Michelle Obama should be one of 2010 most influnce people in TIME Essay

Michelle Obama should be one of 2010 most influnce people in TIME Magezine - Essay Example Jamie Oliver, a chef and founder of the Jamie Oliver Food Foundation believes she is a true revolutionary. Oliver commended her for standing firm in her conviction â€Å"that if we all just eat better and move more, then we can fight obesity† (Oliver, par.4). First, Obama dedicates a great deal of her time on helping the military families. America is currently engaged in two wars; one in Afghanistan and another in Iraq. Both of these war conflicts cause a lot of death on America's fighting men and women. Family members are away for months at a time on active duty, away from their spouses and children. They are always in harm’s way; family members are always waiting beside the phone for the dreaded call. In this great trouble time their families need support and comfort. This is one of the best things that Michelle Obama does. She spent a lot of time working with these families to bring their stories to light and ensure that they are not forgotten in the middle of the ne ws cycle. She knows that they face a lot of problems and are sometimes ignored by the press and by the government. What she wants is a country that will recognize the sacrifices of those men and women who serve in the arm force to protect the country. Above all, she promotes and helps military families to ensure that they get the respect that they so richly deserve. She makes sure that their financial needs are met. She encourages them and appreciates them for their family service. Obama is not seeking attention or popularity, but she does it from the good of her heart. She also encourages everyone to support them and comfort them, while their family is on a mission to fight for the country we love. She will tell everyone, we are living free because they are fighting and protecting us. She helped those who are wounded while serving the country. She makes sure they get the proper medical attention that they need. Obama makes sure that the country recognizes the men and women who sacr ifice themselves to protect the United States of America. Obama, together with Jill Baden, wife of Vice President Joe Biden recently launched the â€Å"Joining Forces† campaign. According to Obama, this campaign is a way of giving back to the military families for their sacrifices. It aims to assist military families who confront unique challenges, such as frequently moving or having a parent or spouse at war. Obama realizes the difficulties that military families experience because of their separation from home. She has called on companies to recruit and hire members of the military and their spouses to help them in their financial needs. The three areas of concern of the â€Å"Joining Forces† campaign of Obama are in the fields of employment, education and wellness. In the area of education, â€Å"Joining Forces† will help schools to become more responsive to the unique needs of military children and families. It will also promote higher education institutions and programs of military-connected students and expand job-training opportunities for military spouses and veterans (Whitehouse.gov, par.7). In the field of employment, â€Å"Joining Forces† will highlight the workforce potential and expand the employment and career development opportunities of military spouses and veterans. It will also assist employers to create military family-friendly workplaces (Whitehouse.gov, par. 5). Obama believes that the military fami

Compare and contrast three companies Research Paper

Compare and contrast three companies - Research Paper Example The services and products include software, online advertising technologies, search and cloud computing. On the other hand, Apple Company specializes in the production of computers and computer-related devices such as software and mobile smartphones. Apple Incorporation designs iPads, Macs (personal computers), iPhones, iPads and various versions of operating systems such as OS X, iLife and iWork. With a current market cap of $105 billion, Apple is slightly behind Intel and ahead of Dell. iPods sold by the company account for over two-thirds of the MP3 player market (Kahney 1). The three companies not only share a host of similarities but also exhibit a range of differences. The two companies; Google and Semco, share a similarity in the degree of freedom given to employees in order to design or influence the end products of production. The engineers working at Google have significant independence in terms of the types of projects they chose to work on. The engineers are encouraged to allocate up to a maximum of 20 percent of weekly working schedule time to the pursuit of personal software ideas. Records indicate that the products, Google News and Gmail first came out as individual endeavors of Google’s employees (Kahney 2). On the other hand, Semco has eliminated the aspect of using time clocks in management. The employees operating on the factory floor enjoy the freedom of coming to work and leaving when they feel like doing so. The management of Semco makes the assumption that all the employees are trustworthy adults and as such, do not need direct supervision on time-keeping. It is unbelievable that the employees could come to the factory every morning and fail to get down to work as expected by the management (Semler 6). The expected observation by the very management (counselors) is that the workers would eventually start coordinating the working-hours scheduling by themselves. The workers have freedom to the extent that, upon achieving the set

Edgar Allan Poe Essay Example for Free

Edgar Allan Poe Essay Many poets and story writers write their stories based upon events and aspects of their life. They do this because it is so relatable and easy to write about because there is some truth in the words. Edgar Allan Poe is said to be one of these because his stories actually relate to his tragic, love stricken life. He is known to lead an overall depressing life that was full of loss and grief of loved ones. So because of this, Poe suffered most of his life. But although he had many misfortunes, he resorted to his passion of poetry to help him. Poe wrote many stories and poems that both reflected and represented his life. Stories such as Annabel Lee strongly show this as it is about the death of a loved women. Edgar Allan Poe was a mysterious man that accomplished many feats and went on to become one of the world’s most famous poets, although he also had a devastating life. On January 19th, 1809, Edgar Poe was born in Boston (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). He began his tragic life at a young age of three years old when his mother died and father left him (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). Then as an orphan, young Edgar was adopted by his uncle, a tobacco merchant, John Allan, and his wife Frances (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). After years of school, Poe was admitted to the University of Virginia at only sixteen, but stayed for only one semester because of lack of financial aid from Allan (Giordano). Angry with Allan, Poe decided to enlist into the army as a private (Giordano). There, he published his first book in 1827, â€Å"Tamerlane and Other Poems,† and his career as a writer spiraled outward from there (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). Poe continued to write and publish small books, earned little money, and did what he could to get noticed. He soon had another book published and by this point, he had a great fan base and was considered a celebrity in Baltimore (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). His readers felt his work was so unique and sometimes even asked for autographs from Poe. From this publicity, he was earning good money. But the good fortune didn’t last long and he was soon at the poverty level again and moved back and forth from New York to Virginia, submitting stories to and working for different magazines, getting small amounts of money here and there. Then, in 1841, while working for Grahams Magazine (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† NNBD), Poe wrote the first ever detective story, a murder mystery. It was titled â€Å"The Murders in the Rue Morgue† (Giordano). The public had never seen this kind of story so it immediately became famous and Edgar’s fame rose even higher. Poe had created a whole new topic in literature and some agree that this was his greatest contribution to world literature. In the next several years, Poe lost his wife Virginia but continued writing novels and stories in his grief (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Gale). This is said to be a basis for inspirations for his stories such as Annabel Lee and others (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). He once said â€Å"The death of a beautiful woman is unquestionably the most poetical topic in the world. † (LeVert 12). When not further loved, Poe tried to commit suicide in Boston (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† NNBD). In this state of depression, Poe wrote the poem â€Å"Annabel Lee† using his favorite theme, the grief a man feels when he loses women (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). Poe died on the October 7th due to complications related to a brain lesion (Giordano). This was the end of the tragic life of poet Edgar Allan Poe. Edgar Allan Poe led an influential but very rough life. He was usually in need of money despite his fame, but wrote a total of 30 books alongside starting a whole new genre of writing. This author/poet wrote some of the best stories and poems and although he wasn’t so lucky in the events of his life, he will always be remembered as a great influence on American Literature. One of the stories Poe wrote relating to the â€Å"death of a beautiful women† was Annabel Lee wrote in 1849, approximately 5 months before his death. This makes sense because throughout his life, Poe had lost many women to death in his life including his mother and his only wife Virginia, who died two years prior to the poem being written (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). There has been debate on who this tragic story is about but most believe that is was truly written for Virginia, who he had married when she was 13 years old and died in 1847 (Giordano). This is supported by the fact that Virginia was Edgar’s only marriage, and the only one of his girlfriends that had died (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). Also, in the poem, the narrator says that he fell in love with â€Å"Annabel Lee† when they were children and he did make her his wife (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). The famous poem is about, again, the death of a beautiful woman named Annabel Lee and the eternal love after death he fells for her. The narrator says that â€Å"even winged seraphs of heaven coveted her and me† meaning that even the angels in heaven were jealous of the love he and Annabel shared (Giordano). Like Poe’s love for Virginia, the narrator expresses great loss and sadness when she dies, losing his one true love. As also implied in the poem, he sits by her grave at night just to be near his loved one. This shows the divine love he had for â€Å"Annabel Lee† (Giordano). Annabel Lee is a prose poem written in the first person and was first published in Sartain’s Union Magazine. As it was so close to his date of death, it was his very last completed poem (â€Å"Edgar Allan Poe† Wikipedia). Edgar Allan Poe had a great impact in the poetry and the overall literature world. He was a very mysterious man who lived a tough life and went through several struggles including death of loved ones. But from these losses and hardships came the inspiration for incredible poems like â€Å"Annabel Lee†. He wrote some of the world’s best poems, short stories, and novels and in doing so introduced the first detective story to America. The inspiring work he produced will be read and cherished forever.

Is Religion Opposed to Change?

Is Religion Opposed to Change? Religions are often presented as if they are opposed to choice and change. To what extent do the controversial futures examined in Book 4 support or challenge this view? Controversies surrounding religious futures rely on a premise of religions either remaining true to their origins to retain authenticity or adapting to change to accommodate an increasingly spiritual and consumeristic world. The tensions that arise stem from assertions that religion, in an unaltered state cannot remain relevant to modern adherents and therefore will eventually die, alongside a view that a religion that adapts loses the essence of its original message to the pressures of consumerism and therefore its integrity is depleted. Proponents of the latter view argue that when an adopted message become too far removed from the revealed religion a cut flower culture (Herberg, cited in Mercadante, 2014) is created where the moral and spiritual messages of the root religion withers and dies; in other words, they lack the moral depth and social cohesiveness of more traditional religions (Gauthier et al., 201, p. 292) The choice between stasis and change is not binary, however, as there is a continuity between sacred scriptures and the most eclectic, free-spirited spirituality of today (Gottlieb, 2012). This continuity has become increasingly important as the terms religion and spirituality become less synonymous than they have previously been, highlighting a shift from a static, structured and institutional view of religion to a more individualistic pick and mix (King cited in Harvey, 2013, p. 20) approach to spiritual futures. This transition has witnessed approximately 40% of Americans unchurched with no connection with organized religion who claim to be strongly religious or spiritual on a personal level (Fuller, 2001, p. 1), exemplifying the balancing act that religions must take in charge to maintain identity against a maelstrom of modern demands whilst adapting to attract or retain the consumers needed to exist in the competitive spiritual marketplace. The change of emphasis from institutional to individual has been in discussion for many years, indeed the definition of religion varies from the personal and psychologized versions of spirituality (Harvey, 2013, p.19) where the individual feelings and experiences are of supreme importance or the feelings, acts and experiences of individual men in their solitude (James, cited in Harvey, 2013, p.9) to the institutional view of a religion where the church is central and essential to a faith, or as Durkheim suggests the idea of religion is inseparable from that of the Church (Durkheim, cited in Harvey, 2013, p.9). Durkheims view could be considered to represent a view of religion that is resistant to change, placing emphasis on the continuity of the Church and the sacred things therein (Durkheim, cited in Harvey, 2013, p.9), whereas James view of religion, being more individualistic in nature is infinitely more susceptible to change because the very nature of the individualism adapts spi rituality to the person who perceives it, a situation in which a spiritual seeker creates or rec-creates his or her own private system of symbolic meanings and values (Hanegraaff, 2009, cited in Harvey, 2013, p.25). Such individualism allows for exploration of spirituality outside of the constraints of church mores, spirituality then, can be seen as the positive aspects of the ancient religious traditions, unencumbered by the dead hand of the church; (Carrette King, 2005, p.2), with a strict emphasis on the self and on spiritual experience not a concept of God, but, rather, of the higher self (Hanegraaff, cited in Houtman et al., 2009, p.170). Such contrasting viewpoints highlight a definition of religion as a being concerned with external dogmatic authority set over the individual and spirituality being concerned with the deepest experiences of the individual (Vincett and Woodhead, cited in Woodhead and Catto, 2013, p.158). The individualistic element of spirituality has often bee n labeled as New Age, although this is an all-encompassing label for a multiform hypersyncretic splicing of ideas (Sutcliffe, 2000, cited in Harvey, 2013, p.23) that is hardly satisfactory. Such is the diversity of human spiritual need and options available to the seeker that a consistent formula for spiritual satisfaction cannot be achieved, in which case a label such as New Age can only be used as a contrast to traditional religions under the assumption that traditional religions do not undergo any form of borrowing from other faiths; as Hanegraaff suggests the term New Age is a label attached indiscriminately to whatever seems to fit it and as a result, the New Age means very different things to different people (Hanegraaff, 1996, p.1, emphasis in original). However, New Age belief invariably stems from traditions as there has been a mutation of traditional religions for a New Age believer to accommodate, in this sense New Age religion unquestionably emerged from esoteric traditi ons in Western culture (Hanegraaff, 1996, p.383). Such variation means that New Age believers, with such an infinite matrix of needs become ready consumers and, as their spiritual needs change so do their material wants, a phenomenon borne out at Glastonbury in the South West of England; which is a keen example of the mutation, adaptation and commercialisation found within religion and spirituality. Glastonburys past is steeped in claims made for it on behalf of goddess worship, paganism, Christianity and new age spirituality. These claims range from Glastonbury being the site of Avalon; the site where Joseph of Arimathea washed and buried the Holy Grail and a venue that Jesus himself visited; it is therefore a popular pilgrimage site for Christians and non-believing pilgrims as pilgrimage is not clearly distinguishable from acts such as tourism (Hedges, 2017). Such a diverse pedigree in one venue has the potential for conflict and controversy between groups of believers, as well as between believers and local residents; however, Gl astonbury, as a religious site, has successfully incorporated all of these claims in such a way that, not only do different belief groups co-exist but they do so symbiotically, with each group benefiting, often financially, from the lure of diversity for spiritual consumers keen to sample all that beliefs that Glastonbury has to offer; this has created a spiritual marketplace of significant proportions. The attraction of Glastonbury for the spiritual seeker is evident in the windows of the shops which display a plethora of spiritual material culture catering for a wide variety of spiritual interests within one shop. This enables the spiritual seeker to purchase containers of the sacred (Colman and Elsner, cited in Bowman, 2013, p.55) from one or many religions to suit their particular needs; this example of vernacular religion in which consumers either produce ritual objects themselves, re-purpose traditional religious props, or shop off the shelf from other religious traditions to use for their own inventive, often empowering, spiritual practices (Twitchell, cited in Scott and Maclaran, 2009, p.60). Such commercial opportunity creates a level of competition with each religion vying for custom and therefore creating a spiritual economy which is leading to the establishment of an appropriate, sustainable and new Glastonbury economy (Ivakhiv, 2001, p.124), an economy fed by competition which traditional religions are not immune to. The consumer spiritual market place has encouraged the Abbey at Glastonbury to retain and recruit new adherents by marketing their own brand of religion that resonates with dominant social values of individualism, empowerment and aspiration to affluence (Yip and Ainsworth, 2010, p. 702) indeed, the Glastonbury Abbey website not only describes the history of the Abbey but also displays a level of commercialism as it advertises entrance to the Abbey at  £8.25 as well as an array of gifts including Celtic designs, the Green Man, and ch urch mice among other gift ideas (Glastonbury Abbey, 2017), many of which are not directly Christian in nature but are available as a commodity for tourists, spiritual or otherwise, thus demonstrating a recognition and an acceptance of change within a traditional religious setting. The commercialization of Glastonbury Abbey is not new, historically it has been a land owner and wool trader and as such played a major part in developing market capitalism in Glastonbury (Bowman, 2012, p.15); however, the Abbeys economic influence is no longer restricted to the physical world as the Abbey has adopted technology to create a website capitalises on e-commerce, trading on the provenance of Glastonbury as a sacred space, to allow people who may not have attended Glastonbury to purchase items in order to support the upkeep on the Abbey stating that All profits from the shop are used to help to care for the abbey ruins as well as enhancing the experience for our visitors and that Shop and ticke t sales and donations are the abbeys main source of income'(Glastonbury Abbey, 2017). Glastonbury therefore is an example of religious change in which a traditional religion has recognised that competition within the market and has adapted its offerings to retain custom. Glastonbury Abbey is by no means unique in its willingness to adapt to the demands of its consumers; Luss Church in Scotland boasts fifteen hundred years of continuous Christian presence and, despite a small population, and a smaller local congregation, attracts seven hundred and fifty thousand visitors to Luss many of them to our Church and Pilgrimage Centre (lusschurch.com, 2017) This represents a significant change from the churchs past in which a financially struggling church has adopted the availability of the internet in which New technology has opened up alternative ways of making relationships with visitors real and profitable and our small congregation is enjoying discovering new ways of being the Church in a new century (Luss Church, 2017). This is clearly a development that has been embraced by a worldwide congregation of people who regularly access online services streamed over the internet, this technology also allows friends and relative to view the weddings of people f rom over 40 countries (Bowman, 2013, p.79) express a desire to marry at the church. The exposure that Luss has received from the internet has enabled them to tap into a lucrative wedding industry, removing market share from local hotels who previously would have enjoyed the income from overseas couples wanting to marry in the picturesque setting of Luss. In return, the church adds to the local tourist economy as many friends and relatives will stay for prolonged periods after the wedding at local hotels. The adoption of new technologies has allowed Christianity to reach a larger audience of potential customers, as Pope John Paul II states With the advent of computer telecommunications and what are known as computer participation systems, the Church is offered further means for fulfilling her mission (Pope John Paul II, cited in OLeary, 1996, p.782), a sentiment that has been taken up in many churches. A survey by Elena Larson finds that the Internet is being used being used by congr egations to strengthen the faith and spiritual growth of their members, evangelize and perform missions in their communities and around the world (Larson, 2001, p.2) with the main use of technology being to encourage people to visit the church and become part of the local congregation. Regardless of the success of this mission religions are embracing the opportunity that change brings, indeed Larsons survey suggests that 83% of those responding to our survey say that their use of the Internet has helped congregational life (Larson, 2001, p.2). The spirit of change lies not just with the church but also with by the congregation who, according to a job to vacancy for a new Minister are looking for someone not bound to the past, who are open to change (Luss Church, 2017). In conclusion, traditional religions are not averse to change, indeed, the adoption of different practices and ideas has long been part of religious traditions and a need to adapt to accommodate modernity is essential for a religions survival. Modernisation, and a shift from religiosity to spirituality, is not necessarily a prelude of the death of religion, or its social extinction, but its continuing relevance has required a change in and transformation of its social forms (Adogame, 2014, p215). The continuation of traditional religion within an individualized spiritual market proves it to be a constantly moving target (Beaman, 2016, p. 185) that consistently displays the elements of individualism, mutation and commercialism that enable it not only to survive, but in its manifold manifestations thrives (Bainbridge, 2004). Indeed, the arrival of competition within the spiritual marketplace, rather than being detrimental to traditional religion has encouraged it to mutate into marketa ble entity that has increased its presence and market share of consumers worldwide. Word count, 2047 Bibliography Adogame, A. (2014) Putting God in Place! Religious continuities and mutations in classic and diasporic communities, Social Compass, 61(2), pp. 207-218. [Online] DOI: 10.1177/0037768614524662 (Accessed 8 March 2017). Bainbridge, W. (2004) Thinking about religious futures, Futures, 36(9), pp. 943-946 [Online] Available at http://dx.doi.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/10.1016/j.futures.2004.02.006 (Accessed 3 March 2017). Beaman, L. (2016) Grace Davie, Religion in Britain: a persistent paradox, Religion, State and Society, 44 (2), pp. 185-186. [Online] Available at http://dx.doi.org/10.1080/09637494.2016.1210345 (Accessed 3 March 2017). Bowman, M. (2012) Understanding Glastonbury as a site of spiritual consumption in Lynch, G. and Mitchell, J. (eds). Religion, Media and Culture: A Reader, Abingdon, Routledge. [Online]. Available at Google Books https://books.google.co.uk/books?hl=enlr=id=z4eoAgAAQBAJoi=fndpg=PP1dq=Religion,+Media+and+Culture:+A+Readerots=U-7W5rpHptsig=oS-Qq2lYBhtPm4hpFIW_TSXWyFs#v=onepageq=Religion%2C%20Media%20and%20Culture%3A%20A%20Readerf=false (Accessed 21 March 2017). Bowman, M. (2013) Consuming religion: materiality, markets and spiritually shopping around in Controversial Futures, Milton Keynes, The Open University. Bratton, M. (2015) Belief without Borders: Inside the Minds of the Spiritual but not Religious, Journal of Contemporary Religion, 30(2), pp. 327-329 [Online] Available at http://dx.doi.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/10.1080/13537903.2015.1025565 (Accessed 4 March 2017). Carrette, J. and King, R. (2005) Selling spirituality, [Online], London, Routledge. Available at ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/detail.action?docID=182496. (Accessed 7 March 2017). Fuller, R. (2001) Spiritual, but not religious, [Online] Oxford, Oxford University Press. Available at ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/detail.action?docID=3051860 . (Accessed 7 March 2017).. Available at ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/detail.action?docID=3051860 (Accessed 7 March, 2017). Gauthier, F., Martikainen, T. and Woodhead, L. (2011) Introduction: Religion et societe de consummation/ Religion in Consumer Society, Social Compass, 58(3), pp. 291-301. [Online] DOI: 10.1177/0037768611412141 (Accessed 10 March 17). Glastonbury Abbey, (2017) Gift Items Glastonbury Abbey Shop [online]. Available from http://www.glastonburyabbeyshop.com (Accessed 20 March 2017). Gottlieb, R. S. (2013) Spirituality what it is and why it matters. New York, Oxford University Press. [Online] DOI: 10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199738748.003.0006 (Accessed 5 March 2017). Hanegraaff, W. (1996) New Age religion and Western culture, Leiden, Brill. [Online]. Available from ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/detail.action?docID=253432. (Accessed 20 March 2017). Harvey, G. (2013) Religious individualism: the rise of spirituality in Controversial Futures, Milton Keynes, The Open University. Hedges, P. (2017) Remembering and the Creation of Sacred Place: Glastonbury, Anglican Christian Theology, and Identity, Implicit Religion, 17(3), pp. 297-320, [online] DOI: 10.1558/imre v17i3.297 (Accessed 19 March 17). Ivakhiv, A. (2001). Claiming sacred ground. Bloomington, Indiana University Press.[online] Available at https://books.google.co.uk/books?id=QNHTOvnZ3poCdq=adrian+ivakhiv+glastonburylr=source=gbs_navlinks_s (Accessed 8 March 2017). Larson, E. (2000). Wired churches, wired temples: Taking congregations and missions into cyberspace Pew Internet American Life Project: Online life report [Online]. Available at http://www.pewinternet.org/files/old-media/Files/Reports/2000/PIP_Religion_Report.pdf.pdf (Accessed 21 March 2017). Luss church. (2017). Luss Parish Church. [online]. Available at http://lusschurch.com/history.html (Accessed 20 Mar. 2017). Maclaran,P. and Scott, L. (2009). Spiritual Tourism: Mystical Merchandise and Sacred Shopping in Glastonbury, Advances in Consumer Research, 36, pp. 60-63.[Online] Available at http://www.acrwebsite.org/volumes/14366/volumes/v36/NA-36 (Accessed 21 March 2017). Meradante, L. (2014). life without borders: inside the minds of the spiritual but not religious, 1st ed. New York, Oxford University Press, [online] Available at http://www.oxfordscholarship.com.libezproxy.open.ac.uk/view/10.1093/acprof:oso/9780199931002.001.0001/acprof-9780199931002-chapter-1 (Accessed 14 March 2017). OLeary, SD. (1996). Cyberspace as Sacred Space: Communicating Religion on Computer Networks, Journal Of The American Academy Of Religion, 64, 4, pp. 781-808, [Online]. Available at http://jaar.oxfordjournals.org.libezproxy.open.ac.uk (Accessed 21 March 2017). Woodhead, L.and Catto.R. (2013), Religion and Change in Modern Britain, [Online]. Available at ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/open/detail.action?docID=957397. (Accessed 17 March 2017). Yip, J. Ainsworth, S. (2010). Religious Artefacts as Consumer Culture Products, Advances in Consumer Research, vol. 37, pp. 702. [Online] Available at http://libezproxy.open.ac.uk/login?url=http://search.ebscohost.com/login.aspx?direct=truedb=bthAN=57668009site=ehost-livescope=site . (Accessed 20 March 2017). Should the State Promote Positive Liberty? Should the State Promote Positive Liberty? Critically discuss the argument (Isiah Berlin) that the state should not promote positive liberty. The term freedom has always been a difficult discussion; there are various views of freedom in different fields. According to Heywood, A, (2004), he pointed out that in philosophy, freedom is often described as an attribute of the will to observe and study. However, in economics and sociology, freedom has always been seen as a social relationship. The political theorist often viewed freedom as a liberal ethic or normative principles. Among many definitions of freedom, Isiah Berlin subdivided freedom into positive and negative liberty. On the basis of this distinction, Berlin not only declared that positive liberty concept is the theoretical basis of totalitarianism, but also aggressively criticized the concept of positive freedom. He believed that the state should not promote positive freedom. In this essay, we will discuss the theoretical structure from Berlin’s concepts of liberty and pros or cons respectively. Also discussion about whether the state should not advocate posi tive liberty will be included. According to the Berlin (1958) in the Two Concepts of Liberty à ¯Ã‚ ¼Ã…’the concepts of negative liberty and positive liberty were clearly distinguished. The negative liberty was defined as a personal action without interference from others. For instance, the individual has the freedom that others do not have right to attack him. The positive liberty means that the choices of individuals living pattern were decided by themselves rather than any other factors, or simply known as everyone has the freedom to pursuit happiness. In other words, the purpose of negative freedom is the protection of individual rights and resistance of collective rights, which serves for the implementation of various individual rights. For the positive freedom, its main purpose is to obtain certain interests or achieve contain goals. Mostly it displays in the social rights of various participatory. Therefore, it is often expressed as social rights. Isiah Berlin indicated in his theory of freedom that positive freedom always lead to despotism and society should focus on negative freedom. Pursuing positive freedom may lead to no freedom. For instance, we asked for the right of education, which is a positive freedom. It will require government intervention; hence the power of government will increase accordingly. It may result in a violation of individual freedom. As comparison, the negative freedom is less risky. The freedom of not suffering from invasion by external forces is a fine illustration of such point. If people want to enhance the negative freedom, we only need to change regulations. However to promote the positive liberty, not only we need to change the distribution system, but also the ability of mankind. More importantly it is related to the desire of people. Therefore, compare with negative freedom, positive freedom has more opportunities for people to abuse. Criticism of positive freedom from Berlin was very critical. He warned us that dangers come with positive freedom, which are restriction and compulsion. Berlin thought that positive freedom has a generally applicable correct mode, rationale for instance, and we should do everything in accordance with this model. However, in reality, people are affected by various factors including level of understanding, which leads to diffident opinions about right model. Therefore, they need an authority to define what the right model is and force people to comply such rule. Eventually, people will follow the rules under the power of authority, but meanwhile it has changed freedom to restriction. Berlin called the procedure of turning positive freedom into not restriction as strange conversion. After such change, the reversal of positive liberty becomes deprival of freedom. However, in fact such phenomenon is unlikely to happen. Berlin was not completely certain about positive freedom will move tow ard to constraint and inevitable fetter. He only recognized that the possibility was extremely high. Based on that, Fromm,E (1941) refuted the view of Berlin. He thought that positive freedom has a generally applicable correct mode. This mode implies that people can only act in accordance with this model without other choices. He analyzed through German history to understand the reason of Nazi successful controlling their power. He believed despotism of Nazi could be achieved based on the two premises. The first one is that with the development of society, people have the negative liberty, which appeared before the rise of capitalism. The second one is that people obtained the negative liberty, but not the positive freedom. He also indicated that freedom will become constraint even tyranny, if and only if society does not have positive freedom. Fromm’ opinion was consistent with other members from Frankfurt school. They all thought that fascism and capitalism had a close rela tionship. The tyranny of Nazi will become a powerful weapon to deny Berlin’ view, as no matters what negative freedom will always stay the same. In Fromm,E s opinion, state should promote positive liberty due to it will promote development of society. Although in Berlin’ view, the positive freedom is always connected with rationalism and through the rationalism, it can turn into constraint or autocracy. However, negative liberty will also face such problem. For example, when people do not have any restrictions, they will do anything just based on their desires, and this will lead to conflict inevitably. Therefore, as a result, we need the law to limit the people’ freedom. Based on that, positive and negative freedom face the same issue as law is required to restrain both of them. The negative freedom and positive freedom must be considered as equally important factors when people discuss the problem of freedom. However, because of positive freedom is very easy to be used by the autocratic government. It always associated with a very poor reputation, which makes people embarrassing to advocate positive liberty. Taylor, (1985) pointed out, contemporary liberalism paid too much attention to the negative freedom and rejected positive freedom. This behavior was inappropriate. The negative freedom and positive freedom are indispensable parts of the liberty. In order to achieve real freedom, it is necessary to link both of them. Secondly, in the real practice, positive freedom is one of the most essential freedoms in any society. Negative freedom alone can never constitute freedom completely. If there is no positive freedom, negative freedom cannot exist by itself. For example, the right to vote is recognized in all free societies. Such freedom is an essential condi tion for guaranteeing various freedoms. However, this freedom itself is not a negative freedom, but a positive freedom. According to this, positive freedom is always the condition of guaranteeing and completing negative freedom. So the negative liberty could not be understood and implemented alone. Apart from voting right, we can cite many other apparent examples, which also belongs to the positive freedom and also very important that we cannot understate it. For example, it includes obtaining the basic right of survival; the rights of freedom of speech, press freedom; the right of education; the right of obtaining medical support and healthy environment; the right of obtaining healthy food; and the right of enjoying the sunshine, clean air and water. Everyone has to admit that these rights are critically important, but they are all positive freedom. Therefore, it is incorrect that Berlin suggested that state should not promote the positive freedom and only keep the negative freedom . He ignored the importance of positive freedom, as the freedom that people wanted to obtain it directly is always a positive freedom, these freedoms help people to carry their life. Negative freedom should only be used to guarantee or protect the positive freedom. If there is no positive freedom, negative freedom will lose its meaning. The goal of freedom is the positive freedom; negative freedom is just a rational agreement, which provides a limit upon positive liberty. It can be seen that the negative freedom itself is hollow; its only content is to guarantee rational strategy of positive freedom. In the conclusion, Berlin’s theory was against positive freedom, and mainly it was directly against the positive freedom of Marxism. He stated that the positive freedom of Marxism will lead to a totalitarian society, which will vanish individual freedom. However, we cannot just focus on negative liberty and ignore positive liberty, and vice versa .We need to link them together, use the negative freedom as the premise, then we could carry out various positive measures to protect the negative freedom. Therefore, if the positive freedom implemented without negative freedom, it will fall into compulsion or tyranny as Berlin said. However if the negative freedom does not involve positive freedom, it will become weak and fragile, as such freedom cannot maintain a long time by itself. So if a state wants to achieve a good level of development, only negative freedom is inadequacy. Hence the state needs to promote the positive freedom, as it has its own unique value, which also made a certain contribution to the society. Reference: Heywood,A.,(2004).Political Theory: An Introduction .3rd Edition Berlin, I., (1969). Four Essays on Liberty,Oxford: Oxford University Press Matravers, D., Pike, J., Warburton, N. (2000). Reading Political Philosophy: Machiavelli to Mill.P231 Fromm,E.,(1941). Escape from Freedom. Inc., New York Fromm,E., (1942). The Fear of Freedom. Inc., Great Britain Taylor, C., (1979). Whats wrong with Negative Liberty, in D. Miller (ed.) (1991), Liberty. P141-162

Little Woman, Small World Essay -- Literature

In a small world, there is not much choice for a simple woman. Throughout history, women often are portrayed as the weaker sex. As a result of this assumption, women try to disassociate themselves from this custom and be more independent with their lives. One of John Steinbeck’s most accomplished short stories is, â€Å"The Chrysanthemums,† a story of an unhappy marriage of Elisa that takes place in the Salinas Valley of California. Elisa is coerced into a meager existence on her husband’s ranch. Particularly for Elisa, the world is as small as it appears, and she does not want to be a part in it any longer. She is feeling trapped in a life of servitude and suppressing a yearning for more. Therefore, Elisa takes a bold step towards her own providence. â€Å"The Chrysanthemums,† is a coming of age tale for a woman and a wife named Elisa who is portrayed as feminine, subservient, and conservative, though the reality is that she is instead a masculine, frustr ated, and sensual woman who wants more out of life than Henry offers her. Therefore, her portrayal shows her dissatisfaction in her marriage. Several times throughout the story, Elisa’s portrayal shows her masculine gender role that that leads to her dissatisfaction in her life. Elisa’s strength is almost to the point of masculinity. For example, Elisa is described in the story as powerful, handsome, strong, eager, and lean (Diyanni 460). Elisa could easily be mistaken for a man on the way she dresses up. She wears manly clothes and could be mistaken as a man from the distance. The way she looks and dresses up, she feels limited and underappreciated as a woman which adds to her dissatisfaction. In addition, according to Elizabeth McMahan, one of the critics from short story criticism, s... ...d As Met.† Short Stories for Study, Harvard University Pres pp.115-52. McMahan, Elizabeth E. Short Story Criticism. Vol. 2. Ed. David Segal. Second ed. United Kingdom: Gale Research International Limited, 1992. 214-16. Print. Palmerino, Gregory J. â€Å"Steinbeck’s ‘The Chrysanthemums’.† The Explicator 62.3 (2004): 164+.Literature Resource Center. Web. 6 March. 2012. Masterplots. The Chrysanthemums. The Big Sky-The Confidential Clerk. Vol. 2. Ed. Laurence W. Mazenno. Fourth ed. Pasadena, California: Salem Press, 1949. 1011-12. Print. Schultz, Jeffrey, and Luchen Li. Critical Companion to John Steinbeck A Literary Reference to His Life and Work. New York: Checkmark Books, 2005. 50-52. Print. Steinbeck, John. "The Chrysanthemums." Literature Approaches to Fiction, Poetry, and Drama. Ed. Robert DiYanni. Second ed. Boston: New York University, 2008. 459-66. Print.

Essay --

Comparison Matrix Paper Chloe Dixon Grand Canyon University LDR2: Progression in Leadership Thought February 12, 2014 Introduction When analyzing transformational leadership, it is important to determine the fairness of a leader in an organizational setting. The article, â€Å"Are transformational leaders fair? A multi-level study of transformational leadership, justice perceptions, and organizational citizenship behaviors† (2010) by Cho and Dansereau focused on discovering the mental process that motivated the association between transformational leadership and individual and group-level multifocal managerial social responsibility behaviors. In â€Å"The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership Followers’ Perceptions of Fairness,† (2012) by Bacha and Walker, the focus shifted to study the relationship between transformational leadership and the employee’s discernment of fairness from the leader, whether it was distributive, procedural, and interactional in French firms. The connection between the two articles is their focus on transformational leadership and the relationsh ip between the follower’s perceptions of the leader. Cho and Dansereau (2010) determined their study was important to conclude how followers, individual and group-level, perceived transformational leaders. Bacha and Walker (2012) determined the procedures and interactions the leaders had with the employees were intensely acquainted with transformational leadership. Both articles presented their case for their research questions, validating their studies. Research Questions Although the articles shared similarities, each had their own disposition delineated by their research questions. Cho and Dansereau (2010) developed four research qu... ...rming relationships with employees was made clear by being efficient and fair to preserve and inspire their workforce. These results can be further studied in a dissertation that is duplicated in a different culture to test the consistency of its findings. Using the information from these two studies, it is clear that transformational leaders behaviors have an impact on their follower’s perception (Bacha and Walker, 2012; Cho and Dansereau, 2010). References Bacha, E., & Walker, S. (2013). The Relationship Between Transformational Leadership and Followers' Perceptions of Fairness. Journal Of Business Ethics, 116(3), 667-680. Cho, J., & Dansereau, F. (2010). Are transformational leaders fair? A multi-level study of transformational leadership, justice perceptions, and organizational citizenship behaviors. Leadership Quarterly, 21(3), 409-421.

Research on Work-Family Balance Essay

Introduction The mastering of a foreign language opens the roads for the transit of citizens whether for work, business, or tourism purposes, as well as for cultural and informational exchanges of all kinds. In this light, the status of English as a global language in politics, economics, education and the media, especially the Internet, is widely acknowledged. Typically, ESP has functioned to help language learners cope with the features of language or to develop the competences needed to function in a discipline, profession, or workplace.(Helen. Basturkman. 2006:6) Learning, as a language based activity, is fundamentally and profoundly dependent on vocabulary knowledge. Learners must have access to the meanings of words which is technical, related to their subject matter. †¦knowing the technical terms†¦is not a sufficient condition for successful reading of specialized material. It was, in fact, the non-technical terms which created more of a problem. (Cohen et al. 1988:162) For many people vocabulary, particularly specialist vocabulary (or terminology), is a key element of ESP. Despite this, vocabulary studies and, in particular, the teaching of vocabulary appear to have been somewhat neglected in ESP( Laufer p-167, Swales p224). Reading, for students of English for specific purposes (ESP), is probably the most important skill in terms of acquiring new knowledge. It does, however, often pose learning problems, especially with respect to vocabulary. The psycholinguistic model of reading widely favoured in linguistics and cognitive psychology in the 1960s and 1970s considered that the main constructs underlying reading are making predictions and deducing meaning from context (cf.Goodman 1976:127). However, during the 1980s, the interactive approach to reading became dominant, in which it was proposed that successful comprehension is achieved by the interactive use of two reading strategies: the top-down approach (i.e. making use of the readers’ previous knowledge, expectations and experience in reading the text) and the bottom-up approach(i.e. understa nding a text mainly by analyzing the words and sentences in the text itself: cf. Sanford &Garrod 1981; Van Dijk&Kintsch 1983; Carrell 1988. Research in ESP reading (e.gSelinker& Trimble 1974; Cohen et al. 1988) provides empirical support for the interactive framework, finding morphonographemic word-processing skills to be a major component of reading. It has also, since the 1980s, been broadly agreed among researchers (cf. Kennedy & Bolitho 1984; Trimble 1985; Cohen et al. 1988) that for non-native ESP readers the most problematic element in comprehending scientific and technical (ST) texts is a set of vocabulary items that has been variously labeled technical and semi-technical. Whatever the name given to the words in this group, if they appear to hinder students of ESP in comprehending texts in their discipline, it is worthwhile for language teachers and ESP practitioners to seek ways in which learners’ lexical repertoires can be raised to at least the threshold level of skilled readership in their chosen fields. It is known to most second language learners that the acquisition of vocabulary is a fundamental and important component in the course of their learning. A good mastery of vocabulary is essential for ESP/EFL learners, especially for those who learn for specific purpose or expect to operate at an advanced level in English. ‘It is wise to direct vocabulary learning to more specialized areas when learners have mastered the 2000-3000 words of general usefulness in English’ (Nation, 2001:187). I will identify the types of vocabulary in ESP texts and their relative importance. I will provide an overview of some key issues relating to the teaching of ESP vocabulary. Types of vocabulary In teaching and learning vocabulary, it’s essential to distinguish between different types of vocabulary because different types of vocabulary need different focus and treatment or some types of vocabulary will be given priorities and emphases in teaching and learning according to leaners’ different aims of learning. 1. Core and non-core vocabulary One way of looking at the status of words in lexical fields is to consider whether some words are more core, or central to the language, than others. The idea that there might be a core or basic vocabulary of words at the heart of any language is quite an appealing one to language educators, for if we could isolate that vocabulary then we could equip learners with a survival kit of core words that they could use in virtually any situation, whether spoken or written, formal or informal, or any situation where an absolutely precise term, might be elusive and where a core word would do. (McCarthy.1990:49) As the word ‘core’ suggests, core vocabulary refers to those words that are more central to the language than other words and tend to be the most frequently occurring ones. ‘People prefer to use such words because they do have core meaning-potential’ (McCarthy, 1990). They are thought to be more ‘core’ because it is easy to find an antonym, also t hey are neutral in formality and usable in a wide variety of situations. Furthermore, an important point is that such words can be used to paraphrase or give definitions of other words. For example, (McCarthy, 1990) the following instruction is given : [decide which is the core word in the set of words: slim, slender, thin, emaciated and scrawny and we can easily figure out that ‘thin’ is the core word] Core vocabulary: words of neutral meaning in any lexical set; core words collocate more readily with a wide range of words, they may be used in a wider range of registers, and are usually involved in the definition of non-core members of their set. In ESP teaching, we may come across subject-specific vocabulary, which is non-core as far as the language as a whole is concerned. ‘This is because it is not neutral in field and is associated with a specialized topic’ (Carter, 1988:172).They are subject-specific core vocabulary; conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone, limestone and dolomite, gypsum, phosphate, iron, oxide, crude oil, hydrocarbons-compounds, hydrogen, sulpher, oxygen and nitrogen, gaseous fuels, methane, synthetics, fossil fuels, igne ous rocks, metamorphic rocks. In fact that the need of ESP students is to learn such above mentioned core vocabulary in written and spoken language in their profession, ESP students with specific and academic purpose may need to acquire technical and semi-technical words in their specialist texts which are in need for them to learn and use it in speech and writing documents. Specialist vocabulary can be core in the job establishment where specialist use it frequently and in need, as well as during the ESP classes where ESP teacher and student’ fruitful interaction and it is very central for communication, especially, writing documentations where specialist uses core-specialist vocabulary as well as ESP student may learn that core vocabulary in texts which are full of technical and semi-technical vocabulary and which is central to learning. 2. Spoken and written vocabulary The spoken text is an example of what Ure(1971) calls ‘language-in-action’, that is , people are using language as an accompaniment to the action they are engaged in, and the feeling of lightness or heaviness of vocabulary is what Ure calls ‘lexical density’(McCarthy:1990:71) The written text is less dependent on physical context and its words make specific reference to items in the situation. Speaking versus writing is one important dimension affecting lexical density, but some spoken modes(e.g. oral narrative, or a formal lecture) might be lexically quite dense.(McCarthy.1990:71) Although most of the existing literature on vocabulary has grown out of the study of written texts. spoken texts seem less ‘dense’ than the most written texts in vocabulary items, which is characterized in language-in –action texts; repetition and lexical negotiation occur much more often in spoken discourse than in written texts; vague and rather general words are more frequently used in everyday talk than in written texts. Spoken vocabulary is what we got from written vocabulary to use orally, by contrast we can’t use full written information in speech as well as possible, there are a lot of written information in the past and in the present, for using significant ideas, at first, we should consider which is more available and more demanding for job and for daily life to use. ESP students who study the written texts, based on technical and semi-technical vocabulary, consequently, will product spoken vocabulary which is resulted from the information of written vocabulary. That’s why spoken and written vocabulary is essential in ESP courses. 3. Procedural vocabulary Vocabulary used to explain other words, to structure and organize their meaning. Procedural Vocabulary consists of words with a high indexical potential, which means that they can be interpreted in a wide range of ways. Identifying items in the lexicon that seem to carry a heavy work-load(e.g. the core vocabulary) must include a consideration of how some words are characteristically used to talk about other words, to paraphrase them and define them and to organize them in communication. Widdowson(1983) describes this kind of vocabulary as ‘procedural’. Robinson (1988) refers to ‘this simple lexis of paraphrase and explanation’ to illustrate procedural vocabulary and calls the procedural words ‘the main element in our interpretation and categorization of specific frames of reference’:Ver-mic-u-lite-type of Mica that is a very light material made up of threadlike parts, that can be used for keeping heat inside buildings, growing seeds in, etc.(McC arthy.1990:51) We need sense (relations between words) and denotation (relations between words and the world) in conjunction. However, learners at all levels will need to confront the procedural lexicon of the language they are learning (McCarthy.1990:52) Widdowson (1983:92) makes a distinction between words which are schematically bound and words of high indexical (or procedural –they are synonymous) potential. The schematically bound words narrow the frames of reference and identify particular fields; ‘hydrometer’ has low indexical potential and will occur in a narrow range of texts identifiable within certain scientific and technical fields (McCarthy.1990:51) Procedural vocabulary is characteristically used to talk about, paraphrase, define and organize words in communication. They are commonly used in dictionaries to give definitions. Students of Petroleum engineering may find them useful when learning other words for the accumulation of their vocabulary. It is true that students are required procedural vocabulary that helps them understand the technical vocabulary used in the process of establishing word meaning. The important role of procedural vocabulary lies, therefore, in the assumption that meaning is not static, but can be negotiated through interaction between participants hence, demanding when? and why? Because of unknown technical and semi-technical vocabulary, which is quite complicated to understand, and is the main tool in the texts to apprehend their own specialty. ESP teachers should give definitions by using procedural vocabulary, which may give a specific description of the word. On the other hand, to use procedural vocabulary, ESP students need to know, approximately 2000 vocabulary words. After having gained them, students are able to define the technical and semi-technical vocabularies which are very complicated to comprehend and to predict. However, with the help of procedural vocabulary use, I believe that ESP teachers, after having used the procedural vocabulary, could give the exact definition of the unknown word. Consequently, ESP students may guess what it is in L1. That’s why the use of procedural vocabulary is essential in ESP classes. 4.Technical and semi-technical vocabulary Many ESP teachers have found that vocabulary can be one of the major problems that effect students’ understanding of scientific and technical texts. According to Kennedy & Bolitho (1984), Trimble(1985) and Nation (1990), the difficulty lies not with technical vocabulary as such but, as Cohen et al. (1988: 153) put it: †¦even students with mastery over the technical terms become so frustrated in reading technical English that they seek native-language summaries of the English texts, or native-language books covering roughly the same material, or do not read the material at all, but concentrate rather on taking verbatim lecture notes. ESP students generally find their difficulties in reading Petroleum engineering texts because of not knowing technical and semi-technical vocabulary in L2, and this does indeed appear to be one of their major problems in comprehending texts of their subject area, especially during second and third years of study. Many of the problems that the students encounter in using English are related to comprehension, and are caused by their limited knowledge of vocabulary, including crucially, a lack of awareness of polysemy. Increasingly researchers have favoured the view that such an area of vocabulary creates significant barriers to students’ understanding of (ST) texts, but the discussion has been complicated by the use of several different terms for what appears to be the same intermediate-level area of difficulty, for which commentators such as Cowan (1974), Robinson (1980), Trimble(1985) and Tong(1993a, 1993b) use the term sub-technical vocabulary, while others use non-technical with or without (cf. Barber 1962; Nation 1990; Tao 1994), and still others use semi-technical (St John & Dudley-Evans 1980; Farrell 1990; McArthur 1996b). We cannot teach our scientific and technical students the whole of the scientific vocabulary: this is beyond the capacity of any individual. Nor do we normally want to teach them the specialized technical terms of their own subject†¦.what the English teacher can usually hope to do is to teach a vocabulary which is generally useful to students of science and technology-words that occur frequently in scientific and technical literature of different types. Some of these words will be technical ones, but many will not. The real justification for having highly specialized texts is to achieve face validity. Learners may be more motivated by them, because they make the language seem more relevant. But learners can be fickle. And if the use of such texts makes work in the classroom difficult, learners will soon lose their liking for such texts (Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters.1995:162) Coxed and Nation(2001) categorize vocabulary for teaching and learning into four groups of words: high frequency words, academic vocabulary, technical vocabulary, and low frequency vocabulary. They argue: ‘when learners have mastered control of the 2,000 words of general usefulness in English, it is wise to direct vocabulary learning to more specialized areas depending on the aims of the learners’ (p. 252-253).( Helen. Basturkemn.2006:17). According to Bloor and Bloor(1986), teaching a specific variety of English (ESP) can start at any level including beginners. Moreover, learning from the specific variety of English ( for example, English for doctors, English for hospitality), is highly effective as learners acquire structures in relation to the range of meanings in which they are used in their academic, workplace, or professional environments (Helen. Basturkmen. 2006:17) Sager(p-98) writes: terminology is an applicable field of study concerned with the creation, collection and ordering of the vocabulary of special languages†¦..this work is carried out by relatively few people for the benefit of all users of special languages. Sager notes the assumption that specialized communication can be made more effective If terms are formed according to certain prevailing patterns which have a predictive value. Alber-De Wolf( p-167) suggests that a good knowledge of term-formation processes improves the reading skills necessary for reading foreign LSP but most work in terminology is aimed not at teachers but at translators and, increasingly, at machine translation and the development of term banks( Ross, Thomas). Sager makes the important observation that terminology is not so fixed as might be supposed. (Pauline Robinson. 1991:27) Voracek compares terminology across the natural sciences and social sciences. He suggests that because political terminology can never be emotionally neutral, it can be hardly accurate and unambiguous and it will always cause problems for translators and interpreters. Economic terms, while emotionally neutral, also cause problems of translation across economic systems (Pauline Robinson.1991:27). In fact, technical terms which are used only in a specialized field are sometimes less troublesome than vocabulary that looks familiar. Students recognize the need to find meanings for technical terms, and most dictionaries define them. On the other hand, students assume they already know the meaning of an ordinary word, so they do not try to find a specialized meaning for it (Virginia French Allen.1983:88). Technical vocabulary is words or phrases that are used primarily in a specific line of work or profession. Similarly, engineer of petroleum engineering field needs to know technical words such as organic decay, conglomerates, clay schist , siltstone, limestone, dolomite, gypsum, phosphate, iron, oxide, crude oil, hydrocarbons-compounds, hydrogen, sulpher, oxygen and nitrogen, gaseous fuels, methane, synthetics, fossil fuels, igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks and may acquire technical and semi-technical vocabulary in the Petroleum engineering texts where they come across frequently, and words which most people outside of that industry never use. In terms of language content, there is little reason why , say, a Biology text should be more useful to a Biology than, say, a Physics text. There is no grammatical structure, function or discourse structure that can be identified specifically with Biology or any particular subject. Such things are product of the communicative situation (lecture, conversation, experiment, instructions) and the level (engineer, technician, manager, mechanic, university)there are only two ways in which the subject has any kind of influence on the language content We can distinguish four types of vocabulary: -structural: are, this, only, however; -general: table, run, dog, road, weather, cause; -sub-technical: engine, spring, valve, acid, budged; -technical: auricle, schist some, fissure, electrophoresis. Technical vocabulary was used far less frequently than the non-technical. These technical terms are also likely to pose the least problems for learners: they are often internationally used or can be worked out from knowledge of the subject matter and common root. (Tom Hutchinson and Alan Waters.1995:166) Comprehension in the ESP classroom is often more difficult than in real life, because texts are taken in isolation. In the outside world a text would normally appear in a context, which provides reference points to assist understanding (Tom Hutchinson and Waters.1995:16) In terms of teaching in ESP, it is most important to make a distinction between the two types of vocabulary: technical and semi-technical because they are of great importance for learners to study English for specific purposes and academic purposes. Baker(1988) lists six categories of vocabulary, all of which relate to EAP. They are: 1. Items which express notions general to all specialized disciplines; 2. General language items that have a specialized meaning in one or more disciplines; 3. Specialized items that have different meanings in different disciplines; 4. General language items that have restricted meanings in different disciplines; 5. General language items that are used to describe or comment on technical processes or functions in preference to other items with the same meaning, for example occur rather than happen. 6. Items used to signal the writer’s intentions or evaluation of material presented (Dudley-Evans and St John. 1998:83). Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:83) suggest resolving the overlapping six categories (Baker, 1988:91) into two broad areas: A) Vocabulary that is used in general language but has a higher frequency of occurrence in specific and technical description and discussion. B) Vocabulary that has specialized and restricted meanings in certain disciplines and which may vary in meaning across discipline. It is quite clear that the first area would be referred to as semi-technical and the second area would be regarded as technical vocabulary. We can examine the following text to illustrate the difference among them below. Some extracts are taken from the texts of Petroleum engineering field, to analyze which is technical and semi-technical and what students of this area study during the class and what kind of information a ESP teacher should provide within the class. These texts are central in the heart of learning and there is a need, lack, desire of students to be competent with. In the second and third year courses, students of the Petroleum engineering field, in Karshi Engineering-Economics institute, the faculty of Oil and Gas, in Karshi, Uzbekistan, study this specialty in English during English classes. How may we inform them about the specific knowledge of their profession if we are not subject matter teachers? We are English language teachers who did not study the specialty of these students at all. Consequently, only the job for us to do is to teach these texts, which are written in English and specially contain technical and semi-technical vocabulary. 1. The thickness of the layers of sedimentary rocks may vary greatly from place to place. They can be formed by the mechanical action of water, wind, frost and organic decay. Such sedimentary as gravel, sand, and clay at the beginning and conglomerates, sandstones and clay schists later are the result of the accumulation of materials achieved by the destructive mechanical action of water and wind (extract from the text ‘Sedimentary Rocks’ M.Ya. Barakova.1977:74-75) 2.The most principal kinds of sedimentary rocks are conglomerate, sandstone, siltstone, limestone and dolomite. Many other kinds with large practical value include common salt, gypsum, phosphate, iron oxide and coal (extract from the text ‘Sedimentary Rocks’ M.Ya. Barakova.1977:74-75) 3. Fossils are usually found in sedimentary rocks, although, sometimes they may be found in igneous and metamorphic rocks as well. They are most abundant in mudstone, shale and limestone, but also found in sandstone, dolomite and conglomerates (extract from the text ‘Fossil Fuels’ M. Ya. Barakova.1977: 108-109) 4. Liquid fuels are derived almost from petroleum. In general, natural petroleum, or crude oil, as it is widely known, is the basis of practically all industrial fuels. Petroleum is a mixture of hundreds of different hydrocarbons-compounds composed of hydrogen and carbon together with the small amount of other elements such as sulphur, oxygen and nitrogen. Petroleum is associated with water and natural gas(extract from the text ‘Fossil Fuels’ M. Ya. Barakova.1977:108-109) 5. Of gaseous fuels the most important are those derived from natural gas, chiefly methane or petroleum. Using gaseous fuels makes it possible to obtain high thermal efficiency, ease of distribution and control. Today, gas is widely utilized in the home and as a raw material for producing synthetics. (extract from the text ‘Fossil Fuels) (extract from the text ‘Fossil Fuels’ M. Ya. Barakova.1977:108-109) The technical vocabulary is quite obvious. The items are: organic decay, conglomerates, clay schist , siltstone, limestone, dolomite, gypsum, phosphate, iron, oxide, crude oil, hydrocarbons-compounds, hydrogen, sulpher, oxygen and nitrogen, gaseous fuels, methane, synthetics, fossil fuels, igneous rocks, metamorphic rocks, and etc. The semi-technical vocabulary items are as follows: mechanical action, liquid fuels, petroleum, industrial fuels, natural gas, raw material, layers, abundant, accumulation, destructive and chiefly, ease of distribution and control etc. As every specialist has their own specific vocabulary to use in speech and writing, the technical and semi-technical vocabulary is also the main source for Petroleum engineering students to go through. In fact, to succeed in comprehending the written vocabulary and spoken language in this area, ESP students should have access to these technical texts where they can find a way to know about this specialty in English. Technical and semi-technical vocabulary is the main instrument for survival in this area of study. As we can see from above, learners who will do academic study in English must focus on academic vocabulary which is variously known as ‘general useful scientific vocabulary’ (Barber, 1962) and semi-technical vocabulary (Farrell, 1990), because they need to exhibit a wide range of academic skills like reading about research papers in their own fields, listening to teachers speak about their work, writing academic papers and presenting oral or written evaluations of methods or results in many cases, or writing documentations of the industrial company where the learner may use technical words , which is very needful , and use it for communication with foreign company by doing export or import business. Technical and semi-technical vocabulary, which is used in this text, may not be occurred in the texts of other fields of study, for example, medicine, business, but it can occur in other parts of engineering areas. We may use general vocabulary in all fields of study where technical and semi-technical vocabularies of petroleum engineering field occur. With its importance shown above, technical vocabulary or semi-technical vocabulary should be given priority in teaching by ESP teachers because, according to Dudley-Evans and St John (1998:83), this type of vocabulary is used in general life contexts but has a higher frequency of occurrence in scientific and technical descriptions and discussions, especially in their specific field and conferences, meetings referring to specialty. ESP teachers should teach learners general vocabulary as well as technical vocabulary that has a higher frequency in a scientific field such as: -general: thickness, place, wind, frost, value, common, and etc. -petroleum engineering: organic decay, conglomerates, siltstone, limestone, dolomite, gypsum, phosphate, iron, oxide, crude oil, hydrocarbons-compounds, sulpher, oxygen and nitrogen, gaseous fuels, methane, synthetics and etc. -verbs: vary, achieve, found, form, derive from, include, compose, associate, obtain, utilize, produce. -collocations: destructive mechanical action, organic decay, accumulation of materials, hydrocarbons-compounds, associate with. The issue of teaching technical vocabulary It is often claimed that it is not the job of the ESP teachers to teach technical vocabulary (Barber, 1964; Higgens, 1966; Cowan, 1974). In general, we agree it is not but it may be the duty of ESP teachers to teach vocabulary in certain circumstances. Beyond the duty of ESP teacher In discussing the teaching of ESP it has often been said (Hutchinson and Waters, 1987; Higgins, 1966)that the teaching technical vocabulary is not the responsibility of the EAP teacher and that priority should be given to the teaching of ‘semi-technical’ or ‘core vocabulary’. The technical vocabulary is rather more complicated than the simple notion that the ESP teacher should not touch it. While in general we agree that it should not be the responsibility of the ESP teacher to teach technical vocabulary, in certain specific contexts it may be the duty of the ESP teacher to check that learners have understood technical vocabulary appearing as carrier content for an exercise. It may also be necessary to ensure that learners have understood technical language presented by a subject specialist or assumed to be known by a subject specialist (Dudley-Evans and St John. 1998:81) In any ESP exercise which exploits a particular context, that context will use certain technical vocabulary. It is important that both the teacher and the learners appreciate that this vocabulary is acting as carrier content for an exercise, and is not the real content of the exercise. However, students usually need to be able to understand the technical vocabulary in order to do exercise (Dudley-Evans and St John. 1998:81) How do we deal with this technical vocabulary? In some circumstances a term will be cognate with the equivalent term in the students’ first language and will not therefore cause difficulty. If the term is not cognate and is unfamiliar, then it may need to be introduced and explained before the exercise is tackled. In many cases there is a one-to-one relationship between the terms in English and the learners’ L1 and so it will be enough to translate the term into the L1 after a brief explanation (Dudley-Evans and St John. 1998:81) A technical word is one that is recognizably specific to a particular topic, field or discipline. It is likely that they can only be learned and understood by studying the field. Such words are considered to be the responsibility of the subject teachers. Strevens (1973:223) claims ‘that learners who know the scientific field may have little difficulty with technical words; but a teacher who may not have a great deal. We can examine the examples in the given text. Technical words like organic decay, sedimentary, igneous, metamorphic rocks, limestone, clay schist, methane and others are specialized words in the field of petroleum engineering, which may be quite easy for a student in L1, who studies the petroleum engineering. However, it is a different matter for ESP teachers. There are some other technical words that are quite familiar to learners even if learners are not studying the specific discipline to which the technical words belong because the words are widely, even internationally, known. Some very frequently occurring words in computer science, such as browser, program, log, hypertext and internet, are quite familiar to learners and these technical words have a high frequency occurrence in the texts of computer sciences and in information. The English teacher is an ideal informant, who may inform the students of the petroleum engineering field with the information of their profession in L2 for non-native speakers. Even if it is the beyond of his/her duty, the English teacher should certainly explain the technical and semi-technical words in L1 or in L2 for successful learning. As a matter of fact that English teacher teaches texts, which are full of technical and semi-technical vocabulary. That’s why ESP teacher should know the subject matter in L1 and in L2, if not, not be able to teach the students of petroleum engineering field because of not knowing specialist knowledge. Furthermore, even he/she can’t translate the text. As a result, no well-designed teaching will be done. A teacher of General English may not know the technical and semi-technical words because she/he is not a specialist of this area. For example, the English teacher who teaches medical students should know the medical terminology. If she/he does not know the technical vocabulary relating to medicine, how can she/he help the translation of meaning of medical treatments or drugs which is being manufactured in Foreign country, most medicine production instruction is written and explained, given information about medical drugs, and available devices in English. That’ why the role of Technical and semi-technical vocabulary is not only valuable in the Petroleum engineering field, but also important in other fields of study. The ESP teacher should corporate with subject matter teacher in order to know subject matter for successful teaching. Which vocabulary type should the ESP teacher teach? According to Hutchinson and Waters, (1987) ESP should be seen as an approach to language teaching, which is directed by specific and apparent reasons for learning. The main of their vocabulary acquisition is surely academic vocabulary and they mainly learn technical and semi-technical vocabulary of their specialty in texts, which are main support for learning their specific field through unfamiliar words. The text is an informant where has full of special information for learners’ desire, and learners try to predict what the word is about with his/her specific background knowledge and define the word. Nowadays, a lot of Educational grant programmes demand English knowledge as well as with specific disciplines, where learners study subject matter in English. That’s why learner, who is willing to study in European or US, Foreign universities and desires to make a progress in profession, consequently, needs to learn technical vocabulary. Learning technical and semi-technic al vocabulary is the most essential need for such desire, and teaching technical and semi-technical vocabulary is more demanding. Learnability Ease or difficult in the learnability of vocabulary is not unconnected with the notion of frequency, since the most frequent words will probably be absorbed and learnt simply because they occur regularly. But words may be easy or difficult for a variety of other reasons, and may need special attention or focus in teaching. 1. Words may present spelling difficulties. Even native speakers of English have difficulty remembering whether single or double consonants appear in words like ‘occurrence’, ‘parallel’, and ‘beginning’. Languages with more regular spelling patterns present fewer difficulties of this kind. 2. Words may present phonological difficulties, either because they contain awkward clusters of sounds ( English ‘thrive’, ‘crisps’), or because spelling interfaces with perception of what the sound is (English ‘worry’ is regularly pronounced by learners as if it rhymed with ‘sorry’). Such words may be effectively learned in all other respects, but pronunciation may remain a long-term difficulty, especially where old habits are ingrained. 3. The syntactic properties of words often make them difficult. In English, ‘want’ presents fewer syntactic difficulties than ‘wish’, ‘want’ is followed by an infinitive and / or an object; ‘wish’ may be followed by a variety of verb patterns in ‘that’ clauses, as well as by the infinitive. 4. Words may be perceived as very close in meaning by the learner, and therefore difficult to separate one from another. ‘Make’ and ‘do’ are notorious in this respect in English. Learners of Spanish often find it difficult to separate ‘ser’ and ‘estar’, which to the English-speaker seem both to mean ‘be’. The difficulty, or lack of difficulty, a word presents may override its frequency and/or range, and decisions to bring forward or postpone the teaching of an item may be based on learnability. Published materials handle features of learnability and difficulty in different ways.p-86 (McCarthy) Difficulty and learnability cut right across the notions of frequency and range. We cannot predict that just because a word is frequent it will be learnt quickly and thoroughly or, conversely, that, because a word is infrequent, it will not be easily learnt. Technical and semi-technical vocabulary has also difficulties for pronunciation and for communication to study.

The Origins and Development Book

THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE This page intentionally left blank THE ORIGINS AND DEVELOPMENT OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE S I X T H E D I T I O N John Algeo Based on the original work of Thomas Pyles   Australia †¢ Brazil †¢ Japan †¢ Korea †¢ Mexico †¢ Singapore †¢ Spain †¢ United Kingdom †¢ United States The Origins and Development of the English Language: Sixth Edition John Algeo Publisher: Michael Rosenberg Development Editor: Joan Flaherty Assistant Editor: Megan Garvey Editorial Assistant: Rebekah MatthewsSenior Media Editor: Cara Douglass-Graff Marketing Manager: Christina Shea Marketing Communications Manager: Beth Rodio Content Project Manager: Corinna Dibble Senior Art Director: Cate Rickard Barr Production Technology Analyst: Jamie MacLachlan Senior Print Buyer: Betsy Donaghey Rights Acquisitions Manager Text: Tim Sisler Production Service: Pre-Press PMG Rights Acquisitions Manager Image: Mandy Groszko Cover Designe r: Susan Shapiro Cover Image: Kobal Collection Art Archive collection Dagli Orti Prayer with illuminated border, from c. 1480 Flemish manuscriptBook of Hours of Philippe de Conrault, The Art Archive/ Bodleian Library Oxford Compositor: Pre-Press PMG  © 2010, 2005 Wadsworth, Cengage Learning ALL RIGHTS RESERVED. No part of this work covered by the copyright herein may be reproduced, transmitted, stored, or used in any form or by any means graphic, electronic, or mechanical, including but not limited to photocopying, recording, scanning, digitizing, taping, Web distribution, information networks, or information storage and retrieval systems, except as permitted under Section 107 or 108 of the 1976United States Copyright Act, without the prior written permission of the publisher. For product information and technology assistance, contact us at Cengage Learning Academic Resource Center, 1-800-423-0563 For permission to use material from this text or product, submit all requests online at www. cengage. com/permissions. Further permissions questions can be e-mailed to [email  protected] com Library of Congress Control Number: 2008930433 ISBN-13: 978-1-4282-3145-0 ISBN-10: 1-4282-3145-5 Wadsworth 20 Channel Center Street Boston, MA 02210USA Cengage Learning products are represented in Canada by Nelson Education, Ltd. For your course and learning solutions, visit www. cengage. com. Purchase any of our products at your local college store or at our preferred online store www. ichapters. com. Printed in the United States of America 1 2 3 4 5 6 7 13 12 11 10 09 Preface The Origins and Development of the English Language, Sixth Edition, continues to focus on the facts of language rather than on any of the various contemporary theoretical approaches to the study of those facts.The presentation is that of fairly traditional grammar and philology, so as not to require students to master a new theoretical approach at the same time they are exploring the intricacies of lan guage history. The focus of the book is on the internal history of the English language: its sounds, grammar, and word stock. That linguistic history is, however, set against the social and cultural background of the changing times. The first three chapters are introductory, treating language in general as well as the pronunciation and orthography of present-day English.The succeeding central six chapters are the heart of the book, tracing the history of the language from prehistoric Indo-European days through Old English, Middle English, and early Modern English up to the present time. The final three chapters deal with vocabulary—the meaning, making, and borrowing of words. This sixth edition of a book Thomas Pyles wrote some forty-five years ago preserves the outline, emphasis, and aims of the original, as all earlier editions have. The entire book has, however, been revised for helpfulness to students and ease of reading.The major improvements of the fifth edition have be en retained. A large number of fresh changes have also been made, especially to make the presentation easier to follow. The historical information has been updated in response to evolving scholarship, new examples have been added (although effective older ones have been kept), the bibliography has been revised (including some new electronic resources in addition to print media), and the glossary has been revised for clarity and accuracy. The prose style throughout has been made more contemporary and accessible.The author hopes that such changes will help to make the book more useful for students and instructors alike. v All of the debts acknowledged in earlier editions are still gratefully acknowledged for this one. This edition has especially benefited from the critiques of the following reviewers, whose very helpful suggestions have been followed wherever feasible. James E. Doan, Nova Southeastern University Mark Alan Vinson, Crichton College Jay Ruud, University of Central Arkans as Elena Tapia, Eastern Connecticut State University J. Mark Baggett, Samford UniversityMy former doctoral student and now an admired teacher and Scholar-in-Residence at Shorter College, Carmen Acevedo Butcher, made a major contribution by suggesting improvements in the style and accuracy of the work, by providing new references for the bibliography (including electronic sources), and by reviewing the entire manuscript. My wife, Adele S. Algeo, who works with me on everything I do, has assisted at every step of the revision. Her editorial eye is nonpareil, and her support makes all work possible—and a pleasure. John Algeo vi PREFACE Contents PREFACE v chapter 1 Language and the English Language:An Introduction 1 A Definition of Language 2 Language as System 2 Grammatical Signals 3 Language as Signs 5 Language as Vocal 6 Writing and Speech 6 Gestures and Speech 8 Language as Conventional 8 Language Change 10 The Notion of Linguistic Corruption 10 Language Variation 11 Correctn ess and Acceptability 12 Language as Human 13 Theories of the Origin of Language 13 Innate Language Ability 14 Do Birds and Beasts Really Talk? 14 Language as Communication 15 Other Characteristics of Language 16 Why Study the History of English? 17 For Further Reading 18 vii chapter 2 The Sounds of Current English 20 The Organs of Speech 20Consonants of Current English 21 Vowels of Current English 25 Vowels before [r] 28 Stress 28 Unstressed Vowels 29 Kinds of Sound Change 29 Assimilation: Sounds Become More Alike 29 Dissimilation: Sounds Become Less Alike 30 Elision: Sounds Are Omitted 30 Intrusion: Sounds Are Added 31 Metathesis: Sounds Are Reordered 31 Causes of Sound Change 31 The Phoneme 32 Differing Transcriptions 33 For Further Reading 34 chapter 3 Letters and Sounds: A Brief History of Writing 35 Ideographic and Syllabic Writing 35 From Semitic Writing to the Greek Alphabet 36 The Greek Vowel and Consonant Symbols 36 The Romans Adopt the Greek Alphabet 37Later Developments of the Roman and Greek Alphabets 38 The Use of Digraphs 39 Additional Symbols 39 The History of English Writing 40 The Germanic Runes 40 The Anglo-Saxon Roman Alphabet 40 The Spelling of English Consonant Sounds 41 Stops 42 Fricatives 42 Affricates 43 Nasals 43 Liquids 43 Semivowels 43 The Spelling of English Vowel Sounds 43 Front Vowels 43 Central Vowel 44 Back Vowels 44 Diphthongs 45 Vowels plus [r] 45 viii CONTENTS Unstressed Vowels 45 Spelling Pronunciations and Pronunciation Spellings 46 Writing and History 47 For Further Reading 48 chapter 4 The Backgrounds of English 49 Indo-European Origins 50Indo-European Culture 50 The Indo-European Homeland 50 How Indo-European Was Discovered 51 Language Typology and Language Families 52 Non-Indo-European Languages 53 Main Divisions of the Indo-European Group 55 Indo-Iranian 55 Armenian and Albanian 58 Tocharian 58 Anatolian 59 Balto-Slavic 59 Hellenic 60 Italic 60 Celtic 61 Germanic 62 Cognate Words in the Indo-European Languages 63 Infl ection in the Indo-European Languages 64 Some Verb Inflections 65 Some Noun Inflections 66 Word Order in the Indo-European Languages 67 Major Changes From Indo-European to Germanic 69 First Sound Shift 71 Grimm’s Law 71 Verner’s Law 73The Sequence of the First Sound Shift 74 West Germanic Languages 74 For Further Reading 76 chapter 5 The Old English Period (449–1100) 78 Some Key Events in the Old English Period 78 History of the Anglo-Saxons 79 Britain before the English 79 The Coming of the English 79 The English in Britain 81 CONTENTS ix The First Viking Conquest 82 The Second Viking Conquest 83 The Scandinavians Become English 84 The Golden Age of Old English 84 Dialects of Old English 85 Pronunciation and Spelling 86 Vowels 86 Consonants 87 Handwriting 89 Stress 90 Vocabulary 90 The Germanic Word Stock 90 Gender in Old English 91Grammar, Concord, and Inflection 92 Inflection 92 Nouns 93 i-Umlaut 95 Modern Survivals of Case and Number 96 Modifiers 96 Demonstr atives 96 Adjectives 97 Adverbs 98 Pronouns 99 Personal Pronouns 99 Interrogative and Relative Pronouns 100 Verbs 101 Indicative Forms of Verbs 102 Subjunctive and Imperative Forms 102 Nonfinite Forms 102 Weak Verbs 103 Strong Verbs 103 Preterit-Present Verbs 104 Suppletive Verbs 105 Syntax 105 Old English Illustrated 108 For Further Reading 111 chapter 6 The Middle English Period (1100–1500) 112 Some Key Events in the Middle English Period 112 The Background of the Norman Conquest 113The Reascendancy of English 114 Foreign Influences on Vocabulary 115 Middle English Spelling 116 x CONTENTS Consonants 116 Vowels 118 The Rise of a London Standard 119 Changes in Pronunciation 122 Principal Consonant Changes 122 Middle English Vowels 123 Changes in Diphthongs 124 Lengthening and Shortening of Vowels 126 Leveling of Unstressed Vowels 127 Loss of Schwa in Final Syllables 127 Changes in Grammar 128 Reduction of Inflections 128 Loss of Grammatical Gender 129 Nouns, Pronouns, and Adj ectives 129 The Inflection of Nouns 129 Personal Pronouns 130 Demonstrative Pronouns 132 Interrogative and Relative Pronouns 133Comparative and Superlative Adjectives 133 Verbs 133 Personal Endings 134 Participles 135 Word Order 135 Middle English Illustrated 136 For Further Reading 138 chapter 7 The Early Modern English Period (1500–1800): Society, Spellings, and Sounds 139 Some Key Events in the Early Modern Period 139 The Transition from Middle to Modern English 140 Expansion of the English Vocabulary 140 Innovation of Pronunciation and Conservation of Spelling 141 The Orthography of Early Modern English 141 The Great Vowel Shift 144 Other Vowels 147 Stressed Short Vowels 147 Diphthongs 148 Quantitative Vowel Changes 149Early Modern English Consonants 149 Evidence for Early Modern Pronunciation 151 Stress 151 Scholarly Studies 151 CONTENTS xi Early Modern English Illustrated 152 Spelling 152 Pronunciation 153 For Further Reading 155 chapter 8 The Early Modern English Perio d (1500–1800): Forms, Syntax, and Usage 156 The Study of Language 157 Early Dictionaries 157 Eighteenth-Century Attitudes toward Grammar and Usage 158 Nouns 160 Irregular Plurals 161 His-Genitive 161 Group Genitive 162 Uninflected Genitive 163 Adjectives and Adverbs 163 Pronouns 164 Personal Pronouns 164 Relative and Interrogative Pronouns 168Case Forms of the Pronouns 169 Verbs 170 Classes of Strong Verbs 170 Endings for Person and Number 176 Contracted Forms 177 Expanded Verb Forms 178 Other Verbal Constructions 179 Prepositions 179 Early Modern English Further Illustrated 180 chapter 9 Late Modern English (1800–Present) 181 Some Key Events in the Late Modern Period 181 The National Varieties of English 182 Conservatism and Innovation in American English 183 National Differences in Word Choice 185 American Infiltration of the British Word Stock 186 Syntactical and Morphological Differences 187 British and American Purism 188 Dictionaries and the Facts 189National Dif ferences in Pronunciation 190 British and American Spelling 193 Variation within National Varieties 194 xii CONTENTS Kinds of Variation 194 Regional Dialects 195 Ethnic and Social Dialects 196 Stylistic Variation 198 Variation within British English 198 World English 199 Irish English 199 Indian English 201 The Essential Oneness of All English 202 For Further Reading 202 chapter 10 Words and Meanings 206 Semantics and Change of Meaning 207 Variable and Vague Meanings 208 Etymology and Meaning 208 How Meaning Changes 209 Generalization and Specialization 210 Transfer of Meaning 211 Association of Ideas 212Transfer from Other Languages 212 Sound Associations 213 Pejoration and Amelioration 213 Taboo and Euphemism 214 The Fate of Intensifying Words 217 Some Circumstances of Semantic Change 218 Vogue for Words of Learned Origin 219 Language and Semantic Marking 220 Semantic Change is Inevitable 222 For Further Reading 223 chapter 11 New Words from Old 224 Creating Words 224 Root Creatio ns 224 Echoic Words 225 Ejaculations 225 Combining Words: Compounding 227 Spelling and Pronunciation of Compounds 227 Amalgamated Compounds 229 Function and Form of Compounds 230 Combining Word Parts: Affixing 230 Affixes from Old English 230Affixes from Other Languages 232 CONTENTS xiii Voguish Affixes 233 Shortening Words 235 Clipped Forms 235 Initialisms: Alphabetisms and Acronyms 236 Apheretic and Aphetic Forms 237 Back-Formations 238 Blending Words 239 New Morphemes from Blending 239 Folk Etymology 241 Shifting Words to New Uses 242 One Part of Speech to Another 242 Common Words from Proper Names 243 Sources of New Words 245 Distribution of New Words 245 For Further Reading 246 chapter 12 Foreign Elements in the English Word Stock 247 Popular and Learned Loanwords 248 Latin and Greek Loanwords 248 Latin Influence in the Germanic Period 248Latin Words in Old English 249 Latin Words Borrowed in Middle English Times 250 Latin Words Borrowed in Modern English Times 251 Greek Loanwo rds 251 Celtic Loanwords 252 Scandinavian Loanwords 253 Old and Middle English Borrowings 253 Modern English Borrowings 254 French Loanwords 254 Middle English Borrowings 254 Later French Loanwords 256 Spanish and Portuguese Loanwords 258 Italian Loanwords 259 Germanic Loanwords 260 Loanwords from Low German 260 Loanwords from High German 261 Loanwords from the East 262 Near East 262 Iran and India 263 Far East and Australasia 264 Other Sources 265 Loanwords from African Languages 265Slavic, Hungarian, Turkish, and American Indian 266 xiv CONTENTS The Sources of Recent Loanwords 266 English Remains English 267 For Further Reading 268 Selected Bibliography 269 Glossary 281 Index of Modern English Words and Affixes 301 Index of Persons, Places, and Topics 329 CONTENTS xv This page intentionally left blank CHAPTER  ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ±Ã‚ ± Language and the 1 English Language A n Introduction The English language has had a remarkable history. When we first catch sight of it in historical records, it is the speech of some none-too-civilized tribes on the continent of Europe along the North Sea.Of course, it had a still earlier history, going back perhaps to somewhere in eastern Europe or western Asia, and long before that to origins we can only speculate about. From those murky and undistinguished beginnings, English has become the most widespread language in the world, used by more peoples for more purposes than any other language on Earth. How the English language changed from being the speech of a few small tribes to becoming the major language of the Earth—and in the process itself changed radically— is the subject of this book.Whatever language we speak—English, Chinese, Hindi, Swahili, or Arapaho— helps to define us personally and identify the community we belong to. But the fact that we can talk at all, the fact that we ha ve a language, is inextricably bound up with our humanity. To be human is to use language, and to talk is to be a person. As the biologist and author Lewis Thomas wrote: The gift of language is the single human trait that marks us all genetically, setting us apart from the rest of life. Language is, like nest-building or hive-making, the universal and biologically specific activity of human beings.We engage in it communally, compulsively, and automatically. We cannot be human without it; if we were to be separated from it our minds would die, as surely as bees lost from the hive. (Lives of a Cell 89) The language gift that is innate in us is not English or indeed any specific language. It is instead the ability to learn and to use a human language. When we say, â€Å"Bread is the staff of life,† we do not mean any particular kind of bread— whole wheat, rye, pumpernickel, French, matzo, pita, or whatever sort. We are talking instead about the kind of thing bread is, wha t all bread has in common.So also, when we say that language is the basis of our humanity, we do not mean any particular language—English, Spanish, Japanese, Tagalog, Hopi, or ASL (American Sign Language of the deaf). Rather we mean the ability to learn and 1 use any such particular language system, an ability that all human beings naturally have. This ability is language in the abstract, as distinct from any individual language system. A DEFINITION OF LANGUAGE A language is a system of conventional vocal signs by means of which human beings communicate. This definition has several important terms, each of which is examined in some detail in the following sections.Those terms are system, signs, vocal, conventional, human, and communicate. LANGUAGE AS SYSTEM Perhaps the most important word in the definition of language is system. We speak in patterns. A language is not just a collection of words, such as we find in a dictionary. It is also the rules or patterns that relate our words to one another. Every language has two levels to its system—a characteristic that is called duality of patterning. One of these levels consists of meaningful units—for example, the words and word parts such as Adam, like, -d, apple, and -s in the sentence â€Å"Adam liked apples. The other level consists of units that have no meaning in themselves, although they serve as components of the meaningful units—for example, the sounds represented by the letters a, d, and m in the word Adam. The distinction between a meaningful word (Adam) and its meaningless parts (a, d, and m) is important. Without that distinction, language as we know it would be impossible. If every meaning had to be represented by a unique, unanalyzable sound, only a few such meanings could be expressed. We have only about 35 basic sounds in English; we have hundreds of thousands of words.Duality of patterning lets us build an immensely large number of meaningful words out of only a handfu l of meaningless sounds. It is perhaps the chief characteristic that distinguishes true human language from the simpler communication systems of all nonhuman animals. The meaningless components of a language are its sound system, or phonology. The meaningful units are its lexis, or vocabulary, and its grammatical system, or morphosyntax. All have patterning. Thus, according to the sound system of Modern English, the consonant combination mb never occurs at the beginning or at the end of any word.As a matter of fact, it did occur in final position in earlier stages of our language, which is why it was necessary in the preceding statement to specify â€Å"Modern English. † Despite the complete absence of the sounds mb at the ends of English words for at least 600 years, we still insist on writing—such is the conservatism of writing habits—the b in lamb, climb, tomb, dumb, and a number of other words. But this same combination, which now occurs only medially in Eng lish (as in tremble), may well occur finally or even initially in other languages.Initial mb is indeed a part of the systems of certain African languages, as in Efik and Ibibio mbakara ‘white man,’ which became buckra in the speech of the Gullahs—black Americans living along the coastal region of Georgia and South Carolina who have preserved a number of words and structural features that their ancestors brought from Africa. It is notable that the Gullahs simplified the initial 2 chapter 1 consonant combination of this African word to conform to the pattern of English speech. The lexis or vocabulary of a language is its least systematic aspect.Grammar is sometimes defined as everything in a language that can be stated in general rules, and lexis as everything that is unpredictable. But that is not quite true. Certain combinations of words, called collocations, are more or less predictable. Mild and gentle are words of very similar meaning, but they go with differe nt nouns: â€Å"mild weather† and â€Å"gentle breeze† are somewhat more likely than the opposite combinations (â€Å"mild breeze† and â€Å"gentle weather†). A case of the flu may be severe or mild; a judgment is likely to be severe or lenient.A â€Å"mild judgment† would be a bit odd, and a â€Å"lenient case of the flu† sounds like a joke. Some collocations are so regular that they are easily predictable. In the following sentence, one word is more probable than any other in the blank: â€Å"In its narrow cage, the lion paced back and . † Although several words are possible in the blank (for example, forward or even ahead), forth is the most likely. Some combinations are completely predictable: â€Å"They ran fro. † Fro is normal in present-day English only in the expression â€Å"to and fro. † The tendency of certain words to collocate or go together is an instance of system in the vocabulary.In the grammatical syste m of English, a very large number of words take a suffix written as -s to indicate plurality or possession. In the latter case, it is a comparatively recent convention of writing to add an apostrophe. Words that can be thus modified are nouns. They fit into certain patterns in English utterances. Alcoholic, for instance, fits into the system of English in the same way as duck, dog, and horse: â€Å"Alcoholics need understanding† (compare â€Å"Ducks need water†), â€Å"An alcoholic’s perceptions are faulty† (compare â€Å"A dog’s perceptions are keen†), and the like.But that word can also modify a noun and be modified by an adverb: â€Å"an alcoholic drink,† â€Å"somewhat alcoholic,† and the like; and words that operate in the latter way are called adjectives. Alcoholic is thus either an adjective or a noun, depending on the way it functions in the system of English. The utterance â€Å"Alcoholic worries† is ambiguous b ecause our system, like all linguistic systems, is not completely foolproof. It might be either a noun followed by a verb (in a newspaper headline) or an adjective followed by a noun.To know which interpretation is correct, we need a context for the expression. That is, we need to relate it to a larger structure. Grammatical Signals The grammatical system of any language has various techniques for relating words to one another within the structure of a sentence. The following kinds of signals are especially important. †¢ Parts of speech are grammatical categories into which we can classify words. The four major ones are noun, verb, adjective, and adverb. Some words elong primarily or solely to one part of speech: child is a noun, seek is a verb, tall is an adjective, and rapidly is an adverb. Other words can function as more than one part of speech; in various meanings, last can be any of the four major parts. English speakers move words about pretty freely from one part of spe ech to another, as when we call a book that is enjoyable to read â€Å"a good read,† language and the english language 3 making a noun out of a verb. Part of knowing English is knowing how words can be shifted in that way and what the limits are to such shifting. Affixes are one or more added sounds or letters that change a word’s meaning and sometimes alter its part of speech. When an affix comes at the front of a word, it is a prefix, such as the en- in encipher, enrage, enthrone, entomb, entwine, and enwrap, which marks those words as verbs. When an affix comes at the back of a word, it is a suffix, such as the -ist in dentist, geologist, motorist, and violinist, which marks those words as nouns. English has a small number of inflectional suffixes (endings that mark distinctions of number, case, person, tense, mood, and comparison).They include the plural -s and the possessive ’s used with nouns (boys, boy’s); the third person singular present tense -s , the past tense and past participle -ed, and the present participle -ing used with verbs (aids, aided, aiding); and the comparative -er and superlative -est used with some adjectives and adverbs (slower, slowest). Inflection (the change in form of a word to mark such distinctions) may also involve internal change, as in the singular and plural noun forms man and men or the present and past verb forms sing and sang.A language that depends heavily on the use of inflections, either internal or affixed, is said to be synthetic; English used to be far more synthetic than it now is. †¢ Concord, or agreement, is an interconnection between words, especially marked by their inflections. Thus, â€Å"The bird sings† and â€Å"The birds sing† illustrate subject-verb concord. (It is just a coincidence that the singular ending of some verbs is identical in form with the plural ending of some nouns. Similarly, in â€Å"this day† both words are singular, and in â€Å"the se days† both are plural; some languages, such as Spanish, require that all modifiers agree with the nouns they modify in number, but in English only this and that change their form to show such agreement. Highly synthetic languages, such as Latin, usually have a great deal of concord; thus Latin adjectives agree with the nouns they modify in number (bonus vir ‘good man,’ boni viri ‘good men’), in gender (bona femina ‘good woman’), and in case (bonae feminae ‘good woman’s’).English once used concord more than it now does. †¢ Word order is a grammatical signal in all languages, though some languages, like English, depend more heavily on it than others do. â€Å"The man finished the job† and â€Å"The job finished the man† are sharply different in meaning, as are â€Å"He died happily† and â€Å"Happily he died. † †¢ Function words are minor parts of speech (for example, articles, au xiliaries, conjunctions, prepositions, pronouns, and certain adverbial particles) that serve as grammatical signals used with word order to serve some of the same functions as inflections.For example, in English the indirect object of a verb can be shown by either word order (â€Å"I gave the dog a bone†) or a function word (â€Å"I gave a bone to the dog†); in Latin it is shown by inflection (canis ‘the dog,’ Cani os dedi ‘To-the-dog a-bone I-gave’). A language like English whose grammar depends heavily on the use of word order and function words is said to be analytic. †¢ Prosodic signals, such as pitch, stress, and tempo, can indicate grammatical meaning. The difference between the statement â€Å"He’s here† and the question 4 chapter 1 â€Å"He’s here? † is the pitch used at the end of the sentence.The chief difference between the verb conduct and the noun conduct is that the verb has a stronger stress on i ts second syllable and the noun on its first syllable. In â€Å"He died happily† and â€Å"He died, happily,† the tempo of the last two words makes an important difference of meaning. All languages have these kinds of grammatical signals available to them, but languages differ greatly in the use they make of the various signals. And even a single language may change its use over time, as English has. LANGUAGE AS SIGNS In language, signs are what the system organizes.A sign is something that stands for something else—for example, a word like apple, which stands for the familiar fruit. But linguistic signs are not words alone; they may also be either smaller or larger than whole words. The smallest linguistic sign is the morpheme, a meaningful form that cannot be divided into smaller meaningful parts. The word apple is a single morpheme; applejack consists of two morphemes, each of which can also function independently as a word. Apples also has two morphemes, but one (-s) can occur only as part of a word. Morphemes that can be used alone as words (such as apple and jack) are called free morphemes.Those that must be combined with other morphemes to make a word (such as -s) are bound morphemes. The word reactivation has five morphemes in it (one free and four bound), as a stepby- step analysis shows: re-activation activate-ion active-ate act-ive Thus reactivation has one free morpheme (act) and four bound morphemes (re-, -ive, -ate, and -ion). A word cannot be divided into morphemes just by sounding out its syllables. Some morphemes, like apple, have more than one syllable; others, like -s, are less than a syllable. A morpheme is a form (a sequence of sounds) with a recognizable meaning.Knowing a word’s early history, or etymology, may be useful in dividing it into morphemes, but the decisive factor is the form-meaning link. A morpheme may, however, have more than one pronunciation or spelling. For example, the regular noun plural endi ng has two spellings (-s and -es) and three pronunciations (an s-sound as in backs, a z-sound as in bags, and a vowel plus z-sound as in batches). Each spoken variation is called an allomorph of the plural morpheme. Similarly, when the morpheme -ate is followed by -ion (as in activateion), the t of -ate combines with the i of -ion as the sound â€Å"sh† (so we might spell the word â€Å"activashon†).Such allomorphic variation is typical of the morphemes of English, even though the spelling does not represent it. Morphemes can also be classified as base morphemes and affixes. An affix is a bound morpheme that is added to a base morpheme, either a prefix (such as re-) or a suffix (such as -s, -ive, -ate, and -ion). Most base morphemes are free (such as language and the english language 5 apple and act), but some are bound (such as the insul- of insulate). A word that has two or more bases (such as applejack) is called a compound. A linguistic sign may be word-sized or sm aller—a free or a bound morpheme.But it may also be larger than a word. An idiom is a combination of words whose meaning cannot be predicted from its constituent parts. One kind of idiom is the combination of a verb with an adverb, a preposition, or both—for instance, turn on (a light), call up (on the telephone), take over (a business), ask for (a job), come down with (an illness), and go back on (a promise). Such an expression is a single semantic unit: to go back on is to ‘abandon’ a promise. But from the standpoint of grammar, several independent words are involved. LANGUAGE AS VOCALLanguage is a system that can be expressed in many ways—by the marks on paper or a computer screen that we call writing, by hand signals and gestures as in sign language, by colored lights or moving flags as in semaphore, and by electronic clicks as in old-fashioned telegraphy. However, the signs of language—its words and morphemes—are basically vocal, or oral-aural, being sounds produced by the mouth and received by the ear. If human communication had developed primarily as a system of gestures (like the sign language of the deaf), it would have been quite different from what it is.Because sounds follow one another sequentially in time, language has a one-dimensional quality (like the letters we use to represent it in writing), whereas gestures can fill the three dimensions of space as well as the fourth dimension of time. The ears can hear sounds coming from any direction, but the eyes can see gestures made only in front of them. The ears can hear through physical barriers, such as walls, which the eyes cannot see through. Speech has both advantages and disadvantages in comparison with gestures; but on the whole, it is undoubtedly superior, as its evolutionary survival demonstrates.Writing and Speech Because writing has become so important in our culture, we sometimes think of it as more real than speech. A little thought, howev er, will show why speech is primary and writing secondary to language. Human beings have been writing (as far as we can tell from the surviving evidence) for at least 5000 years; but they have been talking for much longer, doubtless ever since they were fully human. When writing developed, it was derived from and represented speech, albeit imperfectly (see Chapter 3). Even today there are spoken languages that have no written form.Furthermore, we learn to talk long before we learn to write; any human child without physical or mental limitations will learn to talk, and most human beings cannot be prevented from doing so. It is as though we were â€Å"programmed† to acquire language in the form of speech. On the other hand, it takes a special effort to learn to write. In the past, many intelligent and useful members of society did not acquire that skill, and even today many who speak languages with writing systems never learn to read or write, while some who learn the rudiments of those skills do so only imperfectly.To affirm the primacy of speech over writing is not, however, to disparage the latter. If speaking makes us human, writing makes us civilized. Writing has some 6 chapter 1 advantages over speech. For example, it is more permanent, thus making possible the records that any civilization must have. Writing is also capable of easily making some distinctions that speech can make only with difficulty. We can, for example, indicate certain types of pauses more clearly by the spaces that we leave between words when we write than we ordinarily are able to do when we speak.Grade A may well be heard as gray day, but there is no mistaking the one phrase for the other in writing. Similarly, the comma distinguishes â€Å"a pretty, hot day† from â€Å"a pretty hot day† more clearly than these phrases are often distinguished in actual speech. But the question mark does not distinguish between â€Å"Why did you do it? † (I didn’t he ar you the first time you told me), with rising pitch at the end, and â€Å"Why did you do it? † (You didn’t tell me), with falling terminal pitch. Nor can we show in writing the difference between sound quality ‘tone’ (as in â€Å"The sound quality of the recording was excellent†) nd sound quality ‘good grade’ (as in â€Å"The materials were of sound quality†)—a difference that we signal very easily in speech by strongly stressing sound in the first sentence and the first syllable of quality in the second. Incense ‘enrage’ and incense ‘aromatic substance for burning’ are likewise sharply differentiated in speech by the position of the stress, as sewer ‘conduit’ and sewer ‘one who sews’ are differentiated by vowel quality. In writing we can distinguish those words only in context. Words that are pronounced alike are called homophones.They may be spelled the same, such as bear ‘carry’ and bear ‘animal,’ or they may be distinguished in spelling, such as bare ‘naked’ and either of the bear words. Words that are written alike are called homographs. They may also be pronounced the same, such as the two bear words or tear ‘to rip’ and tear ‘spree’ (as in â€Å"He went on a tear†), or they may be distinguished in pronunciation, such as tear ‘a drop from the eye’ and either of the other two tear words. Homonym is a term that covers either homophones or homographs, that is, a word either pronounced or spelled like another, such as all bear/bare and tear words.Homophones are the basis of puns, as in childish jokes about â€Å"a bear behind† and â€Å"seven days without chocolate make one weak,† whose written forms resolve the ambiguity of their spoken forms. But William Shakespeare was by no means averse to this sort of thing: puns involving tale and tail, whole and hole, hoar and whore, and a good many other homophones (some, like stale and steal, no longer homophonous) occur rather frequently in the writings of our greatest poet. The conventions of writing differ somewhat from those of ordinary speech.For instance, we ordinarily write was not, do not, and would not, although we usually say wasn’t, don’t, and wouldn’t. Furthermore, our choice of words is likely to be different in writing and in everyday speech. But these are stylistic matters, as is also the fact that writing tends to be somewhat more conservative than speech. Representing the spellings of one language by those of another is transliteration, which must not be confused with translation, the interpretation of one language by another. Greek an be transliterated pyr, as in pyromaniac, or translated fire, as in firebug. One language can be written in several orthographies (or writing systems). When the president of Turkey, Mustafa Kemal Pasha (later calle d Kemal Ataturk), in 1928 substituted the Roman alphabet for the Arabic in writing Turkish, the Turkish language and the english language 7 language changed no more than time changed when he introduced the Gregorian calendar in his country to replace the Islamic lunar one used earlier. Gestures and SpeechSuch specialized gestures as the indifferent shrug of the shoulders, the admonitory shaking of the finger, the lifting up of the hand in greeting and the waving of it in parting, the widening of the eyes in astonishment, the scornful lifting of the brows, the approving nod, and the disapproving sideways shaking of the head—all these need not accompany speech at all; they themselves communicate. Indeed, there is some reason to think that gestures are older than spoken language and are the matrix out of which it developed. Like language itself, such gestures vary in use and meaning from one culture to another.In India, a sideways wagging of the head indicates that the head-wagg er understands what another person is saying. When gestures accompany speech, they may be more or less unconscious, like the crossed arms of a person talking with another, indicating a lack of openness to the other’s ideas. The study of such communicative body movements is known as kinesics. Our various tones of voice—the drawl, the sneer, the shout, the whimper, the simper, and the like—also play a part in communication (which we recognize when we say, â€Å"I didn’t mind what he said, I just didn’t like the way he said it†).The tones and gestures that accompany speech are not language, but rather parallel systems of communication called paralanguage. Other vocalizations that are communicative, like laughing, crying, groaning, and yelping, usually do not accompany speech as tones of voice do, though they may come before or after it. LANGUAGE AS CONVENTIONAL Writing is obviously conventional because we can represent the same language by more than one writing system.Japanese, for example, is written with kanji (ideographs representing whole words), with either of two syllabaries (writing systems that present each syllable with a separate symbol), or with the letters of the Roman alphabet. Similarly, we could by general agreement reform English spelling (soe dhat, for egzammpul, wee spelt it liek dhis). We can change the conventions of our writing system merely by agreeing to do so. Although it is not so obvious, speech is also conventional. To be sure, all languages share certain natural, inherent, or universal features.The human vocal apparatus (lips, teeth, tongue, and so forth) makes it inevitable that human languages have only a limited range of sounds. Likewise, since all of us live in the same universe and perceive our universe through the same senses with more or less the same basic mental equipment, it is hardly surprising that we should find it necessary to talk about more or less the same things in more or les s similar ways. Nevertheless, the world’s many languages are conventional and generally arbitrary; that is to say, there is usually no connection between the sounds we make and the phenomena of life.A comparatively small number of echoic words imitate, more or less closely, other sounds. Bow-wow seems to English speakers to 8 chapter 1 be a fairly accurate imitation of the sound made by a dog and therefore not to be wholly arbitrary, but it is highly doubtful that a dog would agree, particularly a French dog, which says gnaf-gnaf, or a German one, which says wau-wau, or a Japanese one, which says wung-wung. In Norway cows do not say â€Å"moo† but mmmooo, sheep do not say â€Å"baa† but m? , and pigs do not say â€Å"oink† but noffnoff. Norwegian hens very sensibly say klukk-klukk, though doubtless with a heavy Norwegian accent.The process of echoing such sounds (also called onomatopoeia) is conventional. Most people assume that their language is the best —and so it is for them, because they mastered it well enough for their own purposes so long ago that they cannot remember when or how. It seems to them more logical and sensible, more natural, than the way others talk. But there is nothing really natural about any language, since all these highly systematized and conventionalized methods of human communication must be acquired. There is, for instance, nothing natural in our use of is in such a sentence as â€Å"The woman is busy. The utterance can be made just as effectively without that verb, and some languages do get along perfectly well without it. This use of the verb to be was, as a matter of fact, late in developing and never developed in Russian. To the speaker of Russian it is more â€Å"natural† to say â€Å"Zhenshchina zanyata†Ã¢â‚¬â€ literally, â€Å"Woman busy†Ã¢â‚¬â€which sounds to our ears so much like baby talk that the unsophisticated speaker of English might well (though quite wrongly) conclude that Russian is a childish tongue. The system of Russian also manages to struggle along without the definite article the.As a matter of fact, the speaker of Russian never misses it—nor should we if it had not become conventional with us. To a naive speaker of English, calling the organ of sight eye may seem perfectly natural, and those who call it anything else—like the Germans, who call it Auge, the Russians, who call it glaz, or the Japanese, who call it me—are likely to be regarded as unfortunate because they do not speak languages in which things are properly named. The fact is, however, that eye, which we pronounce exactly like I (a fact that might be cited against it by a foreign speaker), is the name of the organ only in present-day English.It has not always been so. Londoners of the fourteenth century pronounced the word with two syllables, something like â€Å"ee-eh. † If we chose to go back to King Alfred’s day in the late ninth century, we would find yet another form of the word from which Modern English eye developed. The Scots are not being quaint or perverse when they say â€Å"ee† for eye, as in Robert Burns’s poem â€Å"To a Mouse†: Still thou art blest, compared wi’ me! The present only toucheth thee: But och! I backward cast my e’e, On prospects drear!The Scots form is merely a variant of the word—a perfectly legitimate pronunciation that happens not to occur in standard Modern English. Knowledge of such changes within a single language should dissipate the notion that any word is more appropriate than any other word, except in a purely chronological and social sense. language and the english language 9 Language Change Change is normal in language. Every language is constantly turning into something different, and when we hear a new word or a new pronunciation or use of an old word, we may be catching the early stages of a change.Change is natural because a language system is culturally transmitted. Like other conventional matters—such as fashions in clothing, hairstyles, cooking, entertainment, and government—language is constantly being revised. Language evolves more slowly than do some other cultural activities, but its change is continuous and inevitable. There are three general causes of language change. First, words and sounds may affect neighboring words and sounds. For example, sandwich is often pronounced, not as the spelling suggests, but in ways that might be represented as â€Å"sanwich,† â€Å"sanwidge,† â€Å"samwidge,† or even â€Å"sammidge. Such spellings look illiterate, but they represent perfectly normal, though informal, pronunciations that result from the position of a sound within the word. When nearby elements thus influence one another within the flow of speech, the result is called syntagmatic change. Second, words and sounds may be affected by others that are not immediate ly present but with which they are associated. For example, the side of a ship on which it was laden (that is, loaded) was called the ladeboard, but its opposite, starboard, influenced a change in pronunciation to larboard.Then, because larboard was likely to be confused with starboard because of their similarity of sound, it was generally replaced by port. Such change is called paradigmatic or associative change. Third, a language may change because of the influence of events in the world. New technologies like the World Wide Web require new forms like google ‘to search the Internet for information’ and wiki (as in Wikipedia) ‘a Website, database, or software for creating Web sites, especially collaborative ones,’ from the Hawaiian word for ‘fast. New forms of human behavior, however bizarre, require new terms like suicide bomber. New concepts in science require new terms like transposon ‘a transposable gene in DNA. ’ In addition, new co ntacts with persons who use speechways different from our own may affect our pronunciation, vocabulary, and even grammar. Social change thus modifies speech. The documented history of the English language begins about A. D. 700, with the oldest written records. We can reconstruct some of the prehistory before that time, to as early as about 4000 B. C. but the farther back in time we go, the less certain we can be about what the language was like. The history of our language is traditionally divided into three periods: Old English, from the earliest records (or from the Anglo-Saxon settlement of England around A. D. 450) to about 1100; Middle English, approximately from 1100 to 1500; and Modern English, since about 1500. The lines dividing the three periods are based on significant changes in the language about those times, but major cultural changes around 1100 and 1500 also contribute to our sense of new beginnings.These matters are treated in detail in Chapters 5 through 8. The No tion of Linguistic Corruption A widely held notion resulting from a misunderstanding of change is that there are ideal forms of languages, thought of as â€Å"pure,† and that existing languages represent corruptions of earlier ideal ones. Thus, the Greek spoken today is supposed to 10 chapter 1 be a degraded form of Classical Greek rather than what it really is, a development of it. Since the Romance languages are developments of Latin, it would follow from this point of view that they also are corrupt, although this assumption is not usually made.Those who admire or profess to admire Latin literature sometimes suppose that a stage of perfection had been reached in Classical Latin and that every subsequent development in Latin was an irreparable deterioration. From this point of view, the late development of Latin spoken in the early Middle Ages (sometimes called Vulgar, or popular, Latin) is â€Å"bad† Latin, which, strange as it may seem, was ultimately to become â⠂¬Å"good† Italian, French, Spanish, and so on. Because we hear so much about â€Å"pure† English, we might carefully examine this notion.When Captain Frederick Marryat, an English novelist, visited the United States in 1837–1838, he thought it â€Å"remarkable how very debased the language has become in a short period in America,† adding that â€Å"if their lower classes are more intelligible than ours, it is equally true that the higher classes do not speak the language so purely or so classically as it is spoken among the well-educated English. † Both statements are nonsense. The first is based on the captain’s apparent notion that the English language had reached a stage of perfection at the time English-speaking people first settled America.After this, presumably because of the innate depravity of those English settlers who brought their language to the New World, it had taken a steadily downward course, whatever that may mean. One wonder s also precisely how Marryat knew what constituted â€Å"classical† or â€Å"pure† English. It is probable that he was merely attributing certain superior qualities to that type of English that he was accustomed to hear from persons of good social standing in the land of his birth and that he himself spoke. Any divergence was â€Å"debased†: â€Å"My speech is pure; thine, wherein it differs from mine, is corrupt. Language Variation In addition to its change through the years, at any given period of time a language exists in many varieties. Historical, or diachronic, variation is matched by contemporary, or synchronic, variation. The latter is of two kinds: dialects and registers. A dialect is the variety of a language associated with a particular place (Boston or New Orleans), social level (standard or nonstandard), ethnic group (Jewish or African-American), sex (male or female), age grade (teenage or mature), and so on.Most of us have a normal way of using la nguage that is an intersection of such dialects and that marks us as being, for example, a middle-aged, white, cultured, female Charlestonian of old family or a young, urban, working-class, male Hispanic from New York City. Some people have more than one such dialect personality; national politicians, for example, may use a Washingtonian government dialect when they are doing their job and a â€Å"down-home† dialect when they are interacting with their voters.Ultimately, each of us has a unique, personal way of using language, an idiolect, which identifies us for those who know us. A register is the variety of a language used for a particular purpose: sermon language (which may have a distinctive rhythm and sentence melody and include words like brethren and beloved), restaurant-menu language (which is full of â€Å"tasty adjectives† like garden-fresh and succulent), telephone-conversation language (in which the speech of the secondary participant is full of uh-huh, I see, yeah, and language and the english language 11 h), postcard language (in which the subjects of sentences are frequently omitted: â€Å"Having a wonderful time. Wish you were here. †), and e-mail and instant-messaging language with abbreviations like BTDT (been there, done that), CUL8ER (see you later), CYO (see you online), and LOL (laughing out loud). Everyone uses several registers, and the more varied the circumstances under which we talk and write, the more registers we use. The dialects we speak help to define who we are. They tell those who hear us where we come from, our social or ethnic identification, and other such intimate facts about us.The registers we use reflect the circumstances in which we are communicating. They indicate where we are speaking or writing, to whom, via what medium, about what subject, and for what purpose. Dialects and registers provide options—alternative ways of using language. And those options confront us with the question of w hat is the right or best alternative. Correctness and Acceptability The concept of an absolute and unwavering, presumably God-given standard of linguistic correctness (sometimes confused with â€Å"purity†) is widespread, even among the educated.Those who subscribe to this notion become greatly exercised over such matters as split infinitives, the â€Å"incorrect† position of only, and prepositions at the ends of sentences. All these supposed â€Å"errors† have been committed time and again by eminent writers and speakers, so that one wonders how those who condemn them know that they are bad. Robert Lowth, who wrote one of the most influential English grammars of the eighteenth century (A Short Introduction to English Grammar, 1762), was praised by one of his admirers for showing â€Å"the grammatic inaccuracies that have escaped the pens of our most distinguished writers. One would suppose that the language of â€Å"our most distinguished writers† would be good usage. But Lowth and his followers knew, or thought they knew, better; and their attitude survives to this day. This is not, of course, to deny that there are standards of usage, but only to suggest that standards must be based on the usage of speakers and writers of generally acknowledged excellence—quite a different thing from a subservience to the mandates of badly informed â€Å"authorities† who are guided by their own prejudices rather than by a study of the actual usage of educated and accomplished speakers and writers.To talk about â€Å"correctness† in language implies that there is some abstract, absolute standard by which words and grammar can be judged; something is either â€Å"correct† or â€Å"incorrect†Ã¢â‚¬â€and that’s all there is to that. But the facts of language are not so clean-cut. Instead, many students of usage today prefer to talk about acceptability, that is, the degree to which users of a language will ju dge an expression as OK or will let its use pass without noticing anything out of the ordinary. An acceptable expression is one that people do not object to, indeed do not even notice unless it is called to their attention.Acceptability is not absolute, but is a matter of degree; one expression may be more or less acceptable than another. â€Å"If I were in your shoes† may be judged more acceptable than â€Å"If I was in your shoes,† but both are considerably more acceptable than â€Å"If we was in your shoes. † Moreover, acceptability is not abstract, but is related to some group of people whose response it reflects. Thus most 12 chapter 1 Americans pronounce the past-tense verb ate like eight and regard any other pronunciation as unacceptable. Many Britons, on the other hand, pronounce it as â€Å"ett† and find the American preference less acceptable.Acceptability is part of the convention of language use; in talking about it, we must always keep in min d â€Å"How acceptable? † and â€Å"To whom? † LANGUAGE AS HUMAN As noted at the beginning of this chapter, language is a specifically human activity. That statement, however, raises several questions. When and how did human beings acquire language? To what extent is language innate, and to what extent is it learned? How does human language differ from the communication systems of other creatures? We will look briefly at each of these questions.Theories of the Origin of Language The ultimate origin of language is a matter of speculation since we have no real information about it. The earliest languages for which we have records are already in a high stage of development, and the same is true of languages spoken by technologically primitive peoples. The problem of how language began has tantalized philosophical minds, and many theories have been advanced, to which waggish scholars have given such fanciful names as the pooh-pooh theory, the bow-wow theory, the ding-dong theory, and the yo-he-ho theory.The nicknames indicate how seriously the theories need be taken: they are based, respectively, on the notions that language was in the beginning ejaculatory, or echoic (onomatopoeic), or characterized by a mystic appropriateness of sound to sense in contrast to being merely imitative, or made up of grunts and groans emitted in the course of group actions. According to one theory, the early prelanguage of human beings was a mixture of gestures and sounds in which the gestures carried most of the meaning and the sounds were used chiefly to â€Å"punctuate† or amplify the gestures—just the reverse of our use of speech and hand signals.Eventually human physiology and behavior changed in several related ways. The human brain, which had been expanding in size, lateralized—that is, each half came to specialize in certain activities, and language ability was localized in the left hemisphere of most persons. As a consequence, â€Å"handed ness† developed (right-handedness for those with left-hemisphere dominance), and there was greater manual specialization. As people had more things to do with their hands, they could use them less for communication and had to rely more on sounds.Therefore, increasingly complex forms of oral signals developed, and language as we know it evolved. The fact that we human beings alone have vocal language but share with our closest animal kin (the apes) an ability to learn complex gesture systems suggests that manual signs may have preceded language as a form of communication. We cannot know how language really began; we can be sure only of its immense antiquity. However human beings started to talk, they did so long ago, and it was not until much later that they devised a system of making marks on wood, stone, or clay to represent what they said.Compared with language, writing is a newfangled invention, although certainly not less brilliant for being so. language and the english la nguage 13 Innate Language Ability The acquisition of language would seem to be an arduous task. But it is a task that children all over the world seem not to mind in the least. Moreover, children in daily contact with a language other than their â€Å"home† language—that of their parents—readily learn to speak the other language with a native accent. After childhood, however, perhaps in the teen years, most people find it difficult to learn a new language.Young children seem to be genetically equipped with an ability to acquire language. But after a while, that automatic ability atrophies, and learning a new language becomes a chore. To be sure, children of five or so have not acquired all of the words or grammatical constructions they will need as they grow up. But they have mastered the basics of the language they will speak for the rest of their lives. The immensity of that accomplishment can be appreciated by anyone who has learned a second language as an ad ult.It is clear that, although every particular language has to be learned, the ability to acquire and use language is a part of our genetic inheritance and operates most efficiently in our younger years. Do Birds and Beasts Really Talk? Some animals are physically just about as well equipped as humans to produce speech sounds, and some—certain birds, for instance—have in fact been taught to do so. But no other species makes use of a system of sounds even remotely resembling ours. Human language and animal communication are fundamentally different.In the second half of the twentieth century, a trio of chimpanzees—Sarah, Lana, and Washoe—greatly modified our ideas about the linguistic abilities of our closest relatives in the animal kingdom. After several efforts to teach chimps to talk had ended in almost total failure, it was generally concluded that apes lack the cognitive ability to learn language. Some psychologists reasoned, however, that the main pr oblem might be a simple anatomical limitation: human vocal organs are so different from the corresponding ones in apes that the animals cannot produce the sounds of human speech.If they have the mental, but not the physical, ability to talk, then they should be able to learn a language using a medium other than sound. Sarah was taught to communicate by arranging plastic tokens of arbitrary color and shape. Each of the tokens, which were metal-backed and placed on a magnetized board, represented a word in the system, and groups of tokens corresponded to sentences. Sarah learned over a hundred tokens and could manage sentences of the complexity of â€Å"Sarah take banana if-then Mary no give chocolate Sarah† (that is, ‘If Sarah takes a banana, Mary won’t give Sarah any chocolate’).Lana also used word symbols, but hers were on a typewriter connected to a computer. She communicated with people, and they with her via the computer. Typed-out messages appeared on a screen and had to conform exactly to the rules of â€Å"word† order of the system Lana had been taught, if she was to get what she asked for (food, drink, companionship, and the like). Washoe, in the most interesting of these efforts to teach animals a language, was schooled in a gesture language used by the deaf, American Sign Language. 14 chapter 1Her remarkable success in learning to communicate with this quite natural and adaptable system has resulted in its being taught to a number of other chimpanzees and gorillas. The apes learn signs, use them appropriately, combine them meaningfully, and when occasion requires even invent new signs or combinations. For example, one of the apes made up the terms â€Å"candydrink† and â€Å"drinkfruit† to talk about watermelons. The linguistic accomplishment of these apes is remarkable; nevertheless, it is a far cry from the fullness of a human language.The number of signs or tokens the ape learns, the complexity of th e syntax with which those signs are combined, and the breadth of ideas that they represent are all far more restricted than in any human language. Moreover, human linguistic systems have been fundamentally shaped by the fact that they are expressed in sound. Vocalness of language is no mere incidental characteristic but rather is central to the nature of language. We must still say that only human beings have language in the full sense of that term. LANGUAGE AS COMMUNICATIONThe purpose of language is to communicate, whether with others by