Course description: The medieval triglossia (English, Latin and Anglo-Norman); lexical and other types of borrowing; the manuscript tradition; the impact of medieval technology; standardization pressures from about 1400 onwards; English, the Renaissance and the Reformation; decline in status of the dialects; rise of dialect literature; language in education; social spread of English literacy; the origin of worrying about one’s English; English as an auxiliary language; and roles of English in the modern world. Students will study key texts in different varieties. These topics will be covered alongside a consideration of the nature of language change in more theoretical terms, and a consideration of some of the changes in progress in English nowadays.
