Standardising English
| Fact sheet | |
|---|---|
| Faculty: |
Faculty 05 - Language, Literature, Culture |
| Department: | Department of English |
| Title: | Standardising English |
| Code: | 0508 |
| Lecturer: | Dr. Tobias Bernaisch |
| Type of course: | Seminar |
| Description: | The main differences in contemporary English spelling boil down to American (e.g. theater, color) versus British variants (e.g. theatre, colour). Other than that, the spelling of English these days is uniform all around the globe. This uniformity, however, is the result of a long-lasting historical process known as linguistic standardisation, which is still in full swing today. In the course of this class, we will approach the English language diachronically and explore how it developed from Old English with strong Germanic roots to the fully standardised Present-Day English we all know. In the course of this, we will define the notion and describe the process of linguistic standardisation and evaluate to what extent standardisation is visible a) across the different periods in the history of the English language (Old English, Middle English, etc.) and b) on the various structural levels of language organisation (phonology, lexis, grammar, semantics, etc.). In order to empirically study standardisation processes, we will also learn and use the programming language R. |
| Date/Time: | Tuesday, 02.00pm – 04.00pm CET |
| Language: | English |
| Target group: | Bachelor students English language and literature (advanced) |
| Requirements for participation: | Introduction to English Linguistics |
| ECTS: | 5 |