Modern English (jan 1, 1700 – 12h 53min, feb 8, 2018 y)
Description:
Descriptive Grammar
20th Cen Concept
Describe not Prescribe
Look at how lang is used in context
Language change seen as inevitable
Dialects are viable forms
Pronunciation
Phoneme- An individual unit of sound
Grapheme-An individual letter
Morpheme-The smallest meaningful unit of measurement
There are 45 phonemes in Received Pronunciation is the accent associated with SE English BUT there are only 26 graphemes so therefore English spelling can seem erratic.
Basic Sounds
Fricatives- Air released during the production of the sound (i.e. /f/ as in phonology)
Stops or Plosives- An explosion of air (i.e. /b/ as in baby, /k/ as in catastrophe, /t/ as in titanic)
Affricative- A phoneme which combines a plosive with an immediately following fricative, sharing the same place of articulation
Voiced and voiceless consonants come in pairs but can be pronounced differently. Voiced can cause a greater vibration of the vocal cords.
Describing Vowels
Mouth Closed or Open
Rounded or Unrounded
Front, Central, Back
Short or Long
Diphthongs (Two Vowels Merged)
The Current English Language
At least 250,000 distinct English words
Jean Aitchison
Damp spoon syndrome - sloppiness and laziness causing language change
Crumbling Castle View- English is a beautiful, old language which must be protected
Language change is likened to an “infectious disease”
Added to timeline:
History of the English Language
Date:
