230156 The History of English (S) (SoSe 2025)

This seminar is conceived as an introduction to the history of English and will review the major periods within this field. Because the class will be based on a textbook (see below), the topics dealt with will follow that text. Each period from before the Germanic invasions of England, through the Old English, the Middle English, and the Early Modern English periods as well as the spread of English in the Modern English period puts emphasis on the socio-cultural background involved (monarchy, wars, demographic changes such as migration and its social and linguistic consequence), contact with other languages (coming from the outside to England but also taken from English to other places in the world), and change in the English language as illustrated in selections from among its many varieties. The seminar covers lexical, semantic, pragmatic, phonetic, phonological, and morphological changes; in addition, sample texts from each of the periods and geographic areas will be used to make the work more concrete.

Bibliography

Gramley, S. & V. Gramley (2024) The History of English. An Introduction, 3rd ed. London: Routledge.
or: Gramley, S. (2019) The History of English. An Introduction, 2nd ed. London: Routledge.