关于英语语言的变化

About Language Change

Is the English language changing?

Yes, and so is every other human language. Language is always changing, evolving, and adapting to the needs of its users. This isn't a bad thing; if English hadn't changed since, say, 1950, we wouldn't have words to refer to modems, fax machines, or cable TV. As long as the needs of language users continue to change, so will the language. The change is so slow that from year to year we hardly notice it (except to grumble every so often about the 'poor English' being used by the younger generation!). But reading Shakespeare's writings from the sixteenth century can be

difficult. If you go back a couple more centuries, Chaucer's Canterbury Tales are very tough sledding, and if you went back another 500 years to try to read Beowulf, it would be like reading a different language.

Why does language change?

Language changes for several reasons. First, it changes because the needs of its speakers change. New technologies, new products, and new

experiences require new words to refer to them clearly and efficiently. Consider the fax machine: Originally it was called a facsimile machine, because it allowed one person to send another a copy, or facsimile, of a document. As the machines became more common, people began using the shorter form fax to refer to both the machine and the document; from there, it was just a short step to using the word fax as a verb (as in I'll fax this over to Sylvia).

Another reason for change is that no two people have had exactly the same language experience. We all know a slightly different set of words and constructions, depending on our age, job, education level, region of the country, and so on. We pick up new words and phrases from all the different people we talk with, and these combine to make something new and unlike

any other person's particular way of speaking. At the same time, various groups in society use language as a way of marking their group identity - showing who is and isn't a member of the group. Many of the changes that occur in language begin with teens and young adults: As young people interact with others their own age, their language grows to include words, phrases, and constructions that are different from those of the older generation. Some have a short life span (heard groovy lately?), but others stick around to affect the language as a whole.

We get new words from many different places. We borrow them from other languages (sushi, chutzpah), we create them by shortening longer words (gym from gymnasium) or by combining words (brunch from breakfast and lunch), and we make them out of proper names (Levis, fahrenheit).

Sometimes we even create a new word by being wrong about the analysis of an existing word. That's how the word pea was created: Four hundred years ago, the word pease was used to refer to either a single pea or a bunch of them. But over time, people assumed that pease was a plural form, for which pea must be the singular, and a new word - pea - was born. (The same thing would happen if people began to think of the word cheese as referring to more than one chee.)

Word order also changes, though this process is much slower. Old English word order was much more 'free' than that of Modern English, and even comparing the Early Modern English of the King James Bible with today's English shows differences in word order. For example, the King James Bible translates Matthew 6:28 as \"Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not.\" In a more recent translation, the last phrase is translated as \"they do not toil\". English no longer places not after the verb in a sentence.

Finally, the sounds of a language change over time, too. About 500 years ago English began to undergo a major change in the way its vowels were pronounced. Before that, geese would have rhymed with today's

pronunciation of face, while mice would have rhymed with today's peace. But then a 'Great Vowel Shift' began to occur, during which the ay sound (as in pay) changed to ee (as in fee) in all the words containing it, while the ee sound changed to i (as in pie). In all, seven different vowel sounds were affected. If you've ever wondered why most other European languages spell the sound ay with an e (as in fiancé) and the sound ee with an i (as in aria), it's because those languages didn't undergo the Great Vowel Shift. Only English did.

Wasn't English more elegant in Shakespeare's day?

People tend to think that older forms of language are more elegant, logical, or correct than modern Forms, but it's just not true. The Fact that language is always changing doesn't mean it's getting worse; it's just becoming different.

In Old English, a small winged creature with Feathers was known as a brid. Over time, the pronunciation changed to bird. Although it's not hard to imagine children in the 1400's being scolded For 'slurring' brid into bird, it's clear that bird won out. Nobody today would suggest that bird is an incorrect word or a sloppy pronunciation.

The speech patterns of young people tend to grate on the ears of adults because they're unfamiliar. Also, new words and phrases are used in spoken or informal language sooner than in Formal, written language, so it's true that the phrases you hear teenagers using may not yet be appropriate For business letters. But that doesn't mean they're worse - just newer. For years English teachers and newspaper editors argued that the word

hopefully shouldn't be used to mean 'I hope', as in Hopefully it won't rain today, even though people frequently used it that way in informal speech. (And, of course nobody complained about other 'sentence adverbs' such as frankly and actually.) Now the battle against hopefully is all but lost, and it appears at the beginnings of sentences even in formal documents.

If you listen carefully, you can hear language change in progress. For example, anymore used to occur only in negative sentences: I don't eat pizza anymore. But now, in many areas of the country, it's being used in positive sentences: I've been eating a lot of pizza anymore. In this use, anymore means something like 'lately'. If that sounds odd to you now, keep listening; you may be hearing it in your neighborhood before long.

Why can't people just use correct English?

By 'correct English', people usually mean Standard English. Most

languages have a standard Form; it's the Form of the language used in government, education, and other Formal contexts. But Standard English is just one dialect of English.

What's important to realize is that there's no such thing as a 'sloppy' or 'lazy' dialect. Every dialect of every language has rules - not 'schoolroom' rules like 'don't split your infinitives', but rather the sorts of rules that tell us that the cat slept is a sentence of English,

but slept cat the isn't. These rules tell us what language is like rather than what it should be like.

Different dialects have different rules. For example: (l) I didn't eat any dinner. (2) I didn't eat no dinner.

Sentence (l) follows the rules of Standard English; sentence (2) follows a set of rules present in several other dialects. But neither is sloppier than the other; they just differ in the rule For making a negative sentence. In (l), dinner is marked as negative with any; in (2), it's marked as negative with no. The rules are different, but neither is more logical or elegant than the other. In Fact, Old English regularly used 'double negatives', parallel to what we see in (2), and many modern languages, including Italian and Spanish, either allow or require more than one negative word in a sentence. Sentences like (2) only sound 'bad' if you didn't happen to grow up speaking a dialect that uses them. You may have been taught to avoid 'split infinitives', as in (3): (3) 1 was asked to thoroughly water the garden.

This is said to be 'ungrammatical' because thoroughly splits' the infinitive to water. Why are split infinitives so bad? Here's why: Seventeenth-century grammarians believed Latin was the ideal language, so they thought English should be as much like Latin as possible. In Latin, an infinitive like to water is a single word; it's impossible to split it up. So today, 300 years later, we're still being taught that sentences like (3) are wrong, all because someone in the 1600's thought English should be more like Latin.

Here's one last example. Over the past few decades, three new ways of reporting speech have appeared:

(4) So Karen goes, \"Wow - I wish I'd been there!\" (5) So Karen is like, \"Wow - I wish I'd been there!\" (6) So Karen is all, \"Wow - I wish I'd been there!\"

In (4), goes means pretty much the same thing as said; it's used for reporting Karen's actual words. In (5), is like means the speaker is telling us more or less what Karen said. If Karen had used different words for the same basic idea, (5) would be appropriate, but (4) would not.

Finally, is all in (6) is a fairly new construction. In most of the areas where it's used, it means something similar to is like, but with extra emotion. If Karen had simply been reporting the time, it would be okay to say She's like, \"It's five o'clock\but odd to say She's all, \"It's five o'clock\" - unless there was something exciting about it being five o'clock.

A lazy way of talking? Not at all; the younger generation has made a useful three-way distinction where we previously only had the word said. Language will never stop changing; it will continue to respond to the needs of the people who use it. So the next time you hear a new phrase that grates on your ears, remember that, like everything else in nature, the English language is a work in progress.

附件四 三四单元作业 Unit 3

I. Choose the best one to fill in the blank.

1. National language is used within national boundaries. English in this century has a become a ___________ .

A. national language B. international language C. regional language D. global language

2. Several reasons can explain the why English has become an international language or global language--- Britain Empire was once very large, it is the dominant language of USA and it is the language of _________ .

A. literature and history B. government and authority C. law and military D. science and technology

3. Languages are bound with feelings of loyalty and patriotism to their speakers’ country. It is called ___________ . A. language barrier B. language attitude C. language use D. language skills

4. The English used by these Black slaves is what we termed as Black English, or ________ . (Ebonic)

A. American slang B. argot C. pidgin D. Ebonic

5. The English language had a special role in making a large_______, from different parts of the world, into a single nation.( population) A. country B. community

C. population D. racial group

6. Speakers of British English and American English understand each other without difficulty. A more formal way of saying this is to say that British English & American English are mutually _________ . (intelligible)

A. intelligible B. independent C. incompatible D. invisible

7. By the discovery of the New World is meant discovery and settlement in ___________.

A. Australia B. India

C. North America D. South Africa

8. Since the decline of British imperial power, the English language has __________ .

A. become less important B. become more important

C. remained important, but in a different way D. declined sharply in importance

9.The total number of users of varieties of English is ___________ the total number of users of varieties of Chinese.

A. still much smaller than B. much larger than C. the same as D. almost as much as

10. The label ________ is often given to the end of 20th century since much more information is available than ever before and it can be stored and transferred in ways never possible before. A. Information Age B. Computer mania C. Globlizaion D. Internet Popularity

II. Translate the following into Chinese

Braj Kachru who is from Indian sub-continent, uses 3 circles to show his audience how English is used. There are 3 circles that overlap (p.147). They are the Inner Circle (which represents native speakers-users who use English as their mother tongue); the Outer Circle (which represents places where English is used for purposes of international business and sometimes for official business within the country. Most of these places were once part of the British Empire); and the Expanding Circle (where English is not an official language but the number of English users are still increasing who don’t think English belongs to Britain or North America. Instead, they think the language is one of theirs.)

III. Read the following and then answer the questions.

One thing we have to point out is that the number of English users has always been increasing. The world is changing, so is the number of English learners. Because of technical reasons, the change is more rapid

today.

We are living in so-called Information Age. Information spreads very rapidly and is taken advantage of by more people and in more fields. The invention and the use of computer is a good case in point. And as an international language, the function of English has helped the spread and transfer of information. The side use of English has strengthened its position worldwide in return. Though there are some other languages which can be called international languages, English is obviously more important and should be termed as global language. It has gone beyond any boundaries.

English learning, therefore, has a lot to do with the advancement of science and the application of technology as well. Students are learning it at school and working adults are learning it for various purposes. At present, there is no sign of declining in the learning and using of English. The role English plays in the modern world is evident. But, people might ask if it has disadvantages too? Or can it be replaced by some other languages?

People have complaints about English. For instance, one needs a large vocabulary to read well; some sounds are hard to pronounce, and it’s not easy to handle the use of countable nouns and uncountable nouns, etc. To solve the problem, some people put forward a solution, namely, using a language that has nothing to do with anybody’s mother tongue to take the place of English as an international language. Hence, people don’t have to be bothered by the change of time, place and audience.

It is not practical to use Latin or Greek for the purpose. So, in 19th to early 20th century, people created a few languages to fulfill the task. The most famous and successful man-made language is Esperanto. Yet, it has never been successful in competing with English even though there are some people using the language all the time.

Some people suggested that a natural language be simplified, for example English. In fact, Noah Webster already did the job long before by simplifying the English spelling in order that American children can learn it more easily. And in 1930, a person named Ogden already published his simplified English version. During the 2nd World War, the basic English words people made were only 850 and they could not meet people’s writing needs.

As we all know, there are many languages in the world. In the eyes of the linguists all languages are equal and there is no good one or bad (in other words: developed or primitive) one, just like we say all humans are equal and should be respected.

Can we say that English is widely used because t it better fits in the international circumstances than other languages? It seems irrational to conclude so. The spread of it, as we covered before, was absolutely

caused by political, economic and cultural factors instead of linguistic reasons.

The idea of equality or parity among languages is important, and it needs to be carefully understood. No languages that we know about are underdeveloped or primitive. Languages change with time, as the needs of their users change, but change does not mean evolutionary progress. Languages and dialects are valued differently and used differently for historical, political, economic and cultural reasons.

1. Has the number of English users always been increasing or decreasing? 2. The number of English learners change more rapidly, why?

3. As an international language, has English helped the spread and transfer of information?

4. What is the result of the side use of English?

5. Give examples to show what do people complaint about English language.

6. People have practiced two things to solve the problem. What are they? 7. What do linguists regard languages in the way of equality? 8. What are the factors leading to the spread of English language?

9. Is it true that English is widely used because t it better fits in the international circumstances than other languages?

10. Is it true that if a language community is primitive, then its language must be undeveloped?

Unit 4

I. Choose the best one to fill in the blank

1.The idea of equality or ________ among languages is important and needs to be carefully understood.

A. parity B. quality C. unity D. antiquity

2. No languages that we know about are undeveloped or ________. A. primitive B. native C. authentic D. artificial

3. Languages and dialects are valued_________ and used differently for historical, political, economic and cultural reasons.

A. independently B. differently C. rarely D. indifferently

4. It is _____ to learn to read the English of a past time. The further back in the past the more difficult it is and the longer it takes. A. impossible B. possible C. easy D. linguists’ job

5. A ________is the sort of English use which is associated with a part of society, that is with rich or poor, well or poorly educated.

A. regional variety B. historical variety C. social variety D. RP variety

6. There are 2 distinct stages in the study of a language. The 1st stage is the study of sound system and grammar system of a language; while the 2nd is ____________.

A. using English in a variety of ways

B. through revision, going over the same groundwork again C. practicing English conversation D. focusing on grammar rules

7. English differs with the user, and also with the different________ that speakers have for English.

A. uses B. lexicons C. grammar D. formality

8. English is used in different circumstances with different degrees of ___________.

A. formality B. stability C. reality D. equality

9. The written account is for readers who __________the experience, so it has to be more complete than the spoken version. A. did share B. did not share C. heard of D. lived through

10. Style has to be consistent---not uneven. Competent writers and speakers avoid mixing some words suitable for serious contexts with those that are not.

A. try B. enjoy C. avoid D. like

II. list the differences between spoken & written English:

Spoken

Written

Spoken:

1. The work between 2 or more people who are both speakers & listeners.

2. There is reminding, interrupting, hesitation, asking and answering questions in the process.

3. Not keep to a single point and things known to the speakers may be left out. 4. Slang or words known to people involved in the talk may be used Written:

1. The work of one person for many readers. 2. May be read a long time after it is written.

3. No interruption between the writer & the readers.

4. About what the writer thinks the readers need to know and say all about it. 5. Arranged in best order for readers to comprehend.

6. Is put clearly to avoid confusion or puzzlement on the readers side.

7. Is changing as in other respects, and generally nearer speech than it was before