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History of the English Language, 2nd Edition

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Investigate the remarkable history of English, from the powerful prose of King Alfred in the Middle Ages to the modern-day sermons of Martin Luther King, Jr. with the Dean of Arts and Humanities at the University of California, San Diego.

Syllabus

  • 01: Introduction to the Study of Language
  • 02: The Historical Study of Language
  • 03: Indo-European and the Prehistory of English
  • 04: Reconstructing Meaning and Sound
  • 05: Historical Linguistics and Studying Culture
  • 06: The Beginnings of English
  • 07: The Old English Worldview
  • 08: Did the Normans Really Conquer English?
  • 09: What Did the Normans Do to English?
  • 10: Chaucer's English
  • 11: Dialect Representations in Middle English
  • 12: Medieval Attitudes toward Language
  • 13: The Return of English as a Standard
  • 14: The Great Vowel Shift and Modern English
  • 15: The Expanding English Vocabulary
  • 16: Early Modern English Syntax and Grammar
  • 17: Renaissance Attitudes toward Teaching English
  • 18: Shakespeare-Drama, Grammar, Pronunciation
  • 19: Shakespeare-Poetry, Sound, Sense
  • 20: The Bible in English
  • 21: Samuel Johnson and His Dictionary
  • 22: New Standards in English
  • 23: Dictionaries and Word Histories
  • 24: Values, Words, and Modernity
  • 25: The Beginnings of American English
  • 26: American Language from Webster to Mencken
  • 27: American Rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln
  • 28: The Language of the American Self
  • 29: American Regionalism
  • 30: American Dialects in Literature
  • 31: The Impact of African-American English
  • 32: An Anglophone World
  • 33: The Language of Science
  • 34: The Science of Language
  • 35: Linguistics and Politics in Language Study
  • 36: Conclusions and Provocations
  • By This Professor

Taught by

Seth Lerer

Reviews

4.5 rating at The Great Courses Plus based on 119 ratings

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