The History of the English Language:
Philology and the Inklings
English
375, Fall 2006 Instructor:
Curtis Gruenler
Office:
Lubbers 304 E-mail:
gruenler@hope.edu
Office
phone: 395-7996 Home
phone: 399-3731 (Please
Office hours: MW 9-11, TR 1-2, R 3-4 and by appointment don’t call after 9 p.m.)
“Words are only themselves
by being more than themselves.
Perhaps the same is true of human beings.”
--Owen Barfield
The
term “philology” comes from Greek roots meaning love of words. Love of words is
the most important prerequisite and also, in a way, the main goal for this
course. In English, “philology” has meant, broadly, the study of literature and
all that pertains to it (especially old literature) and, more narrowly, historical
linguistics, the scientific study of changes in language. Our course takes
place somewhere between these two meanings of philology. Its core is the
linguistic study of the English language, but we will seek to apply this study
especially to reading English literature. And we will make this connection by
focusing on the history of the language, so that we will also catch glimpses of
how the development of the English language relates to the history and culture
of the English-speaking peoples.
Three important English philologists
of the past century happen to have been friends and members of an informal
literary society called the Inklings: J. R. R. Tolkien, C. S. Lewis, and Owen
Barfield. Tolkien and Lewis became much better known for their popular writings
than for their scholarship, but all three produced outstanding works of
philology. For us, they will provide a counterpoint to the linguistic
perspective represented by our main textbooks as well as some insight into the
usefulness of the philological approach to literature and history. In Tolkien’s
case, we will also see how philology inspired literary creation.
& Texts
Owen Barfield, History in English Words,
David Crystal, The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language, second edition (listed on the
schedule as CEEL, and pronounced
“seal”).
S.
Terrie Curran, English from Caedmon to Chaucer, Waveland Press.
Coursepack from the college bookstore.
A
good, college-level desk dictionary that includes substantial etymologies. I
recommend the American Heritage College Dictionary, fourth edition,
which also includes a fascinating and etymologically useful dictionary of
Indo-European roots, or the Oxford American Dictionary of Current English.
If you want a nice, big, expensive dictionary, I suggest the American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, fourth edition, which also
includes a couple of essays we’ll be reading (also available on the web at
www.bartleby.com).
¯ Ends
Here
are the major goals I have for you in this class:
·
To gain a better understanding of how language works, both from a linguistic perspective, as a system made up of
subsystems (phonology, grammar, and lexicon), and from a love-of-words
perspective, as expression of individual and collective meaning.
·
To understand the important phases in the history of the English
language and how they relate to wider historical changes.
·
To learn how (and why) to study individual words and their histories.
·
To be able to use your knowledge of linguistics and the history of
English to enrich your reading of literature.
·
To understand how English changes over time and varies according to
culture, nationality, class, medium, and use, and to understand the social significance
of these varieties.
·
To be able to think more deeply about issues of language use and
pedagogy, such as: what is good English, the difference between prescriptive
and descriptive attitudes, and how English is still changing.
·
To become more self-aware about
the choices you make in how you use language and why they matter.
·
To develop reading, writing, speaking, listening, and research skills.
Here
are some particular questions I hope you will be able to answer well by the end
of the semester, roughly in the order we will deal with them:
·
What is language? How do linguists understand languages as systems made
up of words and rules?
·
What is standard English? How did a notion of standard English develop?
How is it controversial?
·
What is the difference between prescriptive and descriptive approaches
to language?
·
How did English dictionaries come into being and how does one use them
well?
·
What is distinctive about the English language?
·
What are the ancestors of English, and how is it related to other languages?
·
How was the English language born?
·
What have been the major causes of change in English?
·
How and why did English and its literature have such a vigorous youth
in the Old English period?
·
What is the inflectional system of English and how has it developed?
·
How and why did Old English change into Middle English?
·
How did English almost die but eventually reemerge as a national
language during the Middle English period?
·
How and why did the English language and its literature flourish in the
Early Modern period?
·
In what ways did the English language become a topic of study and
debate beginning in the Early Modern period? What major issues about English
have been debated since then?
·
In what important ways did Early Modern English differ from Modern
English?
·
What major historical, cultural, and social influences have contributed
to the development of American English (including its varieties)?
·
How does English vary in the
·
How do words change meaning?
·
Why does English have the largest lexicon of any language? How has it
grown? How is it growing now?
·
How are new words formed from within the language?
·
What effects has technology had on the English language?
·
How can knowing about the history of English enrich our perspective about
current issues in using and teaching it?
·
What are the sociopolitical significances of varieties of English?
·
How and why is English changing now?
·
What is the outlook for the future of English?
? Means
Class meetings. Class sessions will include
some lecture presentations and videos on things not covered in the textbook
reading, but they are also important as a way of further understanding and
applying what you have read through discussion and group activities. I invite
you to bring your questions about readings and other assignments and to feel free
always to interrupt with questions whenever you have them.
Short assignments. Small projects and brief
writing assignments will reinforce concepts and give you a chance to apply
them. I encourage you to work on these together outside of class (see below
under “group work”), although each person must turn in his or her own work. The
projects will receive scores of their own (see below). The other assignments I
will comment on and mark with a check, check plus, check minus, or zero; I will
then factor the scores on these assignments into your overall grade for
participation.
Class presentation. As the timeline of our
course nears the present, I would like members of the class to be responsible
for teaching some topics. Some of these will be done in groups, and I will
assign them according to your interest in the possible topics. See the list of
options on the separate assignment sheet. Your preferences are due Thursday,
Sept. 7. See also the separate sheet of “Expectations for Class Presentations.”
Note that you must meet with me about your presentation at least a
month before you are scheduled to give it.
Exams. There will be take-home
midterm and final exams for the sake of memory, synthesis, and feedback.
Research essay. I will hand out a separate sheet
suggesting topics and giving more information about what I expect. I am asking
that you submit two drafts so that I can give you comments on the first one and
an opportunity to revise. I will also ask you to turn in a proposal at about
mid-semester indicating your topic.
Grading. I will compute your grade
according to the following formula.
Participation and short
assignments: 100
points
Beowulf, Chaucer,
Shakespeare, and New Terms projects: 40
each
Take-home midterm: 40
Oral presentation: 100
Total: 600
points
Late assignments. Late papers will incur a
one-letter-grade penalty for each week they are late. A late presentation earns
a zero (if you’re in dire straits, reschedule). If you are facing a pile-up of
deadlines for your major essays, I would be happy to talk in advance about an
extension.
Group work. Working in groups outside
of class can enrich your learning, and perhaps speed it up too. I encourage you
to work together on short assignments and projects. Indeed, for some of the
assignments I may assign you to a group. You could also put together a workshop
for giving and receiving feedback on drafts of your research essay. What each
person turns in must, of course, be work done by his or her own hand. For the
essays, you are free to discuss what you are working on with each other and
give feedback on drafts, but each person must write on his or her own topic or,
in the case of the take-home final, develop his or her own ideas and use his or
her own words.
Academic honesty. Representing another’s work
as your own is not only dishonest, but also defeats your learning. Except on
short assignments where full collaboration is encouraged, all papers and exams
must be your own work. Unacknowledged use of another’s words or ideas is
plagiarism. Any quotation or direct copying from another’s work must be set off
from your text either by quotation marks or by indentation, and it must be
given an adequate citation (this includes quotations from our required texts as
well as any other sources you use). Paraphrases must also be given an adequate
citation. If you are uncertain about how to avoid plagiarism or how to give
adequate citations, consult The St.
Martin’s Handbook, and if you have any questions, talk with me. Cases of
academic dishonesty will be handled using the procedures outlined in the Hope College Catalog. The penalty is failure,
either of the assignment or of the entire course, depending on the instructor’s
judgment of the seriousness of the case.
Q Schedule:
T
Aug. 29: Introduction
R Aug. 31: The Study of
English. CEEL 2-3, 446; W. H. Auden, foreword to History in English Words, 7-12;
Tolkien, excerpt from “Mythopoeia,” and Ashbery,
“Susan,” Schnakenberg, “Supernatural Love”
(handouts). Assignment: Write half a page comparing the attitudes toward
language taken by Crystal and Auden. How do these compare to the poems? Recommended:
Tolkien, “Valedictory Address” in The Monsters and the Critics (on
reserve).
T Sept. 5: The Grammar of
English and the Question of a Standard. David Foster Wallace, “Tense Present”
(in reader); CEEL 189-220, 366-7 (main text only plus boxes on pp. 190-1,
194-5, 198, 200, 204, 206, and 217; the other boxes are worth browsing).
Assignment: Write half a page comparing the approaches of Crystal and Wallace
to the issue of standard English.
R Sept. 7: The English
Lexicon and Dictionaries. CEEL 116-20, 123-5, 156-9, 164, 170, 74-5, 314,
452-3. Please bring your desk dictionary to class. Preference sheet for oral
presentation and OED worksheet due.
T Sept. 12: The Origins of
English. Barfield, History in English Words, 15-47 and 85-99 (chs. 1, 2, and 5); CEEL 242-3; charts of Indo-European
languages (reader). Assignment: Bring to class two questions you would like to
ask about the reading, either for information or for discussion. Recommended:
Calvert Watkins, “Indo-European and the Indo-Europeans” from The American
Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, Fourth Edition (available at
the Van Wylen reference desk or online at http://www.bartleby.com/61/8.html).
R Sept. 14: The Birth of Old
English: Historical Context. CEEL 6-11; Curran 1-29.
T Sept. 19: Old English:
Writing and Sounds. CEEL 16-17, 235-9, 246-51, 258; Curran 33-46 and 55-77. Do
exercise 7 in Curran, p. 81. Recommended: the British
Library’s virtual tour of its exhibit on the Lindisfarne
Gospels, http://www.bl.uk/whatson/exhibitions/lindisfarne/home.html,
and its site for turning the pages, http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation1.html.
Note that Sept. 19 is international talk like a pirate day: Talk Like A Pirate Day
UK Headquarters; see also Where
did pirate speech come from? | Ask MetaFilter.
R Sept. 21: Old English:
Grammar. Curran 85-102; Pinker, “Broken Telephone” (handout). In exercise 1 on
Curran, p. 107, do the first 16 underlined words only, and translate the
sentences containing them.
T Sept. 26: Old English:
Lexicon, Literature, and Dialects. Barfield, HEW 48-53; CEEL 22-9; Lewis,
“Primary Epic” from A Preface to Paradise Lost (reader); Curran 111-35.
Do worksheet on OE lexicon (handout).
R Sept. 28: Old English:
Beowulf. Beowulf project due.
T Oct. 3: Middle English:
Historical Context and Lexicon. Curran 149-65 (helpful timeline on 165);
Barfield, HEW 53-62; CEEL 30-1, 46-9. Recommended: Turn the pages of the
Luttrell Psalter at http://www.bl.uk/collections/treasures/digitisation1.html.
R Oct. 5: Middle English:
Sounds, Writing, and Grammar. CEEL 32-3, 44; Curran 167-83, 187-203. Be
prepared to discuss question 7 on p. 186 of Curran.
T Oct. 10: Fall Recess.
R Oct. 12: Middle English:
Literature, Culture, and Variation. Curran 219-45; CEEL 36-9, 50-1, 54-5;
Barfield, HEW 100-43. Also, respond to question 1 in Curran, p. 248, using only
the passage on pp. 233-5 (you only need to find some examples, not all of
them). (Question 6 on Curran p. 248 is worth 10 points of extra credit.)
T Oct. 17: Middle English:
Chaucer. Curran 249-72. Chaucer project due. Recommended: The British
Library’s site on Caxton’s edition of The
R Oct. 19: Medieval to
Modern: The Bible, the Reformation, and the Renaissance. CEEL 56-59, 64-65.
Take-home midterm, due: In no more than 1,000 words, discuss the relative
impact of the Viking invasions and the Norman Conquest on the English language.
Detail the effects of each on the various subsystems of the language, with
examples. Which would you conclude had the greater effect on English, and why?
T Oct. 24: Early Modern
English: Lexicon, Writing, Sounds, and Grammar. CEEL 60-61, 66-71, Barfield, History
in English Words 63-82; Lewis, “The Style of Secondary Epic” from A
Preface to Paradise Lost (reader). Assignments: Look up in the OED one
of the words Barfield discusses and write a paragraph about how the evidence
given there squares with his analysis. Proposal for
research essay due (see research essay handout for instructions).
R Oct. 26: Early Modern
English: Shakespeare. CEEL 62-3, 278-83. Shakespeare project due.
T Oct. 31: Modern English:
Grammar, Attitudes, and Literature. CEEL 72-82, 86-91, 272-7, 364-5; Barfield, History
in English Words 161-82. Write a page in response to the following
questions: How is the tension between conservation (including standardization)
and innovation in English since the Early Modern period visible in the history
of the various subsystems of the language? What have been the main forces (e.g.
technology, geography, attitudes) driving each side of the tension? How does
this tension still affect us? What are the main forces for conservation and
innovation now?
--Presentation by Elena
R Nov. 2: English Comes to
--Presentation by Laura Peterson
T Nov. 7: African-American
Vernacular English. CEEL 96-7, 346-49; John R. Rickford, “Suite for Ebony and Phonics,” http://www.stanford.edu/~rickford/papers/SuiteForEbonyAndPhonics.html.
--Presentation by Laura Barton
R Nov. 9: No class.
T Nov. 14: Varieties of
American English. CEEL 94-95, 312-16, 371; “Dialects in the
--Presentation by Lara Wagner
R Nov. 16: The Current Lexicon. CEEL 126-35, 172-74, 178-9,
182-5. New terms project due.
T Nov. 21: Etymology and Semantic Change. CEEL 136-9;
Barfield, History in English Words 183-220; Lewis, “Bluspels
and Flalansferes: A Semantic Nightmare” from Selected
Literary Essays (in reader). Assignment: Write a page in answer to the
following question: What is the basic disagreement between linguists like
R Nov. 23: Thanksgiving
Recess
T Nov. 28: World English. CEEL 98-111, 344-5, 358-63.
--Presentation by Christina
R Nov. 30:
Politics, Gender, and English. CEEL 176-7, 368-9, 378-9; Orwell, “Politics and
the English Language” (reader). Assignment: Read a piece of prose that has a
political purpose, such as an official institutional publication from
--Presentation by Cassy and Kaytie
T Dec. 5: Computers and English. CEEL 424-33.
--Presentation by Matthew
R Dec. 7: The
Future of English. CEEL 112-15. Final draft of research essay due.
Wed., Dec. 13, noon: Final
exam due.