Beginner Speculations

This collection of students’ pearls of wisdom, laboriously digitised from hand-written papers—no slips of the keyboard or spell-checker auto-corrections can be blamed for these beauties—demonstrates how students new to the study of language speculate about grammar after having imperfectly absorbed what their teachers think they have taught them.

The English language—Historical Aspects

The arrival of the Anglo-Saxon futhorc provides evidence for the existence of the English language.

The Anglo-Saxons brought the futhorc which was used alongside some Latin monuments. This caused English manuscripts to become less uniformed.

School inspectors found many teachers who did not teach the correct pronunciation of English. Consequently, there was a complex reorganisation of vowel sounds, known as The Great Vowel Shift.

As the standard form of language is of the prestige form, orthoepy, i.e. the relationship between spelling and sound, and ‘The Great Vowel Shift’ were codified.

The Old English word ‘drihten’ had no variation in its use as a direct noun and as a grammatical subject of a sentence, be it in the singular or plural tense. In the light of the above inconsistencies, linguists came to the conclusion that the inflectional system in Old English needed modification.

The English language—Social Aspects

The use of vernacular in written dialogue conveys realism and linguistic oppression.

One factor which helps to maintain minority languages is that their wide usage serves to encourage their perpetration.

The Scots speak in dialect due to national pride, they felt that dialects contributed to National English. Previously, the Standard was a variation of the different dialects.

While their English is unique in India, Singapore or the Caribbean, they can still communicate with other English counterparts other than the accents and some local jargons.

When speaking of Creolisation, it is important to refer that language varieties carry important social meanings, e.g. Geordie is meant to be humorous. Geordie is used by its actual speakers both routinely and more seriously.

Liverpool English has an adenoidal in impression.

A British enquirer will ask: “You have started a new job, don’t you?” Americans cannot say this.

Language use depends on the statue of the listener. At the same time, language creates a personnel identity.

All varieties of English language are intended for international communication.

For some reason which I shall not go into, status and sex play a great deal in enhancing English varieties.

The English language—Genre Aspects

Newspapers may be tabloid or broadcast.

Martin et al. is an advocator of genre.

Language play in song is also evident in song. Songs may be symbolic, indexical or ironic.

Grammatical items are words such as adverbs of comparison that help to make the content clearer. Lexical items are words such as adverbs which are added in response to new ideas and technology. Normalisation allows a process to be replaced by a noun. Spoken language has higher content of verbs whereas written language is written in nouns. Subsequently the text becomes more lexically dense and the subjective information about the process is lost.

Details incorporated in the narrative, such as omissions, can also create an intended effect.

Graffiti authors are assumed to be people of lower status. However, political graffiti’s which may lead to persecution are often written in the safety of enclosed areas.

Some ads use a traditional format of advertisement, for instance, the use of vocal chords.

In ads, confusion and meaningless coincidence are not only avoided but deliberately sought out and created.

The work of an artist is never easy because it involves the manipulation of the combination of words with the properties of language.

Writers more often than not have been guilty of playing with language to create masterpieces that are often labelled as works of art.

Conclusion

In conclusion, I have outlined in this essay the above.

More to come...

	A very short comparison between UH and UG—Johannes Damascenus nach Campenhausen
	Where No Researcher Should Tread—Cowell R. Augh, Ph.D.
	SpecGram Vol CLVI, No 3 Contents