English in a Historical Perspective UP876009

All languages change over time, and there can be many different reasons for this.
The English language is no different from this. The changes in society since the late
eighteen have been nothing short of revolutionary. From the French and American
revolutions to the First and Second World Wars, the English language has expanded its
influence across the globe, economically, politically and culturally. And due to the
Technological Revolution, this influence vastly increased as it permits to be constantly
linked.

The following text to be analyzed is an extract from the website of the BBC written
by the business reporter Joshua Cheetham that talks about the incomes and expectations
of the Christmas ads this year.

The first thing to be aware of is the type of text we have to analyze. In the past,
most of the texts in written English dealt with religious and culture themes (e.g. the Bible,
fiction novels, poetry, etc), whereas this text covers a business topic, in which the use of
language, such as the syntax and the vocabulary, is very specific when compiling
information.

The structure of the text is purely from today’s English (subject + verb + object).
The characteristics of the previous stages of English disappeared, as we find how nouns,
verbs, adjectives and adverbs are modified by inflections, for instance, “jump(ed)” (L8),
“campaign(s)” (L12) or “late(st)” (L17). This makes us aware of the evolution of English
from a synthetic-type language to an analytical language.

When talking about nouns, nothing much changed from the Early Modern Period.
The plural form kept the same paradigm (final -s or -es at the end of the word), as in
“retailers” (L11) and in “businesses” (L34). The use of genitive kept the pattern from the
early stage of Modern English: it is represented with an –s at the end of singular and
irregular plural forms of some words (such as “man’s” and “men’s”), and it is possible to
recognize this case because of the use of apostrophe between the word and the final –s as
we see in “people’s attention” (L15-16), but also at the end of the word if the noun ends
in –s (e.g. John Lewis’ Christmas ads […] (L14)). Anyway, there are other methods of
genitive within the text, in which the employed form is the preposition of, as we can see
in “the rise of big-budget […] (L9)” or “the premier of their favourite Christmas ad
(L24)”.

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According to G. H. Vallins (1957) “the modern inflection (‘s, s’) is restricted to

nouns representing persons or animals”. This makes us conscious that the use of genitive
and the representation of it can differ depending the context.

The system of verbs is the result of centuries of evolution and changes. The ancient
rules of verbs inflections disappeared, giving now new techniques when constructing a
verb tense, for instance, the final –s in the third person singular forms of the verb replaced
the final –th used in Middle English. Another modern characteristic among others, is the
frequent use of auxiliaries. In the text, the auxiliaries used are “do” and “have”, and we
can notice this in “has jumped” (L10) and “don’t have” (L34). One significant change in
Present-Day English is the use of the progressive forms of the verbs. The progressive
form is a verb tense used to show an ongoing action in progress at some point in time.
Verbs can appear in any one of three progressive tenses: present progressive, past
progressive, and future progressive. Within the text, we only find one example of this
form in line 8 “it is being”. This is an example of a progressive passive, whose structure
began in the late eighteenth century, and was expanded in frequency of use during the
Present-Day English (Fenell, 2001).

Phrasal verbs play an important role in Modern English. These structures are
phrases composed by a verb and a preposition, and they indicate a specific action.
Nowadays, phrasal verbs are very common to use either in written or spoken English. It
is possible to find some examples in the text, “rake in” (L6), “get under way” (L11) and
“take out” (L15). These combinations of verbs and prepositions were found in Old
English but have considerably increased in quantity in Present-Day English (Fenell,
2001).

The adjectives found in this text function according to the grammar rules of today’s
English: the comparison inflections for comparative and superlative –er and –est. Mono-
and disyllabic adjectives are usually compared throughout inflectional endings, and the
longer forms periphrastically with more and most (Nevalainen, 2006). We can observe
this in “latest” (L17) and in “harder” (L28).

Regarding adverbs, they are usually formed by adding the suffix –ly at the end of
an adjective (excluding the irregular adverbs). During the Old English period, the
construction of adverbs did not employ the suffix mentioned before, so there were
suffixless adverbs (zero derivation) (Nevalainen, 2006). The adverbs found in the text

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follow the actual pattern as we see in “nearly” (L10), “particularly” (L14) or

“traditionally” (L30).

One main feature that characterize this language to belong in the Modern English
period is the vocabulary used through the text. It is possible to find several characteristics
of this topic when revising the theme of the text: we can find specific names (mostly
proper nouns) that makes reference to today’s world, whom did not exist in the previous
stages of Modern English: names referring to corporation, such as “Asda” (L11),
“Credos” (L12) and “John Lewis” (L14). Besides this, there also references to the actual
culture within the text as we can observe a reference to “Paddington Bear” (L19), which
is a fictional character created in the last century.

Moreover, apart from the proper nouns, we should remark a group of words that
function as nouns, even when they represent a whole phrase: acronyms. Acronyms are
words or names created by means of abbreviation from the initial components in a phrase
or a word. We can mention two acronyms in the text, “M&S” (L11) which means “Marks
& Spencer”, and “AMVBBDO” (L35), which refers to “Abbott Mead Vickers BBDO”.
According to Fennell (2001), “several linguists have noted that present-day English
exhibits a tendency to use acronyms […] also frequently employed in the creation of
names of corporation”.

Regarding other features, we can indicate the existence of some expressions or

idioms within the text: “moved to tears” (L26) “year-on-year” (L32) or “upping the ante”
(L23 and L27). The latter, which is linked to the theme, refers to the process of making
something more desirable, to increase its value. According to OED (2017), these
expression originated in the nineteenth century. Furthermore, we can see an example of
colloquialism in the same way. We can mention the abbreviation of British (“brits”
(L24)), which is considered as a colloquial form of the actual word (OED, 2017).

Summing up, this text reflects neatly the changes of the English language features
through years of evolution. There are some patterns of the previous stage of English that
have been adapted nowadays, but there is also a new vocabulary in use that have been
introduced due to political, economic or cultural reasons. With no doubt, English
language has evolved, and it will continue changing in a not-too-distant future.

Word count: 1206

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REFERENCES:

Barbara A. Fennell (2001). A history of English: a sociolinguistic approach.

Oxford: Blackwell.

G. H. Vallins (1957). The Pattern of English. London: Penguin Books.

Nevalainen, T. (2006). An introduction to Early Modern English. Edinburgh:

Edinburgh University Press.

OED (2017). Accessed from the website: http://www.oed.com/