1LING 2301

Present-Day English (pp. 167 – 168) 1844 First Telegraph line used b/t Washington and Baltimore

1865 Atlantic cable completed

1870 Compulsory Education in Britain

(led to leveling of dialects and slowed down the pace of linguistic change)

1876 Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone

1877 Edison invents the phonograph

1899 First magnetic sound recordings

1903 Orville and Wilber Wright make the first successful flight

1914–1918 WWI

1921 British Broadcasting Corporation founded (BBC)

1925 John Logi Baird transmits a picture of a human face via television

1927 Charles Lindberg – first “nonstop” transatlantic flight

1929 First use of teleprinters and teletypewrighters

First scheduled TV broadcast in NY

1936 BBC London television service begins

1939–1945 WWII

1942 First computer developed in the US

1947 Transistor invented at Bell Labs

1951 Color TV introduced into USA

1968 Intelsat communication satellite launched.

2LING 2301

PDE varies very little from EME.

Remnants of the previous case system are limited to the

pronouns (I, me, he, him, she, her… the shift from

whom to who is currently underway as in "To whom did

you send the letter?" vs. "To who did you send the

letter")

Currently uses more comparatives and superlatives than

inflectional ones (for instance shift to more & most over

–er & –est) or even double forms the most coolest… .

3LING 2301

New words in PDE

New words (neologisms) – or uses of old words for a

new idea are formed for all kinds of reasons:

kingon – an unexplained icon that appears on a computer

screen

mickey – the unit of measuring a computer mouse distance –

.005 inch

shareware

crippleware – demo software that lacks the full features

netpreneur – internet entrepreneur

Others?

4LING 2301

PDE affixation

using affixes in more productive manner

un– un-American, un-English, un-freedom

–ee franchis-ee, contract-ee…

–ize burglarize

(From the verb to burgle which was a backformation

of the older noun burglar by analogy with the –er

(one who does) suffix)

regularize, hospitalize

5LING 2301

PDE Borrowing

Current changes between EMW and PDE are

mostly in the lexicon. Much of this is due to

developments of scientific–technological

vocabulary and the rapid progress of

computer/communications technology.

Some borrowing from Japanese (e.g. karaoke,

hibachi, etc.)

6LING 2301

More focused on Global society: In late 1800s and early 1900 in Britain, the Agricultural

Revolution as well as Technological Revolution brought people off the farms and out of rural life into the cities(as few as 22% lived in rural areas by 1911). The new call was for factory workers and prompted

urbanization.

While urbanization "promotes diversity" it also brings cultures and language varieties in to contact leading to "uniformity".

As people come together they tend to accommodate to one another, developing compromise forms of behavior (including language) in order to maximize intelligibility and to achieve the greatest amount of social acceptance by those to whom they are speaking.

Increased communications and social mobility also have the impact of helping to standardize the language and development of rules of English grammar and usage.

7LING 2301

On to become a World Language

Two major forms of English today are American

English, and British English. However there are

also many others. Some 1st language speakers

(e.g. Australia, possibly India, Singapore) some

2nd (or more) e.g. Parts of Europe, Countries in

the South, East and West of Africa, China,

Korea, Japan, etc.

(More on that when we get to the Global language

section).