DIACHRONY OF LINGUISTIC CHANGE

The course aims to equip students with the skills, insights and appropriate theoretical approaches necessary to analyse and describe changes in the structure of English from the earliest written records to the Late Medieval/Early Modern period. Students will also be encouraged to explore historical linguistics within a framework of cultural analysis which will allow them to relate changes in the structure of English to the sociocultural contexts in which those changes occur.

Frontal lessons, seminars, laboratories

Knowledge of basic notions of general linguistics, of European history of late antiquity and the Middle Ages and of European geography. This is knowledge acquired in the elementary and higher studies of first and second degree and in the three-year linguistic study course in preparation for enrollment in the master's degree course in Linguistic sciences for interculture and training. In case of need, tools and ideas will be provided for the acquisition / strengthening of knowledge useful for having access without difficulty to the course contents.

The exam programme is identical both for attending and non-attending students. 

Students who are unable  to attend classes are invited to contact the teacher at least one month before taking the exam.

Angles, Saxons and Jutes in Britain. Germanic culture and classical-Christian culture. The Scandinavian influence. Old English and its written expressions. The Conquest and its consequences. From Old English to Middle English. Middle English and its written expressions. Late Middle English. Early Modern English.

1) Nicoletta Francovich Onesti, L’inglese dalle origini ad oggi. Le vicende di una lingua, Roma 1988 (and more recent editions and reprints), chapters 1-7 (p. 1 to 165).

2) Philip Durkin, Borrowed Words. A History of Loanwords in English, Oxford 2014 (part I-V, pp. 3-297).

3) Passages from significant Old English and Middle English texts (see 6).

4) Reference dictionaries: J. Bosworth, T. N. Toller, An Anglo-Saxon Dictionary, available at https://www.ling.upenn.edu/~kurisuto/germanic/oe_bosworthtoller_about.html, or other electronic version; H. Kurath et al., Middle English Dictionary, electronic version https://quod.lib.umich.edu/m/middle-english-dictionary/dictionary

5) Reference grammar books: Gemma Manganella, L’anglosassone e il sassone antico, Napoli, 1960 (see 6); Joseph Wright and Mary Elizabeth Wright, An Elementary Middle English Grammar, London et al., 1921 (available at archive.org).

6) Supplementary materials (downloadable from the Studium web page dedicated to the course; registration required).

N.B. Grammar books and dictionaries are consultation works.

Two ongoing tests tests will be held, not compulsory and open to all attending and non-attending students, which will consist of closed questions, lasting c. 30 minutes each.

For the evaluation in the final oral exam, the mastery of the contents and skills acquired, the linguistic accuracy, the argumentative ability demonstrated by the candidate and the ability to apply what has been learned even in new tasks. The positive evaluation obtained in the tests will also be taken into account. Minimum requirenents are reached when one is able to place the facts exactly from a geographical and chronological point of view and when one is able to describe the topics in their essential characteristics.

The oral exam is evaluated through a special evaluation grid that will be adequately publicized.

Criteria of evaluation (oral exams)