2. To familiarize with the problem of
periodization of the history of the
English language.
3. By Henry Sweet – based on presence of
word-changing affixes:
1. Old English period – OE sunu (full
ending);
2. Middle English period – ME sune (weak
ending);
3. New English period – NE son (absence
of affixes)
4. Periodization based on differences in
linguistic situation and the nature of
linguistic changes:
1st period - Early Old English - from the
West Germanic invasion of Britain till the
beginning of writing:
a) tribal dialects of the West Germanic
invaders;
b) no written form of English.
5. 2nd historical period - Old English - the 8th
c. till the end of the 11th - local or regional
dialects:
a) differences between the dialects grew;
b) equal as a medium of oral
communication, while in the sphere of
writing - West Saxon, had gained
supremacy over the other dialects.
6. 3rd period - Early Middle English - after
1066, the year of the Norman Conquest, up
till the 14th c.:
a) greatest dialectal divergence caused by
the feudal system and by foreign
influences – Scandinavian and French;
b) the official language in England was
French (Anglo-French or Anglo-Norman);
also dominant in literature.
7. 4th period – Late or Classical Middle English
- later 14th c. - end of the 15th c. –the age of
Chaucer:
a) time of the restoration of English to the
position of the state and literary language;
b) the time of literary flourishing;
c) main dialect in writing and literature - the
mixed dialect of London.
8. 5th period - Early New English - from the
introduction of printing (by William Caxton in
1475) to the age of Shakespeare:
a) the country became economically and
politically unified;
b) time of sweeping changes at all levels, in
the first place lexical and phonetic;
c) growth of the vocabulary.
9. 6th period - “the age of normalization and
correctness” - from the mid-17th c. to the
close of the 18th c. - in the history of literature
– the “neoclassical” age:
a) literary English differentiated into distinct
styles;
b) the period of “fixing the pronunciation”: The
great sound shifts were over and
pronunciation was being stabilized; word
usage and grammatical construction were
subjected to restriction and normalization
10. 7th period - Late New English or Modern
English – from 19th c.:
a) the classical language of literature was
strictly distinguished from the local dialects
and the dialects of lower social rank;
b) in 20th c. - considerable intermixture of
dialects. The local dialects were retreated
and displaced by Standard English;
c) vocabulary has grown on an unprecedented
scale.
