英语毕业论文 英语的起源及其发展.doc

题 目 The origin and development of English专业班级 英语02 学 号 学生姓名 学 院 外语学院 指导教师 得 分 完成日期： 2011 年 12 月 12 日 Table of ContentsiAbstract1.The origin of English 2.The English in different period2.1Old English period 2.1.1The first invasion 2.1.2A cultural revolution 2.1.3The second invasion 2.1.4The third invasion2.2Middle English period 2.2.1English turning into a formal language 2.2.2The Bible of English vision2.3Modern English period 2.3.1The influence of The Renaissance 2.3.2The standard English dictionary 2.3.3The maturation of English 3. The development and change of English in linguistic 3.1 Sound change3.2 Syntactical change3.3 Lexical change3.4 Regional Varieties 3. Conclusion4.Bibliography133455677781011111316192021Abstract English belonging to the West Germanic of Germanic stock in Indo-Europe language system is the third most widely distributed language as a first spoken language in the world. Nowadays it has turned into the most important communicating language with the powerful influence of American and British to the whole world in culture, military, economy, politics and science during the last two centuries. Due to the frequency communication with other languages, it has changed a lot in its sound, vocabulary, grammar, etc. A research about its origin and development is necessary and of great value for us to learn and understand it better. In the coming content, the different periods of English will be discussed along with some linguistic changes. 1. The origin of English English belongs to the West Germanic of Germanic stock in Indo-Europe language system. Its origin and development are deeply connected with the history change of the English-speaking nations. English, the language of Anglo-Saxon who lived in Great Britain, has grown up to become a standard and normalized language under the influence of all kinds of social and history changes. How did the English and England come from? A long time ago, the Celts called the people (The Angles, Saxon and Jute) they had conquered Saxons. And the Great Britain was named as Saxonia. Later in 7th century, the Angli and Anglia replaced the Saxons and Saxonia as the cultural and political influence. Then people started to title the language widely used in the island as Englisc, and the nations living on it as Angelcynn( kin of Angles). At the same time, the whole country was regarded as Englaland( land of the Angles). With a series of revolution in pronunciation and spelling, it has turned into the English and England we called today. 2. The English in different periodThe development of English, according to the different characters of English in different time, can be divided into three parts： Old English (5thcentury-12th century) Middle English (12th century-16th century) Modern English (16th century-)2.1 Old English (5thcentury-12th century) The three times of invasion and a cultural revolution had made great power on the coming into being of English. In short, it was the Angles and Saxons along with Jutes-three Germanic tribes that brought it to the Great Britain. The early leader of Christianity Augustinus with his followers made the British begin to believe God, which let English absorb some elements of Latin and Greek; after that the Danes enriched it in an artful way; then it was updated by the Frenchman. 2.1.1 The first invasion In the 5thcentury, the three Germanic tribes (the Angles, the Saxons and Jutes) living in the northern and western Europe invaded into Britain successively. The language they used was very similar to each other for they all used a kind of word which was called Runic. Its letters were linear symbols, which was said to be easily caved in the wood or stone. The Runic was invented in the foundation of the ancient Greek and Latin, a kind of Nordic tablet text. As time passed by, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes gradually built a united nation-English. In the same time, a new language, Anglo-Saxon, was born because of the combination of the different tribes languages. That is the old English. It was the product of a series of nations migrations and conquests in the particular geographical and historical environment. 2.1.2 A cultural revolution In the year of 597, the Christianity came into Britain; along with it was a great deal of Latin words, which added vitality to the Anglo-Saxon culture. Many churches and monasteries were built after the establishment of Christianity in that time. Those buildings were the foundation stone of the Anglo-Saxon culture. Clergy and teacher encouraged people to write with their own language and supported them to do a lot of cultural and artistic activities. This revolution did not only expand the vocabulary of English, but also promoted the ability of its function in expressing abstract conceptions. 2.1.3 The second invasion In 793, the Scandinavia people who were called Danes by British in Northern Europe controlled the Britain after Knut (the king of Dane) was crowned to be the king of Britain. This kind of governance concededly had a significant influence on the development of English. From that time on, the structure of English was simplified and the ability of expression was more powerful than before with an abundant way of expression. 2.1.4 The third invasion Normans conquered the Britain in year of 1066, which was another turning point of English. In the 300 years domination of Normans, the French, the language of conqueror, was wildly used in the British palace and nobilities as an authority language. But the common people were still using English as communicating tool. Besides the Norman king did not forbid his subjects to use it, but to learn it. This situation is so similar to India when it was a colony of the British Empire. By the end of 12Thcentury, English had already become the spoken language of the whole British society. 2.2 Middle English (12th century-16th century)2.2.1 English turning into a formal languageFrom the 13th century, many national works written in English had come out in different districts. Although Latin and French were still used in literature, the most important and creative works were written in English. It gradually replaced the position of Latin and French to be the formal language of British political and social life. That is to say, it finally got its way in literature writing. In the October 18th of 1258, the Norman king, William I, made an announcement The Henry IIIs Announcement after he became the king of Britain. It was published in three kind of language: French, Latin and English. While in 1362, Edward III firstly made an opening speech in English when he was holding a meeting. At the same year, Edward III promulgated a decree at the request of lower house that English should be used in the court trial instead of French. It was a great announcement. In 1385, English had already replaced the French to be the teaching language. And people began to write petition to the parliament in English in 1386. In that time, English was not only used in the political and social life, it also took a leading role in the academics and religious circles. The great British poet Geoffrey Chaucer (1340-1400) who was titled as the father of English poetry devoted himself to creating English works throughout all his life, though he was very good at mastering Latin and French and imitating the French and Italian poems. He set a good example for the contemporary and subsequent poets to use their native language for their literature creation. 2.2.2 The Bible of English visionIn 1382, John Wycliffe, the theology professor of Oxford, made an English vision of The Bible from Latin one. As an eminent religious reformer, he also proposed to do religious service in English in the church. And it was accepted by the British people. The characteristic and style of the native language had been well embodied in the Bible, which did a great help to the standardization of English and the creation of English prose with the blooming of religion. 2.3 Modern English (16th century-)2.3.1 The influence of The Renaissance In the renaissance, the British writer and scholar borrowed a lot of alien words from other languages such as Latin, French, Spanish and so on in order to express new things and thoughts. They also created many new words. This was sure to have enlarged the English vocabulary, but in the other way, it also caused a chaotic situation. At the same time, the British churches had broken up with the bishop of Rome during the religion reformation. English replaced the Latin in the religion activities. As a result, the native scholar paid more attention to their own language. And they held the view that English was so consummate that those borrowed words should not exist in it. So some of them were trying hard to make the English clean. Here came two kinds of trends: one was to make it more colorful and elegant; the other was to keep its pureness and simplicity. The competition of the two sides did not block the development of English, but promoted it: one to prevent English from nutrition deficiency; the other to save it from indigestion.2.3.2 The standard English dictionary-A Dictionary of the English Languag English had been on its way to become a standard and normalizing language since the 17th century. In 1755, Samual Johnson (17091784) compiled a dictionary -A dictionary of the English language. At that time, many native scholars tried to accomplish the job of making such kind of dictionary. But those works couldnt compare with Samuals output in terms of their dimensions and the practical value. In 1604, Robert Cawdrey published the A Table of Alphabetical English Words. In its 120 pages content, 3000 words were put on it, which was emphasized on the annotation of the foreign words. Another book-Universal Etymological Dictionary was come off the press in 1721 by Nathanial Bailey who concerned more about the etymology on his book. In short, the book written by Samual Johnson, A Dictionary of the English, was regarded as the first English standard dictionary with huge information and high authority. Its publication was of great significance to the development of English. 2.3.3 The maturation of English In the 19century to 20century, the usage of English became more stable and unanimous than before. Due to the two kinds of trend, English had developed to be a mature language with a good capacity of expressiveness. It seemed that the second trend had more power on the modern English development as the taciturnity and abstinence life style of puritans in the capitalist class had an great impact on English since the English bourgeois revolution breaking out, which had turned it into a simple and frugal language. At the same way, it was confined. Then in the 18century, English was more practical and reasonable with the influence of the realistic and prudent spirit of the businessman. This kind of alteration could be found in Daniel Defoes famous work -Robinson Crusoe. After that, simplification was the main trend of development of English. Some time it could lose its elegance and politeness.3. The development and change of English in linguistic3.1 Sound changeAll the changes in pronunciation are called sound change, or phonological change. It is a significant fact that sound changes often proceed in the direction of greater ease of articulation. For example, the dropping of the outer consonant in a cluster, namely, the first consonant of an initial cluster, and the last consonant of a final cluster, is incomparably more frequent than the insertion of such a consonant. In the word climb, the last consonant b is dropped and is thus pronounced as klaim today. In fact, words such as table and face underwent a sound change in English during the 15th century. The vowel was raised and fronted to ei, along with native name and words such as gate, bake. Much of the phonological history of a language can be brought under various general processes of weakening, simplification and so on.3.2 Syntactical change Some differences between the sentence structures in Old English and those in Modern English involve word order. Like sound and morphological changes, syntactic change in English also involves the loss, the addition and modification of rules. In Old English, negation was expressed by particles such as ne and na. At the time of Malory and Shakespeare, negation was expressed by putting the negative particle not at the end of the sentence, such as she saw him not, and she love thee not. Today, the negative element has to follow the finite element, such as he is not going, we shall not go. Moreover the English speaker today no longer uses the 15th centurys double comparative, such as more gladder, more lower, moost royallest. The rule that the endings of adjectives must agree with the head noun in case, number and gender is dropped out of English as time passes by. Whenever a change begins and whatever causes there are, it is not an instantaneous event for a language as a whole. 3.3 Lexical changeBorrowing from other languages is an important source of new words. A language may borrow a word either directly or indirectly. For example, the English word algebra was borrowed from Spanish, which in turn had borrowed it from Arabic. Thus algebra was indirectly borrowed from Arabic, with Spanish as an intermediary. English is a language that has taken in assimilated words from many foreign languages. New products, new ideas, or new ways of doing things will require words to talk about them. Then borrowing words is sure a good way to deal with it. When Roman and Irish missionaries brought Christianity to the AngloSaxons, they introduced many vocabularies from Latin, such as pope, bishop, angel, candle, church and so on. Borrowing words for new concepts, institutions, or products is a practicable thing provided that the needed words already exist in other languages. Apart from borrowing, new words have made their entry into English via word formation rules such as compound, derivation, acronym formation, blending, abbreviation, clipping, back-formation, and coinage, etc. Most new words are formed by new combinations of morphemes which are already in existence such as, sockpuppet (virtual Id used in internet communication), staycation (staying at home for vocation to cut down expense), sexting, ringxiety ect. Expanding the meaning of a word that already exists in the language is another productive way of enlarging the vocabulary. There are at least four processes by which words change in meaning. They are amelioration, pejoration, generalization and specialization. A wife was originally any woman, a deer was any animal, and disease was lack of ease for any reason. A place was originally the same thing as a plaza, and a butcher was a person who slaughtered goats. A word may go through amelioration or pejoration and at the same time generalization or specialization. Some words may become archaic or extinct as nobody using them. If we read Shakespeare, we may find many of the words are no longer used nowadays, such as beseem, mammet, wot, fain and wherefore.3.4 Regional Varieties Due to some historical or geographic causes, some regional English come into being, which is different from the standard one in pronunciation, usage of sentence and so on, such as Ameri