History of the English Language, 2nd Edition [Audio]

(36 lectures, 30 minutes/lecture)

English has come a long way since those first Germanic settlers crossed the North Sea to Britain. The words you use every day are like archaeological artifacts connecting our age to theirs. To study the history of this wonderful language with Professor Lerer is to experience the literature, politics, culture, ways of thought, and world outlook of a great civilization through its most precious legacy: its words.
Course Lecture Titles

1.Introduction to the Study of Language
2.The Historical Study of Language
3.ndo-European and the Prehistory of English
4.Reconstructing Meaning and Sound
5.Historical Linguistics and Studying Culture
6.The Beginnings of English
7.The Old English Worldview
8.Did the Normans Really Conquer English?
9.What Did the Normans Do to English?
10.Chaucer's English
11.Dialect Representations in Middle English
12.Medieval Attitudes toward Language
13.The Return of English as a Standard
14.The Great Vowel Shift and Modern English
15.The Expanding English Vocabulary
16.Early Modern English Syntax and Grammar
17.Renaissance Attitudes toward Teaching English
18.Shakespeare—Drama, Grammar, Pronunciation
19.Shakespeare—Poetry, Sound, Sense
20.The Bible in English
21.Samuel Johnson and His Dictionary
22.New Standards in English
23.Dictionaries and Word Histories
24.Values, Words, and Modernity
25.The Beginnings of American English
26.American Language from Webster to Mencken
27.American Rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln
28.The Language of the American Self
29.American Regionalism
30.American Dialects in Literature
31.The Impact of African-American English
32.An Anglophone World
33.The Language of Science
34.The Science of Language
35.Linguistics and Politics in Language Study
36.Conclusions and Provocations

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