1st Edition

A Cultural History of the English Language

By Gerry Knowles Copyright 1997
    190 Pages
    by Routledge

    190 Pages
    by Routledge

    This book presents a new interpretation of the history of English. Access to large corpuses of English has allowed scholars to assess the minutiae of linguistic change with much greater precision than before, often pinpointing the beginnings of linguistic innovations in place and time. The author uses the findings from this research to relate major historical events to change in the language, in particular to areas of linguistic inquiry that have been of particular importance in recent years, such as discourse analysis, stylistics and work on pidgins and creoles. The book does not attempt to chronicle changes in syntax or pronunciation and spelling, but is designed to complement a corpus-based study of formal changes. The story of English is brought up to the late 1990s to include, amongst other things, discussions of Estuary English and the implications of the information superhighway.

    The origins of the English language
    English and Danish
    English and French
    English and Latin
    The language of England
    The language of Revolution
    The language of learned and polite persons
    The languages of Great Britain
    The language of Empire.

    Biography

    Gerry Knowles eas formerly Senior Lecturer in Linguistics at the University of Lancaster, UK.