǔ)言符號(hào)等手段，來(lái)達(dá)到傳遞思想、交流感情和滿足欲望的目的。Language is a set of sentences, each finite in length and constructed ou

3、t of a finite set of elements. Chomsky (1957) : 喬姆斯基（1957）：語(yǔ)言是一套句子的集合，每句長(zhǎng)度有限，且由有限的語(yǔ)言成分組成。4HumanSymbolsSystemCommunication5Funtions of Language?6The Origin of LanguageThe Tower of Babel 7Five Theories of the Origins of LanguageThe Bow-Wow TheoryThe Pooh-Pooh Theory The Ding-Dong TheoryThe o-he-Ho The

4、oryThe La-la Theory Otto Jespersen (1860-1943) , Danish linguist8The top 20 languages1. Mandarin Chinese2. English3. Spanish4. Hindi 5. Arabic6. Portuguese7. Bengali 孟加拉語(yǔ)8. Russian9. Japanese10. German11. French 12. Javaness13. Korean14 ItalianD. Crystal, (2001) The Cambridge Encyclopedia of Languag

5、e9Language Families10Types of Linguistic Classification Genetic Classification 譜系分類法Typological classification 類型分類法11Typologcial classification is to group the langauges into structural types, on the basis of phonology, grammar or vocabulary rather than in terms of any real or assumed historical re

6、lationshop.12Isolating, analytic or root languages Inflectional (Fusional) languagesAgglutinating languages Polysynthetic languages13Isolating, analytic or root languages : words consist of single morphemes; most words consist only of a root. Mandarin Chinese, Vietnamese; 孤立語(yǔ)我 買 橘子 吃14Inflectional (

7、Fusional) languages 屈折語(yǔ): words consist of stem and affixes which often mark several grammatical categories simultaneously. Greek, Latin, Sanskrit, Russian.e.g. The biggest boys have been asking.15Agglutinating languages : 粘著語(yǔ): words are built up out of a long sequentce of units, with each unit expre

8、ssing a particular grammatical meaning, in a clear one-to-one way. Finnish, Hungarian, Estonian, Swahili斯瓦希里人語(yǔ), Turkish, Japanese form words in this way.Examples in Estonian1. Ta on kohvikus.he is coffeehouseinHe is in the coffee house.2. Lhme kohvikusse.gowe coffeehouseintoLet us go into the coffee

9、 house.3. Ma tulen uuest kohvikust.I come newfrom coffeehousefromI am coming out of the new coffee house.16Polysynthetic languages 多式綜合語(yǔ): words are foten very long and complex, containing a mixture of aglutinating and inflectional features. They consist of long strings of stems and affixes, which ma

10、y translate as an entire English sentence, as in Eskimo, Mohawk, Australian languages.1. rikuyki I see you.2. rikuykiik I see you all.3. rikuykiku We see you.riku: seeyki: first person singular actor and second person singular objectik: marks object as pluralku: marks actor as plural17The Language F

11、amilies of the World 18The Indo-European Family EnglishGermanSwedishFrenchItalianSpanishwinterWinterWinterHiverInvernoInviernofootFus FotPeidPeidePietwozweiTvaDeuxDueDosmemichMigMoiMe me19Discovery of Sanskrit“The Sanskrit language, , is of a wonderful structure; more perfect than the Greek, more co

12、pious than the Latin, and more exquisitely refined than either, there is a similar reason, though not quite so forcible, for supposing that both the Celtic , though blended with a very different idiom, had the same origin with the Sanskrit; and the Old Persian might be added to the same family” Sir

13、William Jones (1746-94)20Indo-European family of languages 印度-歐羅巴語(yǔ)系Latin and the modern Romance languages拉丁語(yǔ)，羅曼諸語(yǔ)言The Germanic languages日爾曼語(yǔ)族The Indo-Iranian languages, 印度-伊朗語(yǔ)族including Hindi and Sanskrit梵語(yǔ)The Slavic Languages:斯拉夫語(yǔ)族e(cuò).g. RussianThe Celtic Languages凱爾特語(yǔ)族，包括愛爾蘭語(yǔ)，蘇格蘭蓋爾語(yǔ)，Gaelic languages

14、高盧語(yǔ)，康沃爾語(yǔ)，威爾士語(yǔ)及布列塔尼語(yǔ)The Balticlanguages 波羅地語(yǔ)族of Latvian and Lithuanian (but not Estonian); Greek.21Germanic East NorthWest Gothic IcelandicNorwegianDanishSwedishHigh Low German Yiddish DutchFlemishAfrikaansEnglsih 22Language ChangeWhat changes? How does language change ?Why 23Sound changeGrammatical

15、changeSpelling changeSemantic change24Some types of semantic changeExtension : e.g. office, salaryNarrowing : e.g. meat, deer, girl, starve, Shift : e.g. navigator, Figurative use e.g. craneAmelioration: e.g. naughtyPejoration 語(yǔ)義轉(zhuǎn)貶: e.g. nortorious New words and old25Some surprising etymologies: vil

16、lainfarm labourertaxation fault findingprettyingenious 機(jī)靈的, 有獨(dú)創(chuàng)性的,vulgarordinaryslywiseorchardgarden ( without fruit trees) 26bribesteal dout fear handsome easy to handle ( 15th century)happyluckysillyhappy ( 13th century) tall handsome( 14th century) wallet bag for holding goods for journeyholidayholy day27How