Keith Johnson - The history of Early English : An Activity-based Introduction to Early, Middle and Early Modern English language

The History of Early English

The History of Early English provides an accessible and student-friendly introduction to the history of the English language from its beginnings until the end of the Early Modern English period. Taking an activity-based approach, this text ensures that students learn by engaging with the fascinating evolution of this language rather than simply reading about it.

The History of Early English:

Provides a comprehensive introduction to early, middle and early modern English;

Introduces each language period with a text, from writers such as Chaucer and Shakespeare, accompanied by a series of guiding questions and commentaries that will engage readers and give them a flavour of the language of the time;

Features a range of activities that include discussion points, questions, online tasks and preparatory activities that seamlessly take the reader from one chapter to the next;

Is supported by a companion website featuring audio files, further activities and links to online material.

Written by an experienced teacher and author, this book is the essential course textbook for any module on the history of English.

Keith Johnson is Emeritus Professor of Linguistics and Language Education in the Department of Linguistics and English Language, University of Lancaster.

LEARNING ABOUT LANGUAGE

Series Editors:

Mick Short and the late Geoffrey Leech, Lancaster University

Also in this series:

A History of Early English, First Edition Keith Johnson

An Introduction to Child Language Development, First Edition Susan H. Foster-Cohen

An Introduction to Cognitive Linguistics, Second Edition Friedrich Ungerer and Hans-Jorg Schmid

An Introduction to Foreign Language Learning and Teaching, Second Edition Keith Johnson

An Introduction to Natural Language Processing Through Prolog, First Edition Clive Matthews

An Introduction to Psycholinguistics, Second Edition Danny D. Steinberg and Natalia V. Sciarini

An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Fourth Edition Janet Holmesand Nick Wilson

Analysing Sentences: An Introduction to English Syntax, Fourth Edition Noel Burton-Roberts

Exploring the Language of Poems, Plays and Prose, First Edition Mick Short

Grammar and Meaning: A Semantic Approach to English Grammar, First Edition Howard Jackson

Meaning in Interaction: An Introduction to Pragmatics, First Edition Jenny A. Thomas

Patterns of Spoken English: An Introduction to English Phonetics, First Edition Gerald Knowles

Realms of Meaning: An Introduction to Semantics, First Edition Thomas R. Hofmann

The Earliest English: An Introduction to Old English Language, First Edition Chris McCully and Sharon Hilles

The Sounds of Language: An Introduction to Phonetics, First Edition Henry Rogers

Varieties of Modern English: An Introduction, First Edition Diane Davies

Words and Their Meaning, First Edition Howard Jackson

For H and H

Con tents

In the early days, when this book was being mooted, I was much encouraged by Geoffrey Leech, Mick Short and Nadia Seemungal. Mick has continued to be a guiding force throughout, providing his usual large amount of detailed, perceptive and constructive comments, with a commitment that much exceeds what any author has a right to expect from an editor. His influence is there everywhere in the book. Nadia has also been helpful throughout, opening doors, making things possible that might not otherwise have been so.

A big thank you also to my wife Helen, who has looked in detail at what was being written, commenting on the general and the particular with an eye that manages to both penetrate and twinkle at the same time. Also to son Hugh, who sportingly and valiantly agreed to turn his hand to understanding s dead reeve passage, providing useful insights into what people today will find easy and difficult about confronting Old English.

Now that the book is ready, I am grateful to all at Routledge Helen Tredget and the rest of the team for their help; also to Sue Browning for her excellent editing. I hope that the resulting book, which has been such fun to write, will be as much fun to read.

The author and the publishers are grateful to the copyright holders for permission to reproduce the following material:

Extracts from Nevalainen, T. and Raumolin-Brunberg, H. 2003 Historical Sociolinguistics: Language Change in Tudor and Stuart England. London: Pearson Education Ltd. and from Culpeper, J. 2015 History of English, 3rd edition. Abingdon: Routledge, reproduced with kind permission of Taylor & Francis.

Extract from Barber, C. 1997 Early Modern English (revised edition). Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press, reproduced with kind permission of Edinburgh University Press.

This book is not just for native speakers of English, and certainly not just for speakers of my version of English, which is southern British English. Nor is it written just for non-native-English speakers. It is for all these people. You will quickly become aware of this because in the text you are often asked to think about some aspect of a version of English that you know well, or of your native language. Questions like these should be answerable by all readers, whatever their language background.

The book is activity-based, and activities really are an integral part of it. Every chapter has an Activity section towards its end, and when an activity is mentioned in the text, you will find it in that section. The idea is that you do activities as you go along. You are not expected to do every one, and the assumption is that you will want to pick and choose. A very common procedure is to ask you to stop and do an activity (or simply to think about an issue) before continuing to read the text.