EL2111 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

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American spellings like

 

 

American lexis like

Canadian loyalists

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Diphthongs: /@U/ (about), /@I/ (light)

 

Particle: eh (‘This is good, eh?’)

Riverboat society and card gambling

http://www.cardgamblinggames.info/images/card_gambling_games.jpg

 

Fur trappers

image001.jpg

 

Gold prospectors (and the ’forty-niners)

 

Cowboys and contact with Spanish

 

‘Red Indians’ (Native Americans)

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Cowboys and life on the ranch

image009

 

Steam railway

image010

 

Mark Twain

image011

 

Italian immigrants and contact with Italian

image012

 

German immigrants and contact with German

image013

 

Jewish immigrants and contact with Yiddish

image014

 

The Great War

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