LECTURE 6 The Modern Period Varieties of English

LECTURE 6. The Modern Period. Varieties of English in Britain in the 19 th and 20 th c. The main functional divisions of the national English language, which had been formed by the 19 th c. , were its standard or literary forms and its substandard forms.

The literary language comprised a great number of varieties (or “forms of existence”). It had a Written and a Spoken Standard; within the Written Standard there developed different literary and functional styles: the belles-letters style (with further differentiation between poetry, prose and drama), official style, newspaper and publicistic style, scientific prose style. (For a detailed description of stylistic differentiation of English see Galperin I. R. STYLISTICS, M. , 1977. ) Within the Spoken Standard we can safely assume the existence of more formal or less formal, colloquial varieties which bordered on the sub-standard forms of the language. We can also posit the existence of modified local Standards used by educated people but displaying certain local colouring

Literary English found its ideal representation in the works of English authors of the 19 th c. Substandard forms of the language – local dialects and lower social dialects – were mainly used for oral communication. During the 18 th c. , when conformity to the rules of correctness and high style were looked upon as a primary merit, writers were not inclined to employ the nonprestige types of local speech.

Two varieties of English in Great Britain distinguished from Standard English – Scottish and Anglo-Irish – claimed to be literary tongues. Scottish English reemerged again into literary eminence, after a decline in the 17 th c. , in the poetry of Robert Burns (1759 -1796). The literary tradition was not given up in the 19 th c. : a series of poets employed the Scottish dialect in depicting the grievances of the common people. For the most part, however, Scottish English was used for oral intercourse by the less educated people, while a Regional Modified Standard displaced it in other functions. As elsewhere the local dialect was transformed into a social local dialect used by the lower classes.

The English language in Ireland displayed sharper differences from British English than the Scottish dialect, as for several hundred years it develop in relative isolation from the monopoly. Despite the attempts to revive the Celtic tongue, Gaelic, or Irish (which was one of the major issues in the vigorous struggle for home rule in the 19 th c. ), by 1900 a variety of English with a strong Irish accent, known as the “brogue”, had become the main language of the population.

Some authorities regard Anglo-Irish as a separate geographical variant of English possessing an independent national Standard, others treat it as a local dialect. Anglo-Irish is the official language of the Northern Ireland Eire and also the language of literature, school and universities. (In the sixties of the 20 th c. number of people speaking Irish in Ireland was about 750, 000 (the total population of Eire and Northern Ireland reaching 6 million). Celtic languages are also spoken in Wales, Scotland the Isle of Manx (over 1, 200, 00 people))

Dialectal division in England proper in the 19 th and 20 th c. was roughly the same as before since it goes back to the age of feudalism, particularly to Early ME. The dialects are distinguished by countries or shires, e. g. the dialect of Somersetshire, the Yorkshire dialect. They are usually grouped under the following main headings: the Southern dialects, subdivided into East- and West-Southern; the Midland dialects subdivided into Eastern, Central, and Western; (the term Midland is also used as an equivalent of Central); the Northern Dialects.

Geographical Expansion of the English Language from the 17 th to 19 th c. English Outside Great Britain. In the last three hundred years the English language has extended to all the continents of the world and the number of English speakers has multiplied. We may recall that in OE and early ME periods the English dialects were confined to part of the British Isles: they were spoken in what is known as England proper; from the 13 th to the 17 th c. the English language extended to the whole of the British Isles with the exception of some mountainous regions in Wales, Northern Scotland some parts of Ireland.

The number of English speaking people grew: at the end of the 11 th c. it is estimated at one and a half or two millions; by 1700 English had over 8 million speakers. In the course of two centuries of British expansion overseas, colonization and emigration to other continents, the number of English speakers increased at such a high rate that by 1900 it had reached one hundred and twenty three million.

England’s colonial expansion to the New World began in the late 16 th c. when her first colonies were set up in Newfoundland (1583). But the real start came later: in 1607 the first permanent settlements were founded in Jamestown and in 1620 the famous ship “Mayflower” brought a group of English settlers to what became known as New England.

The colonists spoke different dialects of English. In North America those dialects gradually blended into a new type of the language, American English; contacts with other languages, especially Spanish in the South and French in Canada, have played a certain role in its development.

American English was first proclaimed to be an independent language by Noah Webster (1758 – 1843), a schoolmaster form Connecticut. In his Dictionary of the English Language (1828), the first in the world-famous series of “Webster’s”, he showed the differences in vocabulary and pronunciation between the English of Britain and the English of the new independent state (after the Wars for Independence, which ended in 1783);

The expansion of English to Asia is mainly connected with the occupation of India was one of the main issues in the colonial struggle of European powers in the 18 th c. The conquest of India had been prepared by the activities of the East Indian trade company founded in the 17 th c. In the late 18 th c. Britain secured partial control over the administration in some of the Indian provinces. In the first half of the 19 th c. India became a British colony and Britain acquired other possessions in Asia, turning them into colonies, dominions or protectorates. Thus the English language extended to many areas in Asia, as the language of the state and writing.

Australia was a place of deportation of British convicts since the late 18 th c. Flows of immigrants were attracted to Australia, at first by the free grants of land, later – by the discovery of gold. The bulk of the population in Australia, as well as in New Zealand, came from Great Britain; their language is regarded by some linguists as an independent geographical variant of English, though its difference from British English is not great: it is confined to some peculiarities of pronunciation and specific words.

British penetration into Africa was a lengthy affair that extended over the 19 th c. In consequence of financial dependence on British capital, Sudan and Egypt fell under British political control. Tropical Africa and South Africa were raided by the British navy, as sources of slave labor for America and the West Indies. Trade companies were supported by open warfare, and in a long series of wars many African territories fell under British rule

In the course of the 20 th c. Great Britain lost the greater part of its possessions overseas and the use of the English language was reduced. We should distinguish between countries with an English speaking population (or with a large proportion of English speakers) and countries in which English is used only as the state language, the main language of the press, radio and literature.

The distinction, however, is not always possible, for in both groups of countries part of the population is bilingual, and the proportion of English speakers cannot be precisely estimated. The list of countries with an English – speaking population outside the British Isles includes the United states of America, Australia, New Zealand, Canada and the South African Republic.