Transcript Lesson-1-Grammatical..

What grammatical change patterns can you notice
here? Should we be concerned about it or is it just
linguistic creativity which should be celebrated?
GRAMMATICAL CHANGE - OVERVIEW
LO: to understand some key
ways in which English has
undergone grammatical change
GRAMMATICAL CHANGE
• Slower than lexical/semantic change
• Often attributable to diversity or creativity
• We don’t often notice it! A phrase like ‘I googled it’ still makes use of the subjectverb-object syntactical pattern so we are easily able to identify that the word
‘Google’, normally a noun, is being used as a verb (functional shift).
• There are grammar ‘rules’ but they are often broken, either due to linguistic
creativity/punning, or because of the influence of spoken language, as speakers do
not tend to stick rigidly to ‘rules’ because of the spontaneity of spoken language and
frequent false starts etc.
MATCH THE GRAMMATICAL FEATURE TO THE EXAMPLE
Example
Feature
He told me in our journey
She was small of her age
Irregular verbs
She say you to the day?
She doubted not
Tense usage
It is nothing of a part
To be taken of the account
Contracted forms
Fanny shrunk back
much was ate
prepositions
I am so glad we are got acquainted
So you are come at last!
articles
The properest manner
The richest of the two
Auxiliary verbs
Will it not be a good plan?
It would quite shock you…would not it?
adverbs
I stood quite still for a moment, feeling dreadfully.
It is really very well for a novel.
Comparative/superlative adjectives
These are
examples
from various
Jane Austen
novels, so
early 19th
century
writing
DISCUSSING
GRAMMATICAL
CHANGE EFFECTIVELY
This text is from Hester Thrale
Piozzi’s 1789 work Observations
and Reflections Made in the Course
of a Journey Through France, Italy
and Germany, compiled from her
travel journals.
What do you notice about the
grammatical and syntactic
differences between this language
and contemporary English?
DISCUSSING
GRAMMATICAL
CHANGE EFFECTIVELY
Negation (in contemporary English
we use the dummy auxiliary ‘do’)
Syntax
Pronouns (‘one’)
Prepositions
Contractions
Punctuation
Sentence types
GRAMMATICAL ERRORS?
How far are these examples ‘errors’? Can you
attribute them to particular ‘voices’ or
sociolects? Are they being used for particular
effects, quite consciously by the writer?
Can you identify grammatical ‘errors’ in these examples?
1.
He nevere yet no vileynye ne sayde in al his lyf unto no maner wight (The Canterbury Tales,
Chaucer)
2.
No one can never fill the place that’s empty (David Copperfield, Dickens)
3.
She owned that, considering every thing, she was not absolutely without inclination for the
party’ (Emma, Austen)
4.
I will preserve myself; and am bethought To take the basest and most poorest shape (King
Lear, Shakespeare)
5.
Well! of all the artful and designing orphans that ever I see, Oliver, you are one of the
most bare-facedest.’ (Oliver Twist, Dickens)
6.
We are such stuff as dreams are made on. (The Tempest, Shakespeare)
HOW CAN WE ACCOUNT FOR THESE CHANGES?
Sentences used to be longer – due to the antecedent of Latin, it was fashionable to use multiple
subordinate clauses and to suggest higher education/literacy levels.
Writing used to be valued as more separate from speech, particularly during the 18th century.
Additionally, society was more hierarchical and formal in structure, with emphasis on conventions and rules.
Today, rejecting conventions and rules is often seen as praiseworthy!
However, into the 19th century, class attitudes underwent a shift, while education became more universal.
Dialectal voices began to be represented in literature, for example Dickens’ novels.
Now, due to social levelling and globalisation, the process of informalisation, the growth of the
entertainment and leisure industries, syntax has become simpler, and non-standard forms are more
prevalent, often used for deliberate effect, or as a way to highlight a social or regional identity.
Synthetic personalisation (Norman Fairclough) lends an artificially conversationalist tone to much
communication.
The modern distinction between spoken and written language is becoming less clear.
PAPER 2 SECTION B QUESTIONS
2 HOMEWORKS, 2 QUESTIONS
Homework 1: Question 3
This is similar to GCSE-style language
analysis but you need to consider
ideas such as audience positioning
and representations
/40 = /10 for AO1
/30 for AO3 (Analyse and evaluate how contextual factors and language features
are associated with the construction of meaning)
Homework 2: Question 4 (This will be much like the original writing question on the AS
paper). 10 marks are available for AO5, and 20 for AO2 (concepts and theorists).