Т.В. Артеменко, Е.В. Кривощекова, Е.В. Кравченко, Н.Е. Николаева - Reader in Language and Culture (1098538)
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Московский государственный университет им. М.В.ЛомоносоваREADERIN LANGUAGE AND CULTUREFOR JUNIOR STUDENTS OF THE HUMANITIESМОСКВА20072CONTENTSUNIT I. LanguageThe beginnings of English …………………………………………………. 3English in America ………………………………………………………… 5British and American English ……………………………………………… 7Command of Words ………………………………………………………... 9By Word of Mouth ………………………………………………………… 11Slang ……………………………………………………………………….
14Machine Translators ………………………………………………………. 15On English Pronunciation ………………………………………………… 16Spoken English and Broken English ……………………………………… 18“Jeet Jet?” How we think we talk and how we really talk ………………... 19The Seven Deadly Sins ……………………………………………………. 22English Accent in Hollywood ……………………………………………... 25The Future of English ……………………………………………………… 27In Vogue …………………………………………………………………… 29The Difficulty of –ic and –ical …………………………………………….. 31Punctuating Sentences with the Eyebrows…………………………………. 32“We call that symbol ‘@’”, she said………………………………………..
35Is ‘Pidgin English’ Just a Makeshift? ……………………………………… 37Literacy Level Falling ……………………………………………………… 393THE BEGINNINGS OF ENGLISHOur understanding of the history of English began at the1end of the eighteenth century when Sir William Jones, aBritish judge who lived in India, began to study Sanskrit. Thisis the ancient language of India. Like others before him, Jonesnoticed many similarities between Sanskrit, Latin, Greek andother European languages.
For example:SanscritLatinGreekEnglishpitrpaterpaterfathermatarmatermatrmotherbhratrfraterphraterbrotherastiestestiistrayahtrestreisthreesaptaseptemheptasevenashtaoctooktoeightPeople had thought that Latin, Greek and all European2languages came from Sanskrit, but Jones disagreed. Hebelieved that Sanskrit, Greek and Latin all came from a'common source', which had perhaps disappeared. His ideacaused a lot of interest and other people began to study thesethree languages.
Their work supported his view. We nowknow that Sanskrit, Greek, Latin, English and many otherlanguages all belong to one enormous ‘family’ of relatedlanguages called the Indo-European family.The common source - the language from which all theselanguages developed - is now known as Proto-Indo-European.34It is thought that a group of people called the Kurgans spokethis language, or dialects of it, and lived in what is nowsouthern Russia from some time after 5000 ВС. In about 3500ВС the Kurgans probably began to spread west across Europeand east across Asia.
As groups of Kurgans travelled furtherand further away from each other, they began to developstronger differences in their dialects. With the passing of time,these dialects became different languages. When some of them(the Greek, Anatolian and Indo-Iranian languages) appear inwritten form in about 2000 to 1000 ВС they are clearlyseparate languages.By studying languages as they are spoken today we can4see some similarities which suggest that they probably comefrom Proto-Indo-European. For example, there are similarwords in European and Indo-Iranian languages for members ofthe family (mother, father), animals (dog, sheep, horse), partsof the body (eye, ear), the weather (rain, snow), and for toolsand weapons.
From these and other shared words we canimagine something of the life of the Kurgans; they were partlyagricultural, made clothes from wool, and used wheels.(from “The History of the English Language”by Brigit Viney)Comprehension questions:What makes us think that English, Latin and Greek trace back to acommon source? What is this common source? Who is believed to havespoken this language?5ENGLISH IN AMERICAAt the time of independence in 1776, Americans began to1take an interest in their language. They wanted to be separatefrom Britain in every way, and to feel proud of their countryand way of life. Someone who felt particularly proud ofAmerican English was a teacher called Noah Webster (17581843).
In 1783-5 Webster wrote a speller, a grammar and areader for American schools. The speller was later sold as TheAmerican Spelling Book, and was hugely successful, sellingmore than eighty million copies in the following one hundredyears. With the money, from its sales, Webster was able towrite dictionaries. In these, he wanted to show that AmericanEnglish was as good as British English, and that Americansdid not have to copy the British. His first dictionary appearedin 1806, followed by the famous An American Dictionary ofthe English Language in 1828.
This was longer than Johnson'sdictionary (it explained about 70,000 words) and so gaveAmerican English the same importance as British English inthe minds of Americans.Sixty years earlier, Benjamin Franklin had suggestedmany changes to English spelling, and his ideas influencedWebster. In both his dictionaries Webster suggested newspellings, and many of these are now the accepted Americanspellings; for example, center, color, and traveled.
Websteralso influenced American pronunciation by insisting that eachpart of a word must be clearly pronounced; for example, secre-ta-ry not se-cre-t'ry.So what are the differences between American am26British English today? As well as differences in pronunciation,3there are some small differences in grammar and spelling.
Butthe main difference is in vocabulary. Thousands of words areused differently. For example, the bottom floor of a building iscalled the first floor in American English, and the ground floorin British English. You can walk on the sidewalk in Americaand the pavement in Britain.The American expression OK is probably short for OllKorrect (All Correct), which was used as a joke by some4young people in Boston and New York in 1838.
Then in 1840one of the men who wanted to be president was known as OldKinderhook. His followers created the Democratic O.K. Club.They used OK to get support for their man (but he didn'tbecome president).There are also different expressions in American and5British English. For example, the American expression to dropthe ball (to make a mistake), to be in the chips (to suddenlyhave a lot of money) and to go south (to become less valuable)are not used in British English.
Similarly many Britishexpressions are not part of American English.Some British people dislike the influence of American6English, but this has not stopped thousands of American wordsentering British English and becoming completely accepted:for example, supermarket (1933), teenager (1941) and fastfood (1951).Although there are clear differences between the Britishand American varieties of English, the huge popularity oftelevision, pop music and films has helped people on bothsides of the Atlantic to understand each other's English moreeasily.77Comprehension questions:1.
Why was it so important for Americans to separate from theBritish in every way?2. How did Webster’s American Dictionary of the English Languagehelp to do it?Tasks for discussion:1. Give examples of the differences between American and BritishEnglish.2. Which variety of English, British or American, would you like tomaster and why?3. Do most foreigners speak good English?BRITISH AND AMERICAN ENGLISHWhich version of English do you find the easiest to understand? British1English or American English? There’s no way of saying which is the easiest orthe best. And a lot depends on which version you’re more used to, and whoyour teacher is or was: an American or a British person.The way that languages develop is interesting. Words and expressions are2continuously coming into and going out of fashion.
And these days there arenew words every day as we try to keep up with technological advances.Of course, most of these new words come from the USA. In fact, withoutthe influence of the Americans, British English would be a poorer language.We wouldn’t have words such as “commuter”, “burger”, “chewing gum”,“motel”, “BLT” (bacon, lettuce and tomato sandwich) and “teenager”; and wewouldn’t be able to use expressions such as “to face the music” (to acceptcriticism for something bad that you have done).38American English itself is a rich language, with influences from all over4the world.
In the past, the settlers in the New World had to find new words todescribe their experiences in America. Many of these words came from nonEnglish-speakers such as the Spanish (who gave us words like “patio” and“macho”), the Dutch (who gave us “boss”), and the Indians (who gave us“moccasin” and “canoe”). These days, there are new words coming fromAmerica all the time. Why is this?There are various reasons. For a start the US is the dominant world power5in cultural, financial and economical terms. It exports its way of life - and weconsume it. The US also has a great publishing industry, with books that areread all over the world; and America is home to Hollywood, the biggestproducer and exporter of English-language films and television programmes inthe world.
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