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English North America EngliEnglishsh inin NorthNorth AmericaAmerica RaymoRaymonndd HickHickeyey EnglishEnglish LinguisticsLinguistics CampuCampuss EssenEssen 1 Introduction The following presentation is intended to give students an idea of what this course will be about. Basic issues concerning English in the United States and Canada are explained in the following slides and typical issues in the field can be recognised. To begin with several reasons for going to this seminar are given and then possible themes for presentations and term papers are discussed. 2 Several good reasons for going to the present seminar: 1)To find out about the roots of American English and about the settlement history of North America. 2) To discover more about the situation of Canada in particular in contrast with the United States. 3)To learn about the demographic history of the Caribbean and the relationship of settlement there to that in the United States. 4)To find out about the history of the Black slaves who were deported to North America and to investigate their specific form of English and see this in relation to creoles forms of English. 3 5)To examine the present-day composition of the United States and see how history is reflected in the dialectal forms of English there. 6)To learn about how language and society interact by looking at forms of English in major cities in the United States and Canadaand consider exminationsof them. 7)To discover more about processes of language change by investigating instances of ongoing change in varieties of English in North America. 8)To gain a deeper knowledge of the differences between present-day British and American English. 4 Areas for presentations and term essays (these areas are quite large and issues within them can be treated separately in different sessions if students wish) 1)The historical development of English in North America. Settlement of Canada and the United States. Relationship of early modern British English to American English. 2)Sociolinguistic investigations of American English (New York, Detroit, etc.) 3)Language change and varieties of North American English. Northern Cities Shift, Labov’srecent work. 4)The early stages of African American English. African American English today. The linguistic significance of AAVE. Question of status (creole or dialect). The Ebonics debate. 5 Areas for presentations and term essays (continued) 5)The settlement of the Caribbean; major Anglophone islands (Jamaica, Barbados, etc.). Relevance to United States English (developmentof Gullah and AAVE). 6)Immigrant groups in the USA: Chicano English, Jewish English. The English of the Native Americans. 7)Older dialect areas in the USA: Cajun English, Ozark English, Appalachian English, OcracokeBrogue. 8)The teaching of American English. Contrast with present-day British English. 9)The English language in Canada (eastern provinces, Newfoundland). 11)The English language in Canada (central Canada). 12)Bilingualism and language policy in Canada. Ethnic minorities, including African Americans, in Canada 6 Anglophone settlements overseas 7 English settlement in North America began in the Caribbean •Pre-Columbian Period •The Spanish Period •British Involvement 8 Columbus'voyages to the Caribbean 9 Columbus'voyages to the Caribbean 10 Replica of the Santa Maria Columbus takes possession of land in the Caribbean 11 Map of the New World (1552) by Dutch cartographer Sebastian Münster 12 Gerhard Mercator: Map of North America (1569) 13 The Americas (1626) by English cartographer John Speed 14 A New and Accurate Map of the World (1627) by the English cartographer John Speed 15 The Caribbean Sea with its islands 16 Two major anglophone islands of the Caribbean Jamaica Barbados 17 18 19 Scenarios for the English language overseas Several factors are responsible for the types of English which have arisen outside Europe during the colonial period, roughly from the early 17th to the late 19th century. Early settlers went to the New World, first to the Caribbean then to eastern Canada and the later United States (to form the original 13 colonies). Some people left the BritishIsles of their own free will, some were forcibly deported, some served as indentured labourers. At the new locations, settlers sometimes mixed with indigenous peoples, with other settlers or with slaves from Africa. This mixture had an effect on the forms of English which arose at the new locations. The northern hemisphere was settled first (after 1600) while the southern hemisphere was settled much later (after 1800). This means that forms of English there are closer to English in south-east England today, e.g. in not having syllable-final /-r/ in words like car or card. 20 21 22 European overseas colonies in the late 18c 23 24 References (brief selection) Algeo, John (ed.) 2001. EnglishinNorthAmerica. The Cambridge HistoryoftheEnglishLanguage, Vol. 6. Cambridge: University Press. Burchfield, Robert 1994. English in Britain and Overseas. Origins and Development. TheCambridge Historyof theEnglish Language. Volume 5. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Hickey, Raymond (ed.) 2004. Legacies of Colonial English. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Kortmann, Bernd, Kate Burridge, Rajend Mesthrie, Edgar W. Schneider and Clive Upton (eds) 2004. A Handbook of Varieties of English. Volume 1: Phonology, Volume 2: Morphology and Syntax. Berlin / New York: Mouton de Gruyter. 25 Early settlement of North America 26 27 28 29 30 31 32 33 34 35 36 37 Large native American groups in North America 38 A sketch of American English 39 • Starting point British and American English were essentially similar in the 17th century. After this period the two major varieties of English drifted apart with American English remaining more conservative (in keeping with a generally observed tendency of peripheral dialects) while British English (at least in its standard form, Received Pronunciation) continued to develop quite rapidly, losing syllable-final /r/ for example. Note that because the varieties of British English which were brought to America differed in themselves an additional process of standardisationset in among the heterogeneous groups in the United States, a linguistic correlate to the demographic meltingpot phenomenon. Evidence of the conservative side of American English is found for instance in verb forms: English has simplified the past forms of get to just got (with the verb forget there is both forgot and forgotten) whereas American English still has gotten. In the area of lexis one could cite words like fall for autumn or mail for post where the American terms are more archaic terms than the English ones. 40 Main regions of the USA 41 States and their abbreviations 42 Divisions of American English 43 44 45 Divisions of American English There are traditionally three main dialects areas in the United States (excluding Canada): 1) Midland, West (General American) 2) North (coastal states on the Atlantic, New England) 3) South (coastal states on South Atlantic + Gulf of Mexico) Nowadays, this division must be qualified given the presence of many urban sociolectswhich do not fit neatly into this triadic group. The western section covers a vast area of land and has something of the character of a standard in the United States. It is variously called GeneralAmerican -or in a geographically less specific manner - NetworkEnglish seeing as how it is used in public life, in the media, politics, etc. The remarks on linguistic structure below apply to General American unless otherwise specified. 46 • The settlement history of America has led to subvarieties or groups of these arising within the United States. For instance the areaof the Appalachian mountains, in the south-east somewhat in from the coast, shows a kind of English which is quite distinct from thatof the adjoining flatlands, e.g. double modals as in Imightcouldtakea courseinlinguistics are common here. Such structures are only found elsewhere in the Anglophone world in Scotland and Ulster and it is known that large numbers of Scots and Ulster Scots settled in the region as of the late 17th century. • There are further minor varieties of English in America such as Gullah, a remnant of a negro creole spoken by small numbers on islands off the coast of South Carolina and Georgia. French existed up to this century in Louisiana where it derives from former LouisianaFrenchCreole. Various forms of Mexican Spanish have been spoken in those states adjoining on Mexico (above all in California). ChicanoEnglish is a term used for the type of English spoken by native speakers of Spanish in the south-west of the United States. 47 Later immigrant groups Various immigrant groups have to a greater or lesser extent retained their original languages, e.g. Italians, Jews (Yiddish). Immigrants vary greatly in the degree of language maintenance they exhibit, the Estonians show a very high degree while the Ukrainians and the Irish have little or none. Of more recent origin are the many immigrants from Asiatic countries, for instance the large Chinese population in California. 48 Yiddish in the United States 49 American orthography • The spelling of American English has been a matter of central interest since the late 18th century when Noah Webster, the father of American lexicography, brought out his Dissertationsonthe EnglishLanguage (1789) in which he suggested separating America from Britain linguistically. Webster’s major work is his AnAmerican DictionaryoftheEnglishLanguage of 1828. With its 70,000 entries is was larger than Samuel Johnson’s EnglishDictionary (1755). Certain spelling changes of Webster are older forms, such as -er for -re (cf. theater) or -or for -our (cf. honour). Many of the changes suggested by Webster were not adopted permanently into American English and he can not free himself entirely from the accusationof having tinkered with the language (e.g. in his proposal that onewrite oo for ou in words like soup, group). Note that the letter z is pronounced /zi:/ in American and /zed/ in British English. 50 Phonology 1)Presence of (retroflex) syllable-final /r/ (in General American).
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