Institut fr Anglistik Seminar: Aspects of Britain Dozentin: Kathleen Starck

Aspects Of Language

Eingereicht am 30.03.2001 von Alexander Drechsel Matrikelnummer: 8561378

Table of contents

page 03

Introduction

page 04 page 06 page 08 page 10

Historical development English as a world language Social aspects of language The power of language

page 12

Conclusion

page 13

Literature

Introduction
Language is an important part of culture, if not the most important one. Therefore I pick out this issue of the field of Great Britains culture and style which I already treated in my report. The objective is to show that language is far more than just grammar, vocabulary and phonetics. This also aims at encouraging a certain awareness of the language we use and what effect it has, when we use it in a certain manner. A successful conversation requires more than grammatical and lexical knowledge: the so-called intercultural competence or sociolinguistic technique. Thus, I start by giving a short overview of the history of the English language. This will show how it developed and which impacts there were namely the invasions by Romans and Anglo-Saxons. Subsequently I will try to explain how English became todays lingua franca and how it obtained the authority that it has now. I shall also describe the present situation of this language all over the world and the varieties that came up. As a consequence, certain social aspects of language and its varieties will be talked about. Not going too much into linguistic details, I want to introduce the reader very briefly into the field of sociolinguistics. Finally, I will make some comments on the issue power of language and give essential examples: New Labours media spin, George Orwells 1984 and the role of language in the process of devolution. The conclusion will resume the paper and provides a list of recommended literature used for this work.
Note: Numbers in square brackets indicate the source please refer to the list of literature.

Historical development
Before there was English, the people on the British Isles spoke Celtic dialects. But all throughout history there have been many influences (or inter-language contacts, as we may also call them) by foreign cultures such as the Roman invasion from AD 42, enforced by the Emperor Claudius. Not only did the invaders colonise the country, fortify the towns and construct roads but also did they bring important elements of their culture, e.g. baths, temples, customs, law, literature and of course their Latin language. But actually, only the upper class and the people living in towns adopted Latin as their language. Therefore it's only natural that after the Romans had left Britain in the year 410, Latin disappeared almost completely. The final step towards the establishment of the English language in Britain was the AngloSaxon invasion, that succeeded the Roman activities. The dominant dialect of the invaders used to be the Wessex dialect and became the main language to be spoken and written and is now called Old English. The first laws were recorded and literature started to develop. Undoubtedly, the English people did not speak the language forced on them perfectly as the native speakers did and that is also an impact on the evolution of the English language. The christianisation during the 6th century represented the second influence of Latin on the English language. Being unable to express new notions in religion, belief and church, the language had to be extended considerably. The vocabulary of Old English consisted of about 24,000 words, the strong links between the two languages added at least 600 Latin words. The next historical event to determine the development of English language was the Norman invasion from 1066 on. Introducing French, there were now two spoken languages and even three written languages - namely English, French and Latin. And that is where social diversion starts: being the leaders, Normans spoke French whereas the simple people spoke English. This did only start to change in the 13th century when the strong connections to France broke up1. Latin was dominant in religion, administration, the legal system and science - due to the time of Renaissance. French was used for literature, it was also current at court and existed either parallel or dominant to Latin in the field of law

The Normans lost all their territories in northern France in 1204 and were forced to withdraw from Britain.

and administration. It becomes obvious that the preference of Latin and French relates to the higher prestige of both languages. Later on, English was used more frequently at school and the parliament introduced it to the legal system. The spirit of Renaissance came to the Isles, the Bible and the works of many famous ancient writers (e.g. Cicero and Tacitus) were translated and the authors among them the famous William Shakespeare - began to be proud of their mother tongue. These changes did not mean to break up completely with French, because about 10,000 words were taken over to the English vocabulary 7,500 are still being used to-day. We con furthermore state that the more often words were used the more likely they are of Germanic origin; the less they were used, the more likely they derive from Romance (i.e. French or Latin) origin. At all times, the English people complained about the deficiency of their language, about the insufficiency of vocabulary, about the incapability for scientific purposes and the nonexistence of a direct relation to Latin. Active countermeasures were taken: borrowing of words directly or indirectly (through French) from Latin and attempts to standardise the grammar (which remained unsuccessful until the 19th century). Furthermore, the growing importance of English-speaking and -writing scientists and philosophers e.g. Newton, Locke, Hume or Bacon should not be forgotten, since it led to a strong influence of Latin borrow terms even on poetry. It has become evident that language development is very much tied to social and cultural development. In Old English there used to be grammatical gender categories of masculine, feminine and neuter (similar to German) and it even occurred that gender and natural sex did not correspond. That is one reason for the fact that the grammatical category disappeared slightly and the indication of sex and gender blend together and were to be found as a component of meaning. Nowadays only the meaning reveals information about sex and animateness. Other tendencies were the introduction of genitive phrases formed with the preposition of in competition with synthetic genitive phrases using the suffix -es, the reduction of verb inflection to the third person's -s and the classification of tenses.

English as a world language

Now that we know how the English language developed, it would be interesting to find out why it became so famous all over the world and why it is used as the lingua franca. Thinking about this question we shall soon find many events in history that helped to spread English all over the world. First of all, the British Empire was the most important colonial power from the 17th century on. Along with their settlements in North America, the Indian subcontinent or Australia came the language and was expanded by trade and slavery. Later on, English replaced Dutch in South Africa and conquered Singapore, New Zealand, Hong Kong and several states on the African continent. Today, The United States' political and economic power still claims the rule of the English language. But what about the results and the consequences of this wide spreading? As we have learned throughout the history of the English language, people usually dont adapt to their invaders way of speaking thats why and how varieties develop, depending on the size of the group of British settlers. We can say that the more British invaders there were, the purer the language was established. Nevertheless, varieties remained and caused problems which are still of influence today. For example, former colonies now argue whether they should keep the standard (invaders) or "their" own English. This is a momentous question of national identity, a decision between local or international communication, which is influenced by the desire for advance in science and technology. In some cases, English might even be a means of peace-keeping for different social or cultural groups or tribes in a country who fear that making one of the native languages the official one would favour the group who speaks it. To describe the whole situation of English as a lingua franca it becomes necessary to distinguish three different categories: English as a native, a second or a foreign language.

Fig.1 Circles according to [11]

Native means: English is spoken as the first language or mother tongue, e.g. in Great
Britain, the USA, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, Canada, the Caribbean and South Africa mostly Commonwealth members. Second means: English is not the sole, but one official language, and is used for communication, trade or education in the respective country.

Foreign means: people with a different mother tongue learn English for private, business
or scientific communication with persons all over the world. Apparently, English is not only a prerequisite to get a good job, but also the main language of these good jobs (4). English is THE language for specific purposes aviation, shipping, public communication, international business and many scientific fields would hardly do (or publish) without it. Imagine everyday life, advertisement, sports, television without any English influence The reason for that is quite simple: many borrowed terms form Latin also exist in German, Spanish, French or Italian and are known to the people who learn English the lexicon is international. Many words carry several meanings or equivalents, the grammar is not to difficult all that makes it easier to learn. And last but not least, many inventions, e.g. on the field of electronics or computer, come from the USA and have English names, which are often adapted in other countries (except France).

Social aspects of language

As already said in the introduction, language is an important part of our culture. Language is a means of integration and boundless communication (lingua franca). It provides a feeling of cultural unity and it is a symbol of national strength in times of trouble, e.g. during wartime. But language also is a means of diversion. And that goes further than the disability of understanding someone because he speaks a foreign language. People are laughed at or even discriminated because of their dialect, accent or pronunciation problems. An interesting example for that is to be found in the Bible2: after a battle between the Gileadites and the Ephraimites, the latter retreated. They had to cross the river Jordan at a ford held by the Gileadites. When trying to pass, everyone was asked whether he were an Ephraimite. If he denied, he was asked to say the word shibboleth3. The point is that the Ephraimites could only pronounce s instead of sh. So they were sorted out and killed by the Gileadites. Ever since, the word shibboleth is used to distinguish members of one group. These groups share a dialect or an accent, which is different to the standard language. Whereas accents mean differences in pronunciation, dialects even feature differences in lexicon or grammar. Concerning Britain, the standard has always been south-eastern English since it is the variety spoken in the political, juridical and economic centre of the nation: London. It is the language of Shakespeare and of todays media. This variety also described as received pronunciation (RP) is only spoken by 5 per cent of the population, but is taught to foreigners. We can even distinguish unmarked RP, which indicates education, a certain authority and is the standard at the BBC, from marked RP, which indicates high social class and is more frequent among upper-class people. Earlier, RP was a prerequisite to be accepted in society and to get a good job. The several accents and dialects vary in reputation some are considered trustworthy and some are not. The reason is the social background of the concerned variety, which is immediately referred to the person when he/she speaks. A Yorkshire accent is connected with reliability, a West Country accent with amiability. On the other hand, a West Midlands accent would induce less confidence. (6)

2 3

Book of Judges, 12th chapter (example taken from [14] ) Hebrew for stream (in this context the meaning is of no importance)

A variety can be sign of regional identity and community, but also of class status und thus bear the danger of division and the marking off of sub cultures. Dialects with a high reputation are often imitated and exercise influence. If the upper class is not popular, the people will not imitate them but use a different dialect to mark themselves off. An example: during the time of British rule in Hong Kong, English was only used in the legal system, in education, upper commerce and industry and the media. Chinese (or Cantonese) was used mainly for private, intimate conversation among friends or families where English the language of power was disliked. This is likely to change now that Hong Kong is independent from Britain. However, there are many kinds of varieties in language: local or geographical v., social v. according to class, age, gender or ethnicity, stylistic v. (e.g. formal vs. informal) or medial variety (style of writing differs from speech). Peter Trudgill, a famous sociolinguist, once said: Languages take care of themselves. I mean if people need to communicate, they will communicate.4 This might give the impression that people use their language as an instrument (and therefore create varieties), but how can we be sure that we control language? What if language determines our way of perceiving the world? An interesting theory on this question is the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis, named after the scholars Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf. Their theory says that grammatical structures determine the speakers consciousness, thinking and social acting. Research revealed, that in the examined American Indian languages for example there are no tenses as we Europeans know them. The conclusion could be that these Indians have a different view on the world and the events that take place. This hypothesis is interesting, but in the meantime has been criticized and was to a great extend disproved: during evolution, human beings have spread all over the planet and thus adapted their language to the conditions they encountered. Eskimos, for example, have several words for snow, Hawaiians for rain the English dont because there is no need for that. According to Trudgill, language only conditions habitual speech, people are still able to cope with different kinds of consciousness and to perceive things the cant name yet. With the words of Frank Palmer: Whether language determines the shape of the world of vice versa is probably a chicken and egg problem.

taken from an interview in [4]

The power of language

Many people seem to be quite unaware of the power that language can have. One has the impression that it is as easy as never before to influence people by the subtle use of distinct language. An example for this tendency of linguistic unawareness, as I want to call it, shall be the election campaign of the Labour party some years ago. It starts in calling the party New Labour to demonstrate the eagerness to change and reform the country as well as the own party. Marking off from the opponent conservative and old-fashioned Tories with the help of this contrast was essential for the strategists of New Labour, who are often called the spin doctors. That is another new term and was current because they enforced the so-called media spin or publicity and public presence of politicians, to put it in a nutshell. Media spin also means controlling how policy and politics are presented in the media and how they are perceived by the people. Old policy is described with new terms: such as saying public-private partnership to avoid privatisation and socialism. Other catchwords are social justice and economic dynamism which often appear in combination. The Third Way implies to be the one and only compromise between left and right and the language it uses often links contraries with x as well as y and presents itself as an alternative without an alternative (1). Obviously, this is a Europewide phenomenon in Germany it is called Die Neue Mitte. How far manipulation through language can go, is familiar to everyone who ever read George Orwells 1984. The writer describes a state of absolute control (Oceania) and Newspeak, the states official language. This language was introduced as a means of expression for the ideas of Ingsoc (English socialism), the official ideology. Since it featured a restricted and specialized vocabulary and deleted undesirable words or changed their notions, it made divergent thinking nearly impossible, just because the proper words were missing. Terms like free, justice, morality or religion were actually abandoned. (4) But we should not forget the positive power of language, this time in the context of devolution. All throughout history, Wales, Ireland and Scotland have more or less successfully maintained their own tongue. The situation in Wales is a bit difficult: literature and religion were Welsh and only the upper class spoke it. On the other hand, the working class was anglophonic and English was a symbol of progress. But still there are Welsh-

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speaking media: the TV channel S4C, the newspaper New Welsh Review and a lively film and music industry keeps Welsh culture alive. In Ireland, Irish has been the first official language since 1921, but in reality its importance is not so big (only 2 per cent of the population speaks it as mother tongue). Since Ireland did never encounter Roman or Germanic influence, Irish is a Gaelic language. Unfortunately, it never came to full blossom because of the English suppression. But nevertheless, Irish authors write about Irish issues and traditions. Gidhlig, or Scottish Gaelic, is the original tongue of Scotland and initially came from Ulster (Ireland). Although in use since the late 5th century, it was constantly displaced by English from the 11th century on. In 1690, the Bible was translated into Scottish Gaelic and many famous poets followed in the aftermath, describing the rough nature of Scotland. In all regions of the Kingdom, language has been an important symbol of (comm)unity and the desire to reach independence.

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Conclusion
Knowing the history of the English language, we might better understand how it could become so influential. Having some more sociolinguistic background, we might better understand why we speak how we speak, we might even use our language more consciously. Revising some famous examples to the power of language, we might be all ears for the speech that surrounds us. I hope, I succeeded in showing what a vital part of our everyday culture language is and should be. From my point of view as a student of translation and from my personal experience, I wanted to invite everyone to be more aware of his tongue. Hoping not to have bullied the gentle reader with too much linguistics,

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Literature
1. 2. 3. 4. 5. 6. 7. 8. 9. Fairclough, Norman (2000). New labour, new language? London: Routledge. Yule, George (2000). The study of language. Cambridge: Cambridge UP Barber, Charles (2000). The English language. A historical introduction. Cambridge: Cambridge UP Hean, David, et al. (1981). Spotlights on language. Linguistic Analysis - Culture -

Society. Mnchen: Max Hueber Verlag

Berndt, Rolf (1982). A history of the English language. Leipzig: VEB Verlag Enzyklopdie McDowall, David (2000). Britain in close-up. An in-depth study of contemporary

Britain. Essex: Longman

Kastendiek, Hans, et al. (1998). Lnderbericht Grobritannien. Geschichte - Politik

- Wirtschaft - Gesellschaft. Bonn: Bundeszentrale fr politische Bildung

Howatt, A.P.R. (1984). A history of English language teaching. Oxford: Oxford UP Hughes, Arthur & Trudgill, Peter (1996). English accents and dialects. An

introduction to social and regional varieties of British English. Second Edition.

London: Arnold 10. Bundeszentrale fr politische Bildung (Hg.) (1999). Informationen zur politischen

Bildung. Grobritannien. Bonn: Bundeszentrale fr politische Bildung

11. Marzari, Robert (1999).

Interkultureller

Kontakt

und

Sprachausbau.

Sprachgeschichtliche Betrachtungen. Berlin: Frieling Verlag

12. Vater, Heinz (1996). Einfhrung in die Sprachwissenschaft. Mnchen: Wilhelm Fink Verlag 13. Der Brockhaus multimedial premium 2001 (CD-Rom). Mannheim: Bibliographisches Institut & F. A. Brockhaus AG 14. Black Dog & Leventhal Publishers Inc. (1993). Websters New Encyclopedic

Dictionary. Kln: Knemann

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