- •The aims of studying the history of the English language. Synchronic and diachronic approaches to studying the language. The concept of ‘language change’.
- •Proto-Indo-European language and comparative linguistics.
- •Proto-Germanic language, its development from Proto-Indo-European.
- •Modern Germanic languages.
- •The earliest descriptions of the Germans, the ancient tribes that spoke Germanic languages.
- •Eastern Germanic, Western Germanic and Northern Germanic groups of languages.
- •The runic alphabet. Old English alphabet and pronunciation.
- •Common phonetic characteristics of the Germanic languages.
- •Changes in the system of vowels in the Germanic languages.
- •Grammar characteristics common to the Germanic languages.
- •Vocabulary
- •Periodisation in the history of the English language, Old English written records.
- •The historical background of Old English.
- •Phonetic processes in Old English (the system of vowels).
- •Independent changes. Development of monophthongs
- •Phonetic processes in Old English (the system of consonants).
- •Velar consonants in Early Old English. Growth of New Phonemes
- •Old English dialects.
- •The nominal system of Old English.
- •The vocabulary and word-building means in Old English.
- •Old English syntax.
- •The verbal system in Old English (grammatical categories).
- •The verbal system in Old English (morphological classification).
- •Economic and social conditions in the 11-12th centuries.
- •The Scandinavian invasions, the Norman Conquest & the way they influenced English.
- •Changes in the alphabet and spelling in Middle English. Middle English written records.
- •Middle English dialects. The London dialect.
- •Phonetic processes in Middle English (the system of vowels).
- •Phonetic processes in Middle English (system of consonants).
- •Changes in the categories of the noun in Middle English.
- •Lecture 2. The phonetical system of the English Language.
- •1. Classification of the English speech sounds.
- •2. The Role of Sound Phenomena in Communication.
- •3. The Syllable as a Phonetic and Phonological Unit.
- •4. Intonation and Prosody.
- •Rhythm and Speech Melody.
- •Problems of phonostylistics.
- •Phonostylistic Characteristics at the Level of Prosodic Features.
- •Timbre.
- •Delimitation.
- •Phonostylistic Characteristics of Conversational Style, Publicistic Style
- •Types of English Pronunciation.
- •American English Pronunciation.
- •Glossary of phonetic terms
- •Lectures 3, 4, 5. The main outline of the Lexicology of the English Language.
- •1. General Problems of the Theory of the Word. The Definition of the Word.
- •The Structure of the Word. Types of Morphemes and their Specific Features.
- •3. Affixation.
- •4. Conversion
- •5. Composition.
- •6. Shortening.
- •7. Back Formation.
- •8. Blending.
- •9. Sound Interchange.
- •10. Stress Interchange.
- •11. Sound Imitation.
- •1. Semasiology as a Branch of Linguistics.
- •2. The Word and its Meaning.
- •Meaning and Referent
- •Functional Approach to Meaning
- •3. Types Of Meaning.
- •Grammatical Meaning
- •Lexical Meaning
- •4. Polysemy of Words.
- •5. The Main Semantic Processes.
- •Synonyms.
- •2. Antonyms.
- •Homonyms.
- •1. Free and Non-Free Word Combinations.
- •2. Classifications of Phraseological Units.
- •3. Synonyms in Phraseology.
- •4. Antonyms in Phraseology.
- •5. Proverbs, Sayings.
- •1. The Native Element and Borrowed Words.
- •3. Criteria of Borrowings in English.
- •4. The Celtic Element in the English Vocabulary.
- •5. The Classical Element in the English Language.
- •8. Various Other Elements in the English Vocabulary.
- •9. False Etymology.
- •10. Types of Borrowings.
- •Ways of Classifying the Vocabulary.
- •Special Literary Vocabulary.
- •3. Special Colloquial Vocabulary.
- •1. The identifying function
- •2. The definitizing function
- •3. The individualizing function
- •Lectures 8, 9. Stylistics of the English Language.
- •3. Stylistic functions of the words having a lexico-stylistic paradigm.
- •3.1. Stylistic functions of literary (high-flown) words.
- •4. Stylistic functions of words having no lexico-stylistic paradigm.
- •5. Stylistic functions of phraseology.
- •2. Stylistic morphology of the english language.
- •2.1. Sd based on the use of nouns.
- •2.2. Sd based on the use of articles.
- •2.3. Sd based on the use of adjectives.
- •2.4. Sd based on the use of pronouns.
- •2.5. Sd based on the use of adverbs.
- •2.6. Sd based on the use of verbs.
- •1. Phonetic means of stylistics.
- •Alliteration;
- •Assonance;
- •Onomatopoeia.
- •2. Expressive means of english syntax.
- •3. Syntactical stylistic devices.
- •3. Figures of qualification.
- •3. Figures of opposition.
2. The Role of Sound Phenomena in Communication.
The goals of the course.
Phonetics as a linguistic science.
The phonetic system of a language.
Branches of phonetics.
The problem of the definition of the phoneme.
The material aspect of the phoneme.
The abstract aspect of the phoneme.
The functional aspect of the phoneme.
The course proposed has two objectives in view: first, to give the prospective teachers of English necessary information on theoretical problems of English phonetics; second, to acquaint students with some of the diverse/controversial views of Russian and foreign linguists, putting forward the opinions of the foremost linguists on the points at issue and expressing their attitude to them. An attempt has also been made to show the relevance of theoretical studies in solving practical problems connected with language teaching.
The language, the most important means of human intercourse, exists in the material form of speech sounds. It cannot exist without being spoken. Segmental sounds and prosodic features are linguistic phenomena. Representing language units in actual speech, they perform certain linguistic functions: constitutive, distinctive and identificatory functions.
The phonetic system of a language is a set of phonetic units arranged in an orderly way to replace each other in a given framework. In fact it contains two systems (levels) – segmental and suprasegmental (prosodic), each of which is a specially organized language system with a certain number of its units. Segmental units are vowels and consonants which form the vocalic and the consonantal subsystems. Prosodic units are syllables, accentual (rhythmic) units, intonation groups, utterances, which form the subsystems of pitch, stress, rhyme, tempo, pauses. Sound phenomena have different aspects, which are closely interconnected: the articulatory aspect, the acoustic, the auditory and the linguistic aspects.
Depending on which of sound phenomena is studied, phonetics is subdivided into four main branches:
• articulatory phonetics
• perceptual (auditory) phonetics
• acoustic phonetics
• phonology (functional phonetics)
Phonology deals with the functional aspect of sound phenomena. Phonology sets out to discover those segmental and prosodic features that have a differential value in a language, and it establishes the system of phonemes and prosodemes.
The best definition of the phoneme is introduced by professor Vassilyev since it embraces the main aspect further of the phoneme: «The phoneme is the smallest further indivisible language unit that exists in the speech of all the members of a given language community as such speech sounds which are capable of distinguishing one word from another word of the same language or one grammatical form of a word from another grammatical form of a same word». The definition of the phoneme embraces three aspects of phoneme: material, abstract (generalized) and functional.
The phoneme has a material aspect which is manifested in speech in the material form of speech sounds. In other words, phonemes exist in the form of allophones/variants, i.e. speech sounds.
The phoneme has an abstract aspect which is reflected in the definition of the phoneme as a language unit. The phoneme is abstracted from its variants/speech sounds and is characterized by features that are common to all its variants.
The functional aspect of the phoneme is reflected in the definition of the phoneme as the smallest language unit capable of differentiating words and their grammatical forms. This function is the principal one. It is called the distinctive function. The distinctive function of the phoneme is subdivided into:
• morpheme-distinctive
• word-distinctive
• sentence-distinctive.