2. Overview
Myths about Shakespeare’s language
Everyday Shakespeare
Implications of language teaching and
learning
Questions
3. What does it mean?
Lend me your ears.
a. I can’t hear very
well. Please may I
borrow yours?
b. I want to know
what my friends are
saying about me.
Eavesdrop on them
for me please.
c. I have something
important to say.
Please listen to me.
4. ‘Friends, Romans, countrymen, lend me
your ears’ is the first line of a famous and
often-quoted speech by Mark Antony in
the play Julius Caesar.
‘Lend me your ears and I'll sing you a
song’ (The Beatles, 1967)
5. How difficult is Shakespeare’s language?
a. Very difficult
b. Quite difficult
c. Quite easy
d. Very easy
7. The quantity myth
End of 16th
century: 150,000
21st century: 600,00
Fluent speaker:
50,000
Shakespeare’s
vocabulary: 20,000
‘It is not as much the
number of words we
have as what we do
with those words that
makes the difference
between an ordinary
and a brilliant use of
language.’ (p.3)
8. The invention myth
First recorded user in
the OED
2,200 words first
recorded in
Shakespeare
1,700 plausible
Shakespearean
inventions
About half of them
stayed in the
language
anthropophagy,
assassination,
insultment, outswear
ear, eye, lip, mouth,
scandal, word
uncomfortable,
uncompassionate,
uneducated,
unaware, undo (314)
9. The translation myth
10% of Shakespeare's grammar is likely to
cause a comprehension problem
95% of Shakespeare’s vocabulary are
words we know and use every day
only 5% of all different words in all
Shakespeare’s plays will give you a hard
time
10. The style myth
Vocabulary, sentence length, structure,
word-order, sounds, interaction between
speakers
Characters' styles: groups or individuals
Genres: tragedies, comedies, history plays
Early and later plays
Language choices between alternatives
in particular lines
11. The big question
If quantity, unusual
words and ‘style’ are
not the major
problems, why do so
many people find it
difficult to
understand
Shakespeare?
‘A distinction has to
be drawn, first of all
between difficulty
of language, and
difficulty of
thought.’ (p.11)
12. Lend him your ears
‘To be or not to be,
that is the question’.
‘Tomorrow, and
tomorrow, and
tomorrow.’
Simple language
can sometimes
express a complex
though.
‘a lily-livered, action-
taking, whoreson,
glass-gazing, super-
serviceable, finical
rogue’
Complex language
can sometimes
express a simple
thought.
18. Will in Hollywood
Percy Stow's The
Tempest (1908)
Over 750 film
adaptations
16 films in 2005
alone
19. The Taming of the Shrew
Twelfth Night
Hamlet
The Tempest
A Midsummer Night’s Dream
20. Everywhere!
To be or not to be
To clone or not to clone
To diet or not to diet
To fight or not to fight
B2 or not B2?
2B or not 2B?
Thanks me no thankings
Vow me no vows
Diamond me no
diamonds
Poem me no poems
But Me No Buts
21.
22. What does it mean for us?
An EAP language student must…
Have a good size vocabulary
Be aware of the grammar rules to
understand how writers break them
Write in a concise and precise way
Be able to use different written genres and
styles
Be able to understand and express complex
ideas
23. ‘A study of [Shakespeare’s] linguistic
techniques, in such areas as functional shift,
affixation, idiomatic allusiveness and
collocation, can add to our awareness of the
language’s expressive potential and increase
our confidence as users. At the same time, of
course, the more we study Shakespeare from
a linguistic point of view, the more we will
increase our understanding and enjoyment
of the plays as literature and theatre.’
(Crystal, 2003)
28. Bibliography
Braunmuller, A. R., and Michael Hattaway, eds., The Cambridge Companion to English Renaissance Drama (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2003)
Briggs, Julia, This Stage-Play World: Texts and Contexts, 1580-1625 (Oxford: Oxford Paperbacks, 1997)
Bloom, Harold, Shakespeare. The Invention of the Human. (New York, NY: Riverhead Books, 1998)
Chernaik, Warren, The Cambridge Introduction to Shakespeare’s History Plays. (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press,
2007)
Crystal, Ben, Shakespeare on Toast: Getting a Taste for the Bard (London: Icon Books, 2009)
Crystal, David, and Ben Crystal, Shakespeare’s Words: A Glossary and Language Companion
(London: Penguin, 2004)
Crystal, David, Think of My Words: Exploring Shakespeare’s Language (Cambridge:
Cambridge University Press, 2008)
Grazia, Margreta de, and Stanley Wells, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2001)
Greenblatt, Stephen, Renaissance Self-fashioning: From More to Shakespeare (Chicago,Il: University of Chicago Press,
2005)
Greenblatt, Stephen, Will In The World: How Shakespeare Became Shakespeare (London: Pimlico, 2005)
Hattaway, Michael, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare’s History Plays (Cambridge: Cambridge University
Press, 2002)
Jackson, Russell, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Film (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007)
Leggatt, Alexander, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespearean Comedy (Cambridge University Press, 2001)
Shaughnessy, Robert, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare and Popular Culture (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2007)
Wells, Stanley, ed., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare Studies (Cambridge University Press, 1986)
Wells, Stanley, and Sarah Stanton, eds., The Cambridge Companion to Shakespeare on Stage (Cambridge: Cambridge
University Press, 2002)
