MODULE IN GRAMMATICAL

STUCTURE OF ENGLISH

Prepared by Dr. Leilani M. Ibay-Pamo

Introduction

English originated in England and is the dominant language of the United States,

the United Kingdom, Canada, Australia, Ireland, New Zealand, and various island nations

in the Caribbean Sea and the Pacific Ocean. It is also an official language of the

Philippines, India, Singapore, and many countries in sub-Saharan Africa, including South

Africa. English is the first choice of foreign language in most other countries of the

world, and it is that status that has given it the position of a global lingua franca. It is

estimated that about a third of the world’s population, some two billion people, now use

English.

The Philippines is recognized globally as one of the largest English-speaking

nations with majority of its population having at least some degree of fluency in the

language. Tracing its roots, under US occupation, English was introduced into schools

and in 1935 English was added to the constitution alongside Spanish as a national

language. Since then, English has always been one of the official languages of the

Philippines and is spoken by more than 14 million Filipinos. It is the language of

commerce and law, as well as the primary medium of instruction in education.

Proficiency in the language is also one of the country’s strengths that has helped

drive the economy and even made the Philippines the top voice outsourcing destination in

the world, surpassing India in 2012. The influx of foreign learners of English is also on

the rise due to the relatively more affordable but quality English as a Second Language

(ESL) programs being offered locally.

However, in a recent roundtable discussion organized by the British Council, key

stakeholders from the government, academe, private, and non-government sectors

acknowledged that even if the Philippines is doing fine in terms of English competency,

concerns on how much of a competitive advantage it still is for the country were raised.

The stakeholders agreed that the country needs to step up its efforts in improving the

teaching and learning of English, developing it as a vital skill of the workforce. This is an

initiative that could potentially strengthen the Philippines' distinct advantage in this part

of the world.

English as a Second Language (ESL) teachers like you have an indispensable role

in improving the teaching and learning of English in the country. To become a competent

ESL teacher, you are required to study the language, use it until it becomes part of you

and you are able to teach it. To be acculturated with the langauge, it is imperative that you

know its history and make it a springboard in learning its grammar. Therefore, the first

part of this module is a history of the English language. It acquaints you of the early

beginnings of the language until it evolved to what is now called the global lingua franca.
Lesson 1: History of the English Language

Old English (450-1100 AD)

During the 5th Century AD three Germanic tribes (Saxons, Angles, and Jutes)

came to the British Isles from various parts of northwest Germany as well as Denmark.

These tribes were warlike and pushed out most of the original, Celtic-speaking

inhabitants from England into Scotland, Wales, and Cornwall. One group migrated to the

Brittany Coast of France where their descendants still speak the Celtic Language of

Breton today.

Through the years, the Saxons, Angles and Jutes mixed their different Germanic

dialects. This group of dialects forms what linguists refer to as Old English or Anglo-

Saxon. The word "English" was in Old English "Englisc", and that comes from the

name of the Angles. The Angles were named from Engle, their land of origin.

Before the Saxons the language spoken in what is now England was a mixture of

Latin and various Celtic languages which were spoken before the Romans came to

Britain (54-5BC). The Romans brought Latin to Britain, which was part of the Roman

Empire for over 400 years. Many of the words passed on from this era are those coined

by Roman merchants and soldiers. These include win (wine), candel (candle), belt

(belt), weall (wall) ["Language Timeline", The British Library Board].

The influence of Celtic upon Old English was slight. In fact, very few Celtic

words have lived on in the English language. But many of place and river names have

Celtic origins: Kent, York, Dover, Cumberland, Thames, Avon, Trent, Severn.
 The arrival of St. Augustine in 597 and the introduction of Christianity into Saxon

England brought more Latin words into the English language. They were mostly

concerned with the naming of Church dignitaries, ceremonies, etc. Some, such as

church, bishop, baptism, monk, eucharist and presbyter came indirectly through

Latin from the Greek.

Around 878 AD Danes and Norsemen, also called Vikings, invaded the country

and English got many Norse words into the language, particularly in the north of

England. The Vikings, being Scandinavian, spoke a language (Old Norse) which, in

origin at least, was just as Germanic as Old English.

Words derived from Norse include: sky, egg, cake, skin, leg, window (wind

eye), husband, fellow, skill, anger, flat, odd, ugly, get, give, take, raise, call, die, they,

their, them ["The Origin and History of the English Language", Kryss Katsiavriades]

Several written works have survived from the Old English period. The most

famous is a heroic epic poem called "Beowulf". It is the oldest known English poem and

it is notable for its length - 3,183 lines. Experts say "Beowulf" was written in Britain

more than one thousand years ago. The name of the person who wrote it is unknown.

Examination of Old English words along with their modern meanings can give

you a glimpse of how languages develop through time. The first form of English as a

language is termed Old English and came into being during the 5th century.

Modern Meanings of Old English Words

Many common words and verbs can be found in Old English that hold the same

meaning today. For example, the following words all show roots in Old English:

Strong, Water, Be, Beam

 By reviewing literature written in the period that Old English was used you can

see the many Old English words that are very similar to words found in modern English.

For example:

Eald - means old, Brodor - means brother, Hus - means house, Nett - means net,

Riht - means right

It can be difficult to determine the modern meaning of some Old English words

because there are often multiple words which have similar meanings. For example, three

descriptions of females are: Widuwe - stands for widow, Wif - means wife, and

Wifmann - the term for woman.

Influence of Other Languages on Old English

Examination of Old English and modern English seems to indicate that many of

the words we use today find their roots in the vocabulary of Old English. Some estimates

claim that about half of the words used today have their roots in Old English. This should

not be that surprising since English has its roots in the Germanic languages.

Many of the Old English words also came from influence of the Romans and

Greeks. These words were borrowed by the Germanic conquerors and incorporated into

Old English. For example, the following words were adapted from the Romans, Greeks

and from Latin: Apostle - came from apostol, Chalk - came from cealc, Wine - came

from win, and Monk - came from munuc.

While the spelling is different, the meanings all follow the original words and

correspond to the modern meanings.

 Making Up New Words

As the need arose for new words for things that the Germanic conquerors were

unfamiliar with, they would make up words rather than take Germanic words as

descriptors. Two examples of this are the words for astronomy and arithmetic. The

invaders made up the words based on the root word "craeft" which meant an art or

science.

Star-craft or tungolcraeft for stronomy

Number craft or rimcraeft for Arithmetic

Now you know some old English words, their meanings and have a better

understanding of the sources of the English language.

Middle English (1100 circa – 1500)

After William the Conqueror, the Duke of Normandy, invaded and conquered

England in 1066 AD with his armies and became king, he brought his nobles, who spoke

French, to be the new government. The Old French took over as the language of the

court, administration, and culture. Latin was mostly used for written language, especially

that of the Church. Meanwhile, The English language, as the language of the now lower

class, was considered a vulgar tongue.

The Viking invasion: With the Viking invasions (Vikings were a tribe of Nordic

people that ransacked their way through Northern and Northwestern Europe 1,000-1,200

years ago), Old English got mixed up with Old Norse, the language of the Viking tribes.

Old Norse ended up giving English more than 2,000 new words, including “give” and

“take”, “egg”, “knife”, “husband”, “run” and “viking”.

 Although English was spoken widely on the British Isles by 1,000 AD, the

Norman invasion established French as the language of royals and of power. Old English

was left to the peasants, and despite its less glamorous status, it continued to develop and

grow by adopting a whole host of Latin and French words, including everyday words

such as “beer”,”city”, “fruit” and “people”, as well as half of the months of the year.

By adopting and adapting French words, the English language also became more

sophisticated through the inclusion of concepts and words like “liberty” and “justice”.

By about 1200, England and France had split. English changed a lot, because it

was mostly being spoken instead of written for about 300 years. The use of Old English

came back, but with many French words added. This language is called Middle English.

Most of the words embedded in the English vocabulary are words of power, such as

crown, castle, court, parliament, army, mansion, gown, beauty, banquet, art, poet,

romance, duke, servant, peasant, traitor and governor. ("Language Timeline", The British

Library Board)

Because the English underclass cooked for the Norman upper class, the words for

most domestic animals are English (ox, cow, calf, sheep, swine, deer) while the words for

the meats derived from them are French (beef, veal, mutton, pork, bacon, venison) ["The

Origin and History of the English Language", Kryss Katsiavriades].

The Middle English is also characterized for the beginning of the Great Vowel

Shift. It was a massive sound change affecting the long vowels of English. Basically, the

long vowels shifted upwards; that is, a vowel that used to be pronounced in one place in

the mouth would be pronounced in a different place, higher up in the mouth. The Great

Vowel Shift occurred during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.

 The most famous example of Middle English is Chaucer's "The Canterbury

Tales", a collection of stories about a group of thirty people who travel as pilgrims to

Canterbury, England. The portraits that he paints in his Tales give us an idea of what life

was like in fourteenth century England.

Early Modern English (1500-1800)

Early Modern English (1500 – 1800) – the tempest ends in a storm: In the 14th-

15th century, following the Hundred Years War with France that ended French rule of the

British Isles, English became the language of power and influence once again. It got a

further boost through the development of English literature and English culture,

spearheaded by William Shakespeare.

Shakespeare’s influence on the development of the English language and its

unique and rich culture is hard to grasp; the man is said to have invented at least 1,700

words, including “alligator”, “puppy dog”, and “fashionable”, in addition to penning

classics like Romeo & Juliet and Hamlet!

Towards the end of Middle English, a sudden and distinct change in pronunciation

(the Great Vowel Shift) started, with vowels being pronounced shorter and shorter. From

the 16th century the British had contact with many peoples from around the world. This,

and the Renaissance of Classical learning, meant that many new words and phrases

entered the language. The invention of printing also meant that there was now a common

language in print. Books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also

brought standardization to English. Spelling and grammar became fixed, and the dialect
of London, where most publishing houses were, became the standard. In 1604 the first

English dictionary was published.

Modern English developed after William Caxton established his printing press at

Westminster Abbey in 1476. Johann Gutenberg invented the printing press in Germany

around 1450, but Caxton set up England's first press. The Bible and some valuable

manuscripts were printed. The invention of the printing press made books available to

more people. The books became cheaper and more people learned to read. Printing also

brought standardization to English.

By the time of Shakespeare's writings (1592-1616), the language had become

clearly recognizable as Modern English. There were three big developments in the world

at the beginning of Modern English period: the Renaissance, the Industrial Revolution,

and the British Colonialism.

It was during the English Renaissance that most of the words from Greek and

Latin entered English. This period in English cultural history (early 16th century to the

early 17th century) is sometimes referred to as "the age of Shakespeare" or "the

Elizabethan era", taking the name of the English Renaissance's most famous author and

most important monarch, respectively. During the reign of Queen Elizabeth I there was

an explosion of culture in the form of support of the arts, popularization of the printing

press, and massive amounts of sea travel.

England began the Industrial Revolution (18th century) and this had also an

effect on the development of the language as new words had to be invented or existing

ones modified to cope with the rapid changes in technology. New technical words were

added to the vocabulary as inventors designed various products and machinery. These
words were named after the inventor or given the name of their choice (trains, engine,

pulleys, combustion, electricity, telephone, telegraph, camera, etc).

Britain was an Empire for 200 years between the 18th and 20th centuries and

English language continued to change as the British Empire moved across the world - to

the USA, Australia, New Zealand, India, Asia and Africa. They sent people to settle and

live in their conquered places and as settlers interacted with natives, new words were

added to the English vocabulary. For example, 'kangaroo' and 'boomerang' are native

Australian Aborigine words, 'juggernaut' and 'turban' came from India. (See more

borrowings from different languages.)

English continues to change and develop, with hundreds of new words arriving

every year. But even with all the borrowings from many other languages the heart of the

English language remains the Anglo-Saxon of Old English. The grammar of English is

also distinctly Germanic - three genders (he, she and it) and a simple set of verb tenses.

Late Modern English (1800 – Present):

The main difference between Early Modern English and Late Modern English is

vocabulary. Late Modern English has many more words, arising from two principal

factors: firstly, the Industrial Revolution and technology created a need for new words;

and secondly, the English-speaking world was at the center of a lot of scientific

progress, scientific advances went hand-in-hand with the evolution of the language.
Timeline of the Modern English Period (1500 to the Present)

Distinctions are commonly drawn between the Early Modern Period (1500-1800)

and Late Modern English (1800 to the present).

During the period of Modern English, British exploration, colonization, and

overseas trade hastened the acquisition of loanwords from countless other languages and

fostered the development of new varieties of English (World English), each with its own

nuances of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation. Since the middle of the 20th century,

the expansion of North American business and media around the world has led to the

emergence of Global English as a lingua franca.

Early 16th century—The first English settlements are made in North America. William

Tyndale's English translation of the Bible is published. Many Greek and Latin borrowings

enter English.

1542—In his Fyrst Boke of the Introduction of Knowledge, Andrew Boorde illustrates

regional dialects.

1549—The first version of the Book of Common Prayer of the Church of England is

published.

1553—Thomas Wilson publishes The Art of Rhetorique, one of the first works on logic

and rhetoric in English.

1577—Henry Peacham publishes The Garden of Eloquence, a treatise on rhetoric.

1586—The first grammar of English—William Bullokar's Pamphlet for Grammar—is

published.
1588—Elizabeth I begins her 45-year reign as queen of England. The British defeat the

Spanish Armada, boosting national pride and enhancing the legend of Queen Elizabeth.

1589—The Art of English Poesie (attributed to George Puttenham) is published.

1590-1611—William Shakespeare writes his Sonnets and the majority of his plays.

1600—The East India Company is chartered to promote trade with Asia, eventually

leading to the establishment of the British Raj in India.

1603—Queen Elizabeth dies and James I (James VI of Scotland) accedes to the throne.

1604—Robert Cawdrey's Table Alphabeticall, the first English dictionary, is published.

1607—The first permanent English settlement in America is established at Jamestown,

Virginia.

1611—The Authorized Version of the English Bible (the "King James" Bible) is

published, greatly influencing the development of the written language.

1619—The first African slaves in North America arrive in Virginia.

1622—Weekly News, the first English newspaper, is published in London.

1623—The First Folio edition of Shakespeare's plays is published.

1642—Civil War breaks out in England after King Charles I attempts to arrest his

parliamentary critics. The war leads to the execution of Charles I, the dissolution of

parliament, and the replacement of the English monarchy with a Protectorate (1653–59)

under Oliver Cromwell's rule.

1660—The monarchy is restored; Charles II is proclaimed king.

1662—The Royal Society of London appoints a committee to consider ways of

"improving" English as a language of science.

1666—The Great Fire of London destroys most of the City of London inside the old

Roman City Wall.

1667—John Milton publishes his epic poem Paradise Lost.

1670—The Hudson's Bay Company is chartered for promoting trade and settlement in

Canada.

1688—Aphra Behn, the first woman novelist in England, publishes Oroonoko, or the

History of the Royal Slave.

1697—In his Essay Upon Projects, Daniel Defoe calls for the creation of an Academy of

36 "gentlemen" to dictate English usage.

1702—The Daily Courant, the first regular daily newspaper in English, is published in

London.

1707—The Act of Union unites the Parliaments of England and Scotland, creating the

United Kingdom of Great Britain.

1709—The first Copyright Act is enacted in England.

1712—Anglo-Irish satirist and cleric Jonathan Swift proposes the creation of an English

Academy to regulate English usage and "ascertain" the language.

1719—Daniel Defoe publishes Robinson Crusoe, considered by some to be the first

modern English novel.

1721—Nathaniel Bailey publishes his Universal Etymological Dictionary of the English

Language, a pioneer study in English lexicography: the first to feature current usage,

etymology, syllabification, clarifying quotations, illustrations, and indications of

pronunciation.

1715—Elisabeth Elstob publishes the first grammar of Old English.

1755—Samuel Johnson publishes his two-volume Dictionary of the English Language.

1760-1795—This period marks the rise of the English grammarians (Joseph Priestly,

Robert Lowth, James Buchanan, John Ash, Thomas Sheridan, George Campbell, William

Ward, and Lindley Murray), whose rule books, primarily based on prescriptive notions of

grammar, become increasingly popular.

1762—Robert Lowth publishes his Short Introduction to English Grammar.

1776—The Declaration of Independence is signed, and the American War of

Independence begins, leading to the creation of the United States of America, the first

country outside the British Isles with English as its principal language.

1776—George Campbell publishes The Philosophy of Rhetoric.

1783—Noah Webster publishes his American Spelling Book.

1785—The Daily Universal Register (renamed The Times in 1788) begins publication in

London.

1788—The English first settle in Australia, near present-day Sydney.

1789—Noah Webster publishes Dissertations on the English Language, which advocates

an American standard of usage.

1791—The Observer, the oldest national Sunday newspaper in Britain, begins

publication.

Early 19th century—Grimm's Law (discovered by Friedrich von Schlegel and Rasmus

Rask, later elaborated by Jacob Grimm) identifies relationships between certain

consonants in Germanic languages (including English) and their originals in Indo-

European. The formulation of Grimm's Law marks a major advance in the development

of linguistics as a scholarly field of study.

1803—The Act of Union incorporates Ireland into Britain, creating the United Kingdom

of Great Britain and Ireland.

1806—The British occupy Cape Colony in South Africa.

1810—William Hazlitt publishes A New and Improved Grammar of the English

Language.

1816—John Pickering compiles the first dictionary of Americanisms.

1828—Noah Webster publishes his American Dictionary of the English Language.

Richard Whateley publishes Elements of Rhetoric.

1840—The native Maori in New Zealand cede sovereignty to the British.

1842—The London Philological Society is founded.

1844—The telegraph is invented by Samuel Morse, inaugurating the development of

rapid communication, a major influence on the growth and spread of English.

Mid 19th century—A standard variety of American English develops. English is

established in Australia, South Africa, India, and other British colonial outposts.

1852—The first edition of Roget's Thesaurus is published.

1866—James Russell Lowell champions the use of American regionalisms, helping to

end deference to the Received British Standard. Alexander Bain publishes English

Composition and Rhetoric. The transatlantic telegraph cable is completed.

1876—Alexander Graham Bell invents the telephone, thus modernizing private

communication.

1879—James A.H. Murray begins editing the Philological Society's New English

Dictionary on Historical Principles (later renamed the Oxford English Dictionary).

1884/1885—Mark Twain's novel The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn introduces a

colloquial prose style that significantly influences the writing of fiction in the U.S.

1901—The Commonwealth of Australia is established as a dominion of the British

Empire.

1906—Henry and Francis Fowler publish the first edition of The King's English.

1907—New Zealand is established as a dominion of the British Empire.

1919—H.L. Mencken publishes the first edition of The American Language, a pioneer

study in the history of a major national version of English.

1920—The first American commercial radio station begins operating in Pittsburgh,

Pennsylvania.

1921—Ireland achieves Home Rule, and Gaelic is made an official language in addition

to English.

1922—The British Broadcasting Company (later renamed the British Broadcasting

Corporation, or BBC) is established.

1925—The New Yorker magazine is founded by Harold Ross and Jane Grant.

1925—George P. Krapp publishes his two-volume The English Language in America, the

first comprehensive and scholarly treatment of the subject.

1926—Henry Fowler publishes the first edition of his Dictionary of Modern English

Usage.

1927—The first "speaking motion picture," The Jazz Singer, is released.

1928—The Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1930—British linguist C.K. Ogden introduces Basic English.

1936—The first television service is established by the BBC.

1939—World War II begins.

1945—World War II ends. The Allied victory contributes to the growth of English as a

lingua franca.

1946—The Philippines gains its independence from the U.S.

1947—India is freed from British control and divided into Pakistan and India. The

constitution provides that English remain the official language for 15 years. New Zealand

gains its independence from the U.K. and joins the Commonwealth.

1949—Hans Kurath publishes A Word Geography of the Eastern United States, a

landmark in the scientific study of American regionalisms.

1950—Kenneth Burke publishes A Rhetoric of Motives.

1950s—The number of speakers using English as a second language exceeds the number

of native speakers.

1957—Noam Chomsky publishes Syntactic Structures, a key document in the study of

generative and transformational grammar.

1961—Webster's Third New International Dictionary is published.

1967—The Welsh Language Act gives the Welsh language equal validity with English in

Wales, and Wales is no longer considered a part of England. Henry Kucera and Nelson

Francis publish Computational Analysis of Present-Day American English, a landmark in

modern corpus linguistics.

1969—Canada officially becomes bilingual (French and English). The first major English

dictionary to use corpus linguistics—The American Heritage Dictionary of the English

Language—is published.
1972—A Grammar of Contemporary English (by Randolph Quirk, Sidney Greenbaum,

Geoffrey Leech, and Jan Svartvik) is published. The first call on a personal cell phone is

made. The first email is sent.

1978—The Linguistic Atlas of England is published.

1981—The first issue of the journal World Englishes is published.

1985—A Comprehensive Grammar of the English Language is published by Longman.

The first edition of M.A.K. Halliday's An Introduction to Functional Grammar is

published.

1988—The Internet (under development for more than 20 years) is opened to commercial

interests.

1989—The second edition of The Oxford English Dictionary is published.

1993—Mosaic, the web browser credited with popularizing the World Wide Web, is

released. (Netscape Navigator becomes available in 1994, Yahoo! in 1995, and Google in

1998.)

1994—Text messaging is introduced, and the first modern blogs go online.

1995—David Crystal publishes The Cambridge Encyclopedia of the English Language.

1997—The first social networking site (SixDegrees.com) is launched. (Friendster is

introduced in 2002, and both MySpace and Facebook begin operating in 2004.)

2000—The Oxford English Dictionary Online (OED Online) is made available to

subscribers.

2002—Rodney Huddleston and Geoffrey K. Pullum publish The Cambridge Grammar of

the English Language. Tom McArthur publishes The Oxford Guide to World English.

2006—Twitter, a social networking and microblogging service, is created by Jack Dorsey.

2009—The two-volume Historical Thesaurus of the Oxford English Dictionary is

published by Oxford University Press.

2012—The fifth volume (SI-Z) of the Dictionary of American Regional English (DARE )

is published by Belknap Press of Harvard University Press.

English goes global

From around 1600, the English colonization of North America resulted in the

creation of a distinct American variety of English. Some English pronunciations and

words “froze” when they reached America. In some ways, American English is more like

the English of Shakespeare than modern British English is. Some expressions that the

British call “Americanisms” are in fact original British expressions that were preserved in

the colonies while lost for a time in Britain (for example trash for rubbish, loan as a verb

instead of lend, and fall for autumn; another example, frame-up, was re-imported into

Britain through Hollywood gangster movies). Spanish also had an influence on American

English (and subsequently British English), with words like canyon, ranch,stampede and

vigilante being examples of Spanish words that entered English through the settlement of

the American West. French words (through Louisiana) and West African words (through

the slave trade) also influenced American English (and so, to an extent, British English).

Today, American English is particularly influential, due to the USA’s dominance

of cinema, television, popular music, trade and technology (including the Internet). But

there are many other varieties of English around the world, including for example

Australian English, New Zealand English, Canadian English, South African English,
Indian English, Caribbean English, Filipino English, Singapore English (Singlish), and

Malaysian English. They are called world Englishes.

20th Century English

By the end of the 19th Century, the USA had overtaken the UK as the world’s

fastest growing economy, and America’s “economic imperialism” continued the

momentum of the British Industrial Revolution into the 20th Century. The American

dominance in economic and military power, as well as its overwhelming influence in the

media and popular culture has ensured that English has remained the single most

important language in the world and the closest thing to a global language the world has

ever seen.

Perhaps in reaction to the perceived appropriation or co-option of English by the

United States, a certain amount of language snobbery continued to grow in England. In

1917, Daniel Jones introduced the concept of Received Pronunciation (sometimes called

the Queen’s English, BBC English or Public School English) to describe the variety of

Standard English spoken by the educated middle and upper classes, irrespective of what

part of England they may live in. The invention of radio in the 1920s, and then television

in the 1930s, disseminated this archetypal English accent to the masses and further

entrenched its position, despite the fact that it was only spoken by about 1 in 50 in the

general population. At the same time, regional accents were further denigrated and

marginalized. However, since the Second World War, a greater permissiveness towards

regional English varieties has taken hold in England, both in education and in the media.
 There was a mid-century reaction within Britain against what George Orwell

described as the “ugly and inaccurate” contemporary English of the time. In Orwell's

dystopic novel "Nineteen Eighty-Four", words like doublethink, thoughtcrime, newspeak

and blackwhite give a nightmarish vision of where he saw the language going. The “Plain

English” movement, which emphased clarity, brevity and the avoidance of technical

language, was bolstered by Sir Ernest Gowers’ “The Complete Plain Words”, published

in the early 1950s, and the trend towards plainer language, appropriate to the target

audience, continued in official and legal communications, and was followed by a similar

movement in the United Sates during the 1970s. Gowers himself thought that legal

language was a case apart, being more of a science than an art, and could not be subject

to Plain English rules, but in more recent years there has been a trend toward plainer

language in legal documents too.

The 20th Century was, among other things, a century of world wars, technological

transformation, and globalization, and each has provided a source of new additions to the

lexicon. For example, words like blockbuster, nose-dive, shell-shocked, camouflage,

radar, barrage, boondocks, roadblock, snafu, boffin, brainwashing, spearhead, etc, are all

military terms which have made their way into standard English during the World Wars.

As an interesting aside, in 1941, when Sir Winston Churchill wanted to plumb the depths

of the English soul at a particularly crucial and difficult time in the Second World War,

almost all of the words in the main part of his famous speech ("we shall fight on the

beaches... we shall never surrender") were of Anglo-Saxon origin, with the significant

exception of surrender (a French loanword). The speech is also a good example of what

was considered Received Pronunciation at the time.

 The push for political correctness and inclusiveness in the last third of the 20th

Century, particularly by homosexuals, feminists and visible minority groups, led to a

reassessment of the popular usage of many words. Feminists called into question the

underlying sexism in language (e.g. mankind, chairman, mailman, etc) and some have

even gone to the lengths of positing herstory as an alternative to history. For a time, stong

objections were voiced at the inherent racism underlying words like blacklist, blackguard,

blackmail, even blackboard, and at the supposedly disparaging and dismissive nature of

terms like mentally handicapped, disabled, Third World, etc. But there has also been a

certain amount of positive re-branding and reclamation (also known as reappropriation)

of many pejorative words, such as gay, queer, queen, dyke, bitch, nigger, etc, by those

very same marginalized segments of society.

The explosion in electronic and computer terminology in the latter part of the 20th

Century (e.g. byte, cyberspace, software, hacker, laptop, hard-drive, database, online, hi-

tech, microchip, etc) was just one element driving the dramatic increase in new English

terms, particularly due to the dominance of the USA in the development of computer

technology, from IBM to Apple to Microsoft. Parallel to this, science fiction literature has

contributed it own vocabulary to the common word-stock, including terms such as

robotics, hyperspace, warp-speed, cyberpunk, droid, nanotech, nanobot, etc.

Later, the Internet it gave rise to (the word Internet itself is derived form Latin, as

are audio, video, quantum, etc) generated its own set of neologisms (e.g. online, noob,

flamer, spam, phishing, larping, whitelist, download, blog, vblog, blogosphere, emoticon,

podcast, warez, trolling, hashtag, wifi, bitcoin, selfie, etc). In addition, a whole body of

acronyms, contractions and shorthands for use in email, social networking and cellphone
texting has grown up, particularly among the young, including the relatively well-known

lol, ttfn, btw, omg, wtf, plz, thx, ur, l8ter, etc. The debate (db8) continues as to whether

texting is killing or enriching the English language. Cellphone texting is increasingly

popular, especially among teens

The language continues to change and develop and to grow apace, expanding to

incorporate new jargons, slangs, technologies, toys, foods and gadgets. In the current

digital age, English is going though a new linguistic peak in terms of word acquisition, as

it peaked before during Shakespeare’s time, and then again during the Industrial

Revolution, and at the height of the British Empire. According to one recent estimate, it is

expanding by over 8,500 words a year (other estimates are significantly higher),

compared to an estimated annual increase of around 1,000 words at the beginning of the

20th Century, and has almost doubled in size in the last century.

Neologisms (new words formed) are being added all the time, including recent

inclusions such as fashionista, metrosexual, McJob, McMansion, wussy, bling, nerd,

pear-shaped, unplugged, fracking, truthiness, locavore, parkour, sexting, crowdsourcing,

regift, meme, selfie, earworm, meh, diss, suss, emo, twerk, schmeat, chav, ladette,

punked, vaping, etc, etc.

In recent years, there has been an increasing trend towards using an existing

words as a different part of speech, especially the “verbification” of nouns (e.g. the word

verbify is itself a prime example; others include to thumb, to parrot, to email, to text, to

google, to medal, to critique, to leverage, to sequence, to interface, to tase, to speechify,

to incentivize, etc), although some modern-sounding verbs have surprisingly been in the

language for centuries (e.g. to author, to impact, to message, to parent, to channel, to

monetize, to mentor, etc). "Nounification" also occurs, particularly in business contexts

(e.g. an ask, a build, a solve, a fail, an incite, an add like “thanks for the add,” etc).

“Adjectification” of nouns is also popular – making nouns adjectives like putting “y” in

the end of some nouns to make them adjective (e.g. liquidy from liquid, thingy from

thing, ouchy from ouch, etc.)

Compound or portmanteau words are an increasingly common source of new

vocabulary (e.g. stagflation, edutainment, flexitarian, Disneyfication, frenemy, confuzzle,

gastropub, bromance, hacktivist, chillax, infomercial, shareware, dramedy, gaydar,

wellderly, techlash, etc).

The meanings of words also continue to change, part of a process that has been

going on almost as long as the language itself. For instance, to the disgust of many,

alternate is now almost universally accepted in North America as a replacement for

alternative; momentarily has come to mean "very soon" and not (or as well as) "for a very

short period of time"; and the use of the modifier literally to mean its exact opposite has

recently found it way into the Oxford English Dictionary (where one of its meanings is

shown as "used for emphasis rather than being actually true"). In some walks of life, bad,

sick, dope and wicked are all now different varieties of good.

In our faddy, disposable, Internet-informed, digital age, there are even word trends

that appear to be custom-designed to be short-lived and epehemeral, words and phrases

that are considered no longer trendy once they reach anything close to mainstream usage.

Examples might be bae, on fleek, YOLO (you only live once), fanute, etc. Resources like

the Urban Dictionary exist for the rest of us to keep track of such fleeting phenomena.
English of the 21st century

And on that note: the most amazing thing about English is that it is still evolving.

From the development of local dialects and slang in countries as far apart as the US,

South Africa and New Zealand, and in cities as different as New York, Oxford and

Singapore, to the incorporation of tech vocabulary into everyday English. English is in a

constant state of flux.

Vocabulary alone is increasing at a pace of approximately 1,000 new and

approved words per year; and these are just the words that are considered important

enough to get added to the online version of the English Dictionary! This dramatic

increase in new words is largely due to technology, and how people spontaneously coin

new words in their email and text transmissions that spread quickly and efficiently via

social media. A large percentage of new words are portmanteau words, also called

blended words — a word that combines the meaning of two discrete words; for example,

cineplex is formed from cinema and complex, bromance is formed from brother and

romance, staycation is formed from stay and vacation.

Learning Activities

1. Using a dictionary, make a list of English words that have Old English. Middle

English origins as well as words that were borrowed from other languages and have

become part of the English vocabulary. It is encouraged that you put the meaning of the

words and use them in a sentence for better understanding. The requirement is a

minimum of 50 words. More points are given to those who can give more. Please cite

your references properly.

Lesson 2: Language Acquisition

Introduction

Language is what makes us human- it is what sets us apart from so much of the

animal kingdom. But how do we acquire language? What is a language acquisition theory

and what are the stages and neurocognitive research on language acquisition theory? How

does language work in the brain? How do our brains develop a second language or sign

language? How does artificial intelligence develop a language? How can you help your

child’s language acquisition theory?

Language acquisition theory

Language acquisition is the process by which we are able to develop and learn a

language. This includes (in general but depends on the specific language) speaking,

listening, writing, and overall communication. Our ability to acquire language is a

uniquely human trait because although bonobos, a species of primate, can produce

vocalizations with meaning, birds can produce song, and whales have their own version

of a language, no species on Earth that we know of can express never ending infinite

ideas (sentences) along with a limited set of symbols (gestures, words, and sounds). The

term language acquisition often refers to the first-language acquisition which simply

means that it is the first language learned as an infant (unless the child learns two or

more language at the same time). It is the process by which humans acquire the capacity

to perceive, produce and use words to understand and communicate. It involves the

picking up of diverse capacities including syntax, phonetics, and an extensive

vocabulary. However, learning a first language is something that every normal child

does successfully without much need for formal lessons. Language development is a

complex and unique human quality but yet children seem to acquire language at a

very rapid rate with most children's speech being relatively grammatical by age

three. Grammar, which is a set of mental rules that characterizes all of the sentences of

a language, must be mastered in order to learn a language. Most children in a linguistic

community seem to succeed in converging on a grammatical system equivalent to

everyone else in the community with few wrong turns, which is quite remarkable

considering the pitfalls and complexity of the system. By the time a child utters a first

word, according to the Linguistic Society of America, he or she has already spent many

months playing around with the sounds and intonations of language, but there is still no

one point at which all children learn to talk. Children acquire language in stages and

different children reach various stages at different times, although they have one thing in

common and that is that typically developing children learning the same language will

follow an almost identical pattern in the sequence of stages they go through. The stages

usually consist of:

cooing- 6 months- use phonemes from every language

babbling- 9 months- selectively use phonemes from their native language

one word utterances- 12 months- start using single words

telegraphic speech- 2 years- multi-word utterances that lack in function

normal speech- 5 years- almost normal developed speech

Language acquisition is a complex and unique human quality for which there is

still no theory that is able to completely explain how language is attained. However most
of the concepts and theories we do have explaining how native languages are acquired go

back to the approaches put forward by researchers such as Skinner, Chomsky, Piaget and

others. Most of the modern theories we have today have incorporated aspects of these

theories into their various findings.

There is also the term second-language acquisition which refers to the process

in both children and adults when they learn additional languages apart from their

native one. Each of these terms has at least one language acquisition theory behind them

and the big question of “how do we learn a language?”

A Little History Behind Language Acquisition Theory

As with most of history, it all begins with some philosophers in ancient societies

who were interested in how humans were able to develop language. Using “armchair

psychology” (sitting and thinking about the problem), the large conclusion from these

philosophers was that we were able to learn languages as we do due to the subset of a

human’s ability to gain knowledge and learn concepts. Easier said they found that

language was an innate ability that we were born with. Plato felt that word-meaning

mapping was also innate in one way or another. Grammarians who studied Sanskrit

debated over 12 centuries on whether or not a humans ability to recognize and use the

correct meaning of words in Sanskrit (an ancient Indian language that is over 3,000 years

old) was something passed down by generations and learned from pre-established

conventions (for example, a child learns the word for horse because he hears older

speakers talking about horses) or whether it was innate (“God-given”).

A while later, philosophers such as John Locke and Thomas Hobbes got in on
the language party and argued that knowledge (and language, in Locke’s case) come from

abstracted sense impressions. What does that mean? They argue that language comes

from a sensory experience.

Behaviorists, people who believe that everything is acquired through

conditioning, argued that language is learned through operant conditioning- a form of

conditioning that happens through rewards and punishments which makes someone

associate between a particular behavior and its consequence. A child learns that a specific

combination of words or sounds stands for a specific thing/idea through successfully

repeated associations. For example, a child would learn that their house animal,

Whiskers, is a cat while their other house animal, Fido, is a dog. He would do so because

when the child would call Whiskers his dog, his parents would say that no, Whiskers is a

cat, not a dog. The “big face” for this language acquisition theory is B.F. Skinner

(Burrhus Frederic Skinner) and he went on to publish this theory.

However, Noam Chomsky, one of the world’s greatest linguists to date strongly

criticised Skinner’s theory. Chomsky argued that kids often ignore their parents’

corrections and would not likely learn that actual, proper use of the word or phrase and

end up using it incorrectly, by means of Skinner’s conditioning theory. Chomsky’s

language acquisition theory involved a more mathematical approach to language

development based on a syntax (the meaning of a word) study.

Now, let us study those theories and decide which theory would best explain how

humans acquire language.

Behaviourist Theory

In 1957 a piece of literature appeared that would come to affect how we view

language, human behaviour and language learning. Burrhus Frederic Skinner,

popularly known as B.F. Skinner wrote a book, Verbal Behaviour (1957), which applied a

functional analysis approach to analyze language behaviour in terms of their natural

occurrence in response to environmental circumstances and the effects they have on

human interactions. Skinner's behaviour learning approach relies on the components of

classical conditioning, which involves unconditioned and conditioned stimuli, and

operant conditioning but particularly the elements of operational conditioning.

Operational conditioning refers to a method of learning that occurs through rewards and

punishments for behaviour. Behaviour operates on the environment to bring about

favorable consequences or avoid adverse ones. These same ideas of operant conditioning

can also be applied to language acquisition because Skinner believed that language could

be treated like any other kind of cognitive behaviour. According to the behaviourist

theory, language learning is a process of habit formation that involves a period of trial

and error where the child tries and fails to use correct language until it succeeds. Infants

also have human role models in their environment that provide the stimuli and rewards

required for operant conditioning. For example, if a child starts babblings, which

resembles appropriate words, then his or her babbling will be rewarded by a parent or

loved one by positive reinforcement such as a smile or clap. Since the babblings were

rewarded, this reward reinforces further articulations of the same sort into groupings of

syllables and words in a similar situation (Demirezen, 1988).

Children also utter words because they cause adults to give them the things they
want and they will only be given what they want once the adult has trained or shaped the

child through reinforcement and rewards speech close to that of adult speech. Before long

children will take on the imitation or modeling component of Skinner's theory of

language acquisition in which children learn to speak by copying the utterances heard

around them and by having their responses strengthened by the repetitions, corrections

and other reactions that adults provide. However, before a child can begin to speak, they

first start by listening to the sounds in their environment for the first years of their life.

Gradually, the child learns to associate certain sounds with certain situations such as the

sound of endearment a mother produces when feeding her child. These sounds then

become pleasurable for the child on their own without being accompanied by food and

eventually the child will attempt to imitate these sounds to invite the attention of his

mother or another adult. If these sounds resemble that of adult language the mother will

respond with reward and the operant conditioning process begins.

This theory also postulates that language happens as a reaction to a stimulus. For

example, when a baby is hungry or hurt they would cry, Crying is a response to the

stimulus hunger or pain. When you cut your finger, for example, you are ignited to say

“ouch,” “aray,” or “aray ko.” For people who are close to you, the sound that you made

or the situation you are in serve as the stimulus that ignites their reaction and they would

be made to react as well and say something like “oh my God,” “what happened to you,”

“are you hurt,” “how can I help you,” and the like. In other words, this theory explains

that language is formed or made as a response to a stimulus like events, situations,

feelings, ideas, and others.

Innateness Theory

Noam Chomsky's innateness theory (or nativist theory) proposes that children

have an inborn or innate faculty for language acquisition that is biologically determined.

According to Goodluck (1991), nativists view language as a fundamental part of the

human genome, as a trait that makes humans human, and its acquisition is a natural

part of maturation. It seems that the human species has evolved a brain whose neural

circuits contain linguistic information at birth and this natural predisposition to learn

language is triggered by hearing speech. The child's brain is then able to interpret what

she or he hears according to the underlying principles or structures it already contains

(Linden, 2007). Chomsky has determined that being biologically prepared to acquire

language regardless of setting is due to the child's language acquisition device (LAD),

which is used as a mechanism for working out the rules of language. Chomsky believed

that all human languages share common principles, such as all languages have verbs and

nouns, and it was the child's task to establish how the specific language she or he hears

expresses these underlying principles. For example the LAD already contains the concept

of a verb tense and so by listening to word forms such as “worked” or “played,” the child

will then form a hypothesis that the past tense of a verbs are formed by adding the sound

/d/, /t/, or /id/ to the base form. Yang (2006) also believes that children also initially

possess, then subsequently develop, an innate understanding or hypothesis about

grammar regardless of where they are raised. According to Chomsky, infants acquire

grammar because it is a universal property of language, an inborn development, and has

coined these fundamental grammatical ideas that all humans have as universal grammar

(UG). Children under the age of three usually don't speak in full sentences and instead
say things like "want cookie" but yet you would still not hear them say things like "want

my" or "I cookie" because statements like this would break the syntactic structure of the

phrase, a component of universal grammar. Another argument of the nativist or innate

theory is that there is a critical period for language acquisition, which is a time frame

during which environmental exposure is needed to stimulate an innate trait. Linguist Eric

Lenneberg in 1964 postulated that the critical period of language acquisition ends

around the age of 12 years. He believed that if no language was learned before then, it

could never be learned in a normal and functional sense. It was termed the critical period

hypothesis and since then there has been a few case examples of individuals being subject

to such circumstances such as the girl known as Genie who raised in an abusive

environment to age 13, which didn't allow her to develop language skills.

I could relate to Chomsky's theory as I observed Zaynab, my daughter, developed

her language. Zaynab is multi-lingual. She speaks three languages, English being her

first language, Tagalog, her second, and Ilocano, her third langauge, which she speaks

fluently except Ilocano because she is not exposed to that much to Ilocano speakers. She

understands and speaks it but not as fluent as English and Tagalog. I did not teach her

English words but I communicated with her in English and she was exposed to cartoon

movies and Youtube where the language spoken is English. She learned Tagalog because

her nanny used to speak Tagalog to her.

I did no teach her that run is a verb and it has present form, progresseive form, or

past form but she figured them out herself. The first time I figured out that Chomsky's

theory of language acquisition must be the most functional theory was when Zaynab a 2-

3 years old started saying “tumago” from the root word “tago”. She was relating a story
in Tagalog about her dog that ran and hid behind the door. “Tumago siya behind the

door.” Then I realized she must have figured out the past tense of the verb “tago” herself

and she must have associated it from the word “takbo” with a past tense of “tumakbo,”

which she often used. Sometimes she would say “magtakbo,” “magkain,” which she must

have asscociated with words such as “magdance,” “magsmile,” maghawak,” which ker

nanny used to communicate to her. Children have the tendency to generalize grammar.

They must think that because this form applies to this particular verb, it it can also apply

to other verbs until they will figure out themselves and apply the correct grammar rules

as hat this theory talks about, the innateness of learning a language. This was when she

was about 2-3 years old. I did not teach her that the past tense of this verb should be this

or that. She figured it out herself and now that she is 7 years old she can speak with

correct grammar both in English and Tagalog. Just as anyone of us. Just as all children

did. You could not use your own experience learning your first language to understand

this theory, of course. If you have children around you or if you have your own children

especially those who are newborn, you can observe them as they learn their first language

and decide which theory is the best that explains how language is learned.

Cognitive Theory

Jean Piaget was a Swiss psychologist who was famous for his four stages of

cognitive development for children, which included the development of language.

However, children do not think like adults and so before they can begin to develop

language they must first actively construct their own understanding of the world through

their interactions with their environment. A child has to understand a concept before he or
she can acquire the particular language which expresses that concept. For example, a

child first becomes aware of a concept such as relative size and only afterward do they

acquire the words and patterns to convey that concept. Essentially it is impossible for a

young child to voice concepts that are unknown to them; therefore, once a child learns

about their environment, then they can map language onto their prior experience. An

infant's experience of a cat is that it meows, is furry and eats from a bowl in the kitchen;

hence they develop the concept of cat first and then learn to map the word "kitty" onto

that concept. Language is only one of the many human mental or cognitive activities, and

many cognitivists believe that language emerges within the context of other general

cognitive abilities like memory, attention and problem solving because it is a part of their

broader intellectual development. However, according to Goodluck (1991), once

language does emerge it is usually within certain stages and children go through these

stages in a fixed order that is universal in all children. There is a consistent order of

mastery of the most common function morphemes in a language and simple ideas are

expressed earlier than more complex ones even if they are more grammatically

complicated. Piaget's cognitive theory states that children's language reflects the

development of their logical thinking and reasoning skills in stages, with each period

having a specific name and age reference. There are four stages of Piaget's cognitive

development theory, each involving a different aspect of language acquisition:

1) Sensory-Motor Period- (birth to 2 years) Children are born with "action

schemas" to "assimilate" information about the world such as sucking or grasping.

During the sensory-motor period, children's language is "egocentric" and they talk either
for themselves or for the pleasure of associating anyone who happens to be there with the

activity of the moment.

2) Pre-Operational Period- (2 years to 7) Children's language makes rapid

progress and the development of their "mental schema" lets them quickly "accommodate"

new words and situations. Children's language becomes "symbolic" allowing them to talk

beyond the "here and now" and to talk about things such as the past, future and feelings.

3) Egocentrism- Involves "animism" which refers to young children's tendency to

consider everything, including inanimate objects, as being alive. Language is considered

egocentric because they see things purely from their own perspective.

4) Operational Period- (7 to 11 years) and (11 years to adulthood) Piaget

divides this period into two parts: the period of concrete operations and the period of

formal operations. Language at this stage reveals the movement of their thinking from

immature to mature and from illogical to logical. They are also able to "de-center" or

view things from a perspective other than their own. It is at this point that children's

language becomes "socialized" and includes things such as questions, answers,

commands and criticisms.

Piaget's theory emphasizes that language learning is gradual. Children learn new

words as they grow older and they develop the capacity to use words and their

understanding of those words to solve problems. He concluded that through their

interactions with their environment, children actively construct their own understanding

of the world. Piaget's theory purports that children’s language reflects the development of

their logical thinking and reasoning skills in "periods" or stages, with each period having

a specific name and age reference.

Social Interactionist Theory

Lev Semyonovich Vygotsky, popularly known by his last name Vygotsky,

postulated that social interaction theory incorporates nurture arguments. This theory

explains that children can be influenced by their environment as well as the language

input children receive from their care-givers. Although the theories of Skinner, Chomsky

and Piaget are all very different and very important in their own contexts, they don't

necessarily take into account the fact that children don't encounter language in isolation.

The child is a little linguist analyzing language from randomly encountered adult

utterances. The interaction theory proposes that language exists for the purpose of

communication and can only be learned in the context of interaction with adults and older

children. It stresses the importance of the environment and culture in which the language

is being learned during early childhood development because this social interaction is

what first provides the child with the means of making sense of their own behaviour and

how they think about the surrounding world. According to Williamson (2008), children

can eventually use their own internal speech to direct their own behaviour in much the

same way that their parents' speech once directed their behaviour. Speech to infants is

marked by a slower rate, exaggerated intonation, high frequency, repetition, simple

syntax and concrete vocabulary. This tailored articulation used by care-givers to young

children to maximize phonemic contrasts and pronunciation of correct forms is known as

child-directed speech (CDS). Vygotsky also developed the concepts of private speech

which is when children must speak to themselves in a self guiding and directing way-

initially out loud and later internally and the zone of proximal development which refers

to the tasks a child is unable to complete alone but is able to complete with the assistance
of an adult. The attention and time that a mother spends talking about topics that the child

is already focused on highly correlates with early vocabulary size. In the early stages of a

child`s life this is usually done through motherese or “baby talk” which may allow

children to “bootstrap” their progress in language acquisition (Williamson, 2008). The

mother and father also provide ritualized scenarios, such as having a bath or getting

dressed, in which the phases of interaction are rapidly recognized and predicted by the

infant. The utterances of the mother and father during the activities are ritualized and

predictable so that the child is gradually moved to an active position where they take over

the movements of the care-taker and eventually the ritualized language as well. Basically

the care-giver is providing comprehensible contexts in which the child can acquire

language (Mason, 2002). Another influential researcher of the interaction theory is

Jerome Bruner who elaborated and revised the details of the theory over a number of

years and also introduced the term Language Acquisition Support System (LASS),

which refers to the child`s immediate adult entourage but in the fuller sense points to the

child`s culture as a whole in which they are born. Adults adapt their behaviour towards

children to construct a protected world in which the child is gradually inclined to take

part in a growing number of scenarios and scripts and in this way the child is led

gradually further and further into language. However, one must remember that although

our social context provides support for language acquisition, it does not directly provide

the knowledge that is necessary to acquire language; and this, perhaps, is where a child’s

innate abilities come into play.

This theory, I can say is a combination of the nativist theory and behaviorist

theory as it postulates that a child learns a language through their innate biological
capabilities with exposure to their environment, most specifically the people closest to

them like their family and cargivers. Piaget's theory of cognitive development is also

present in this theory because the capacity of the child to learn new words and the rules

of conjugation, syntax and vocabulary depends on their age. Basically, a seven-yearl olf

child knows more words than a three-year old. The child's innate intelligence also

influences his or her language development. This explains why there are children whp

speak a little faster and earlier than others. The kind of environment (people) where the

child grows also dictates what kind of language he or she learns. For example, a child

who grew up in the slums learn the words of the slums like the “f” word while child who

grew up in a decent and educated family speaks intelligent language.

During one of our outreach programs, I was able to go to the homes of drop-outs

and out-of-school youths. I observed how parents talked to their children. There was a

one mother who was calling her son and she was shouting loudly. May I write here the

words for the purpose of example only. Please do not mind it. The mother said, “Gorio,

Gorio (not the child's real name) agawidkan adda mamaestra umaydaka kano

interviewen! Uk_ _ nam ayanmo manen?” Then Gorio was coming closer and was also

shouting as he was booed by other children who were there curiously staring at us. Gorio

was shouting, “Uk_ nayo met! G_go kayo met, napanak la nagala bayabas!” Of course,

this was in Ilocano. But since we are learning about language acquisition and the theories

are applied to any language learning, this is a concerete example about what kind of

language a child learns with respect to his innate abilities and the environenment he is in.

My example is actually similar to the language of the Black people. They say the “f”

word as part of their daily expression. This is similar to President Rodrigo Duterte who
uses language to express himself and not to degrade other people.
Learning Activity:

1. Write a synthesis of the theories of language acquisition. Elaborate the

relatedness, similarity and interplay of the different theories.

Lesson 3: Second Language Acquisition

Second-language acquisition (SLA), second-language (L2) learning or L2

acquisition, is the process by which people learn a second language. Second-language

acquisition is also the scientific discipline devoted to studying that process. The field of

second-language acquisition is a subdiscipline of applied linguistics, but also receives

research attention from a variety of other disciplines, such as psychology and education.

The main purpose of theories of second-language acquisition (SLA) is to shed

light on how people who already know one language learn a second language. The field

of second-language acquisition involves various contributions, such as linguistics,

sociolinguistics, psychology, psycholinguistics, cognitive science, neuroscience, and

education. These multiple fields in second-language acquisition can be grouped as four

major research strands: (a) linguistic dimensions of SLA, (b) cognitive (but not linguistic)

dimensions of SLA, (c) socio-cultural dimensions of SLA, and (d) instructional

dimensions of SLA. While the orientation of each research strand is distinct, they are in

common in that they can guide us to find helpful condition to facilitate successful

language learning. Acknowledging the contributions of each perspective and the

interdisciplinarity between each field, more and more second language researchers are

now trying to have a bigger lens on examining the complexities of second language

acquisition.

A central theme in SLA research is that of interlanguage, the idea that the

language that learners use is not simply the result of differences between the languages
that they already know and the language that they are learning, but that it is a complete

language system in its own right, with its own systematic rules. This interlanguage

gradually develops as learners are exposed to the targeted language. The order in which

learners acquire features of their new language stays remarkably constant, even for

learners with different native languages and regardless of whether they have had

language instruction. However, languages that learners already know can have a

significant influence on the process of learning a new one. This influence is known as

language transfer.

The primary factor driving SLA appears to be the language input that learners

receive. Learners become more advanced the longer they are immersed in the

language they are learning and the more time they spend doing free voluntary

reading. The input hypothesis developed by linguist Stephen Krashen theorizes that

comprehensible input alone is necessary for second language acquisition. Krashen makes

a distinction between language acquisition and language learning (the acquisition–

learning distinction), claiming that acquisition is a subconscious process, whereas

learning is a conscious one. According to this hypothesis, the acquisition process in L2

is the same as L1 acquisition. Learning, on the other hand, refers to conscious

learning and analysis of the language being learned. Krashen argues that consciously

learned language rules play a limited role in language use, serving as a monitor that could

check second language output for form assuming the learner has time, sufficient

knowledge and inclination (the monitor hypothesis). Subsequent work, by other

researchers, on the interaction hypothesis and the comprehensible output hypothesis, has

suggested that opportunities for output and for interaction may also be necessary for
learners to reach more advanced levels.

Research on how exactly learners acquire a new language spans a number of

different areas. Focus is directed toward providing proof of whether basic linguistic

skills are innate (nature), acquired (nurture) or a combination of the two attributes.

Cognitive approaches to SLA research deal with the processes in the brain that underpin

language acquisition, for example how paying attention to language affects the ability to

learn it, or how language acquisition is related to short-term and long-term memory.

Sociocultural approaches reject the notion that SLA is a purely psychological

phenomenon, and attempt to explain it in a social context. Some key social factors

that influence SLA are the level of immersion, connection to the L2 community and

gender. Linguistic approaches consider language separately from other kinds of

knowledge and attempt to use findings from the wider study of linguistics to explain

SLA. There is also a considerable body of research about how SLA can be affected by

individual factors such as age and learning strategies. A commonly discussed topic

regarding age in SLA is the critical period hypothesis, which suggests that individuals

lose the ability to fully learn a language after a particular age in childhood. Another topic

of interest in SLA is the differences between adult and child learners. Learning

strategies are commonly categorized as learning or communicative strategies and are

developed to improve their respective acquisition skills. Affective factors are emotional

factors that influence an individual's ability to learn a new language. Common affective

factors that influence acquisition are anxiety, personality, social attitudes and

motivation.

Individuals may also lose a language through a process called second-language

attrition. This is often caused by lack of use or exposure to a language over time. The

severity of attrition depends on a variety of factors including level of proficiency, age,

social factors, and motivation at the time of acquisition. Finally, classroom research deals

with the effect that language instruction has on acquisition.

Second Language Learning and Teaching: Learning Styles & Strategies

Strategies in language learning, or the steps that one take to learn a language, is

very important in ultimate language performance. It is defined as “specific actions,

behaviors, steps, or techniques — such as seeking out conversation partners or giving

oneself encouragement to tackle a difficult language task — used by students to enhance

their own learning” (Scarcella & Oxford, 1992, p. 63). There are six strategies that

learners use when learning a language. The strategies include:

1) Memory

2) Cognitive

3) Comprehension

4) Metacognitive

5) Affective

6) Social

Memory Strategy

People who adopt the memory strategy depend on their memorizing ability. They

find ways to remember better to aid in entering information into long-term memory, by

creating a word-meaning map in their brain (mental linkages), and then being able to
retrieve that information. Adopting this strategy will allow the learning and retrieval via

sounds (e.g., rhyming), images (e.g., a mental picture of the word itself or the meaning of

the word), a combination of sounds and images (e.g., the keyword method), body

movement (e.g., total physical response), mechanical means (e.g., flashcards), or location

(e.g., on a page or blackboard).

◆ Things they do: Do a lot of exercises on English grammar. Create a word bank

from your reading materials or TV shows and memorize the meaning of the words

and try to use them.

Cognitive strategy

People who adopt the cognitive strategy tend to analyse and reason. They form

internal mental codes and revise them to receive and produce the message in the target

language. Adopting this strategy will enable you to internalize the language in direct

ways such as through reasoning, analysis, note-taking, summarizing, synthesizing,

outlining, practicing in naturalistic settings, and practicing structures and sounds

formally.

◆ Things they do: Watch Korean dramas and try to replicate how the characters

pronounce Korean words. Watch Korean dramas and try to replicate how the

characters use certain words in a sentence. Write emails or letters in SL. Read SL

reading materials such as magazines and newspapers.

Comprehension strategy

People who adopt the comprehension strategy find themselves guessing unknown
words when listening and reading. They also try to replace words they do not know with

longer phrases or other words that they know when speaking and writing to overcome

gaps in knowledge.

◆ Things they do: Try to guess the meaning of words they don’t know. Try to

understand the meaning through looking at the word in context. Guess the

meaning of some words by reading the whole passage. Try to look for cues or

nonverbal signs when in conversation.

Metacognitive strategy

People who adopt the metacognitive strategy plan, arrange, focus, evaluate on

their own learning process. They identify and monitor their own learning style

preferences and needs, such as gathering and organizing L2 materials, arranging a study

space and a schedule for L2 revision and learning, monitoring mistakes made in L2, and

evaluating task success, and evaluating the success of any type of learning strategy.

◆ Things they do: Observe how the SL teacher speaks in the SL. Observe how they

themselves speak in the SL. Practice speaking in SL in front of the mirror.

Crosscheck with Google to find out if their pronunciation is correct, and correct

it. Doing crossword puzzles and play word games like scrabble. Take note of how

other people communicate in SL, especially natives.

Social/Affective strategy

People who adopt the social/affective strategy control their feelings, motivations

and attitudes when in social situations such as asking questions, communicating with
others, facilitate conversation and interaction.

◆ Things they do: They encourage themselves to speak in SL even when they are

afraid of making a mistake. They reward themselves for good performance. They

remind themselves that it is okay to make mistakes. They tell themselves to be

confident and not be afraid to make mistakes. They try to speak in SL to others.

They ask for clarifications of a confusing point of the L2, or when communicating.

They are people to correct their speech when communicating.

Lesson 4: Systematic Survey of English Syntax

In linguistics, syntax is the set of rules, principles, and processes that govern the

structure of sentences (sentence structure) in a given language, usually including word

order. These rules govern the ways in which words combine to form phrases, clauses,

and sentences. The term "syntax" comes from the Greek, meaning "arrange together."

The term is also used to mean the study of the syntactic properties of a language. In

computer contexts, the term refers to the proper ordering of symbols and codes so that the

computer can understand what instructions are telling it to do. The term syntax is also

used to refer to the study of such principles and processes. The goal of many

syntacticians is to discover the syntactic rules common to all languages.

Hearing and Speaking Syntax

Syntax is one of the major components of grammar. It's the concept that enables

people to know how to start a question with a question word ("What is that?"), or that

adjectives generally come before the nouns they describe ("blue dress"), subjects often

come before verbs in non-question sentences ("Juna shouted"), prepositional phrases start

with prepositions ("in the garden"), helping verbs come before main verbs ("can dance"

or "will sing"), and so on.

For native speakers, using correct syntax is something that comes naturally, as

word order is learned as soon as an infant starts absorbing the language. Native speakers

and those who speak English as a second language but with competence like English

teachers can tell something isn't said quite right because it "sounds weird," even if they
can't detail the exact grammar rule that makes something sound "off" to the ear. That is

your mental grammar working, a set of rules that you know instinctively, as a result of

years of use of your particular language.

"It is syntax that gives the words the power to relate to each other in a

sequence...to carry meaning—of whatever kind—as well as glow individually in just the

right place" (Burgess ,1968).

Syntactic Rules

English parts of speech often follow ordering patterns in sentences and clauses,

such as compound sentences are joined by conjunctions (and, but, or) or that multiple

adjectives modifying the same noun follow a particular order according to their class

(such as number-size-color, as in "six small green chairs"). The rules of how to order

words help the language parts make sense.

Sentences often start with a subject, followed by a predicate (or just a verb in the

simplest sentences) and contain an object or a complement (or both), which shows, for

example, what's being acted upon. Take the sentence "Beth slowly ran the race in wild,

multicolored flip-flops." The sentence follows a subject-verb-object pattern ("Beth ran

the race"). Adverbs and adjectives take their places in front of what they're modifying

("slowly ran"; "wild, multicolored flip-flops"). The object ("the race") follows the verb

"ran", and the prepositional phrase ("in wild, multicolored flip-flops") starts with the

preposition "in".

Syntax vs. Diction and Formal vs. Informal

 Diction refers to the style of writing or speaking that someone uses, brought about

by their choice of words, whereas syntax is the order in which they're arranged in the

spoken or written sentence. Something written using a very high level of diction, like a

paper published in an academic journal or a lecture given in a college classroom, is

written very formally. Speaking to friends or texting are informal, meaning they have a

low level of diction.

"It is essential to understand that the differences exist not because spoken

language is a degradation of written language but because any written language, whether

English or Chinese, results from centuries of development and elaboration by a small

number of users” (Miller, 2008).

Formal written works or presentations would likely also have more complex

sentences or industry-specific jargon. They are directed to a more narrow audience than

something meant to be read or heard by the general public, where the audience members'

backgrounds will be more diverse.

Precision in word choice is less exacting in informal contexts than formal ones,

and grammar rules are more flexible in spoken language than in formal written language.

Understandable English syntax is more flexible than most.

"...the odd thing about English is that no matter how much you screw sequences

word up, you understood, still, like Yoda, will be. Other languages don't work that way.

French? Dieu! Misplace a single le or la and an idea vaporizes into a sonic puff. English

is flexible: you can jam it into a Cuisinart for an hour, remove it, and meaning will still

emerge” (Copeland, 2009).

Types of Sentence Structures

Types of sentences and their syntax modes include simple sentences, compound

sentences, complex sentences, and compound-complex sentences. Compound sentences

are two simple sentences joined by a conjunction. Complex sentences have dependent

clauses, and compound-complex sentences have both types included.

Subject/predicate: All sentences are about something or someone. The

something or someone that the sentence is about is called the subject of the sentence. In

the following sentences the subjects are shown in green. Note how the subject is often,

but not always, the first thing in the sentence.

John often comes late to class.

My friend and I both have a dog named Spot.

Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.

The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down to make way for

a new supermarket.

Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue

tail feathers.

The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks excellent English.

On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.

Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the students are well-

prepared.
 Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.

The predicate contains information about the someone or something that is the

subject. The example sentences above are shown again, this time with the predicate

marked in blue.

John often comes late to class.

My friend and I both have a dog named Spot.

Many parts of the Asian coastline were destroyed by a tsunami in 2004.

The old hotel at the end of the street is going to be knocked down to make way for

a new supermarket.

Sitting in a tree at the bottom of the garden was a huge black bird with long blue

tail feathers.

The grade 7 Korean boy who has just started at FIS speaks excellent English.

On Saturdays I never get up before 9 o'clock.

Before giving a test the teacher should make sure that the students are well-

prepared.

Lying on the sofa watching old films is my favourite hobby.

Sentence types: One way to categorize sentences is by the clauses they contain. A clause

is a part of a sentence containing a subject and a predicate. Here are the 4 sentence types:

Simple: Contains a single, independent clause.

 I don't like dogs.

Our school basketball team lost their last game of the season 75-68.

The old hotel opposite the bus station in the center of the town is probably going

to be knocked down at the end of next year.

Compound: Contains two independent clauses that are joined by a coordinating

conjunction. (The most common coordinating conjunctions are: but, or, and, so.

Remember: boas.)

I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats.

You can write on paper, or you can use a computer.

A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured.

Complex: Contains an independent clause plus one or more dependent clauses. (A

dependent clause starts with a subordinating conjunction. Examples: that, because, while,

although, where, if.)

I don't like dogs that bark at me when I go past.

She did my homework, while her father cooked dinner.

You can write on paper, although a computer is better if you want to correct

mistakes easily.

Note: A dependent clause standing alone without an independent clause is called a

sentence fragment – see below.

Here is a glaring example of a sentence fragment:

Because of the rain.

 On its own, because of the rain doesn’t form a complete thought. It leaves us

wondering what happened because of the rain. To complete it, we need further

explanation:

Because of the rain, the party was cancelled.

Now the fragment has become a dependent clause attached to a sentence that has

a subject (the party) and a verb (was canceled). Our thought is complete.

In that example, making the sentence longer was the solution. But that doesn’t

mean that short sentences can’t be complete. This short sentence is complete:

I left.

Compound-complex: Contains 3 or more clauses (of which at least two are

independent and one is dependent).

I don't like dogs, and my sister doesn't like cats because they make her sneeze.

You can write on paper, but using a computer is better as you can easily correct

your mistakes.

A tree fell onto the school roof in a storm, but none of the students was injured,

although many of them were in classrooms at the top of the building.

Syntax Variations and Distinctions

Syntax has changed some over the development of English through the centuries.

Not all people speak English in exactly the same way. Social dialects learned by people

with common backgrounds—such as a social class, profession, age group, or ethnic

group—also may influence the speakers' syntax. Think of the differences between
teenagers' slang and more fluid word order and grammar vs. research scientists' technical

vocabulary and manner of speaking to each other. Social dialects are also called "social

varieties."

Beyond Syntax

Following proper syntax doesn't guarantee that a sentence will have

meaning, though. Linguist Noam Chomsky created the sentence "Colorless green ideas

sleep furiously," which is syntactically and grammatically correct because it has the

words in the correct order and verbs that agree with subjects, but it's still nonsense. With

it, Chomsky showed that rules governing syntax are distinct from meanings that words

convey.

The distinction between grammar and syntax has been somewhat disrupted by

recent research in lexicogrammar, which takes the words into account in grammar rules:

For example, some verbs (transitive ones, that perform an action on something) always

take direct objects.

A transitive (action) verb example:

"She extracted her tooth."

The verb is "extracted" and the object is "tooth."

Another example includes a transitive phrasal verb:

"Please look over my report before I turn it in."

"Look over" is the phrasal verb and "report" is the direct object. To be a complete

thought, you need to include what's being looked over. Thus, it has to have a direct
object.

Module 2

Lesson 5: Sentence Patterns

Lesson 6: The Structure of Phrases

Lesson 7: Usage Issues in Modern English Grammar

Lesson 8: World Englishes