EL2211 Historical
Variation in English
Guide sheet for video screening (‘Pioneers,
O Pioneers!’)
Preliminary points
·
The
video does not discuss earlier developments in the American colonies or the contribution
of the blacks and the Irish to American English (these are discussed in other
programmes of The Story of English)
·
It
focuses on developments after the American Independence (in the late 18th
century) to the First World War (1914–18)
·
It
concentrates on the lexis (with the exception of the Canadian diphthongs)
·
Listen
out for the various American accents that can be heard on the video
|
Focus |
Illustrative image
|
Linguistic
contribution (mainly lexical) |
|
Noah
Webster Political
luminaries |
|
American
spellings like American
lexis like |
|
Canadian
loyalists |
|
Diphthongs:
/@U/ (about), /@I/ (light) Particle:
eh (‘This is good, eh?’) |
|
Riverboat
society and card gambling |
|
|
|
Fur
trappers |
|
|
|
Gold prospectors
(and the ’forty-niners) |
|
|
|
Cowboys
and contact with Spanish |
|
|
|
‘Red
Indians’ (Native Americans) |
|
|
|
Cowboys
and life on the ranch |
|
|
|
Steam
railway |
|
|
|
Mark
Twain |
|
|
|
Italian
immigrants and contact with Italian |
|
|
|
German
immigrants and contact with German |
|
|
|
Jewish
immigrants and contact with Yiddish |
|
|
|
The Great
War |
|
|
