Brooklyn College Library LibGuides Home: ENGL 7160X: History of the English Language: Schedule

Wk	Date	Topic
1	8-30	Introduction
2	9-6	*Overview and OED* workshop**
3	9-13	Origins
4	9-20	Middle English
5	9-27	No class
6	10-4	No class
7	10-11	Renaissance
8	10-18	Standardization
9	10-25	America and elsewhere
10	11-1	English expands
11	11-8	Fusion Englishes, Future Englishes
12	11-15	Library Research Workshop
13	11-22	Annotated bibliography workshop; readings TBA
14	11-29	Research conferences; paper proposal due
15	12-6	Research presentations
16	12-13	Peer-editing workshop
17	12-20	Revised research paper due

Week 1-3

Week 1: 8/30: Introduction to Class.

Reading Response Due

Week 2: 9/6: Overview and OED workshop

Reading response due.

Required Readings:

Crystal, Introduction, Stories of English
In: David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Lehrer, Introduction: Inventing English
In: Lerer, Seth. Inventing English : A Portable History of the Language, Columbia University Press, 2007. ProQuest Ebook Central

Week 3: 9/13: Origins

Reading Response due, [OED Exercise].

Required Reading:

Crystal, Chapter 1: The origins of Old English
in: David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Crystal, Chapter 3: Early Lexical Diversity
In: David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.

M. Bragg, The Adventure of English
p. 6-7 in Bragg, Melvyn. The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. New York, NY: Arcade Publishing, 2003 [2011].

Readings in Early English - Old English Texts.
Readings in Early English - Old English Texts. “1. The Man Who Built His House on Sand 2. Abraham & Isaac 3. From the Anglo-Saxon Chronicle 4. Daniel Cædmon’s Hymn From ‘The Dream of the Rood’ 5. From Ælfric’s ‘Life of King Oswald’ 6. From ’Beowulf.”

Optional Supplemental Reading:

Van Gelderen, Chapter 4: Old English
In Gelderen, Elly van. History of the English Language, John Benjamins Publishing Company, 2006. ProQuest Ebook Central, https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/brooklyn-ebooks/detail.action?docID=622661.
Lehrer, Ch. 1: Caedmon Learns to Sing: Old English and the Origin of Poetry
In: Lerer, Seth. Inventing English : A Portable History of the Language, Columbia University Press, 2007.

Week 4-6

Week 4: 9/20: Middle English

Reading Response Due; [OED Exercise].

Required Reading:

Crystal, Ch. 5: The transition to Middle English
In David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Read first 4 paragraphs.
Crystal, Chapter 6: A trilingual nation
in David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Crystal, Chapter 7: Lexical invasions
In David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Read up to Interlude 7.
Crystal, Chapter 10: The emerging standard
David Crystal. (2004) The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Middle English Readings
1. From The General Prologue to the Canterbury Tales 2. From The Pardoner's Tale 3. From The Parson's Tale 4. From The Peterborough Chronicle 5. From Sir Orfeo 6. From Sir Gawain and the Green Knight 7. From William Caxton's Preface to his edition of the Morte D'Arthure 8. From Sir Thomas Malory's The Morte Darthur 9. A letter from Margaret Paston

Optional supplemental Reading:

Lehrer, Ch. 4: From Kingdom to Realm: Middle English in a French World
In Lerer, S. (2007). Inventing english : A portable history of the language. Columbia University Press.

Week 5: 9/27: No Class

Week 6: 10/4: No Class

Week 7-8

Week 7: 10/11: Renaissance

Reading response due; [OED exercise]

Required Reading:

Crystal, Chapter 11: Printing and its consequences
In David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Crystal, Chapter 12: Early Modern English preoccupations
In David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.

Bragg, Ch. 10: A Renaissance of Words
In Bragg, Melvyn. (2003) The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. New York, NY: Arcade Publishing.

Early Modern English Texts
Openly available.
Readings in Early English - Middle English Texts.1. From Love's Labours Lost 2. From As You Like It 3. From The Tragedie of King Lear 4. From The Tragedie of Julius Caesar 5. From The Tragedie of Hamlet 6. From The Tragedie of Richard III 7. From the Authorized Version of the Bible (1611) 8. E.K.'s Preface to Spenser's Shepheardes Calendar (1579) 9. From John Milton's Areopagitica (1644) 10. From John Dryden, All for Love or, the World Well Lost (1677/1678) 11. From The Letters of Lady Brilliana Harley (1642).

Week 8: 10/18: Standardization

Reading response due; 1^st essay due.

Required Reading:

Crystal, Chapter 15: Stabilizing disorder
In David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.
Crystal, Chapter 16: Standard rules

Bryson, Ch. 10: Order Out of Chaos
In Bill Bryson, The Mother Tongue: English and How it Got That Way (Harper Collins, 1990)

Johnson, Samuel. “Johnson’s Dictionary Online.”

Week 9-11

Week 9: 10/25: America and elsewhere

Reading Response due.

Required Reading:

Crystal, Chapter 17: New horizons
In David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.

Bryson, Ch. 11: Old World, New World
In Bryson, Bill. The Mother Tongue: English and How It Got That Way. New York: Harper Collins Perennial, 2001.

Webster, Noah, and Hezekiah Howe. An American Dictionary of the English Language
Openly Available at Archive.org.
Webster, Noah, and Hezekiah Howe. An American Dictionary of the English Language, and a Concise Grammar of the English Language. New York : S. Converse, 1828.
more...less...
Intended to Exhibit, I. The Origin, Affinities and Primary Signification of English Words, as Far as They Have Been Ascertained. II. The Genuine Orthography and Pronunciation of Words, According to General Usage, or to Just Principles of Analogy. III. Accurate and Discriminating Definitions, with Numerous Authorities and Illustrations. To Which Are Prefixed, an Introductory Dissertation on the Origin, History and Connection of the Languages of Western Asia and of Europe

Week 10: 11/1: English expands

Reading Response Due

Required Reading:

Crystal, Chapter 18: Linguistic life goes on
in David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.

Bragg, Ch.19: Indian Takeover; Ch. 20: The West Indies
In Bragg, Melvyn. (2003) The Adventure of English: The Biography of a Language. New York, NY: Arcade Publishing.

Yule, Henry, and A.C. Burnell. Hobson-Jobson
Openly Available.
Yule, Henry, and A.C. Burnell. Hobson-Jobson: A Glossary of Colloquial Anglo-Indian Words and Phrases, and of Kindred Terms, Etymological, Historical, Geographical and Discursive. New edn by William Crooke. London: Murray, 1903.
Hakluyt, Richard. The Principal Navigations, Voyages, Traffiques, and Discoveries of The English Nation — Volume 12:America, Part I
Openly available at the Gutenberg Project.
Image source: frontispiece of Vol. 1, 1st edition

Week 11: 11/8: Fusion Englishes, Future Englishes

Reading Response Due

Required Reading:

Salomone, Ch. 1: The English Divide
Salomone, Rosemary. The Rise of English: Global Politics and the Power of Language. Oxford University Press, 2021.

Crystal, Chapter 20: Times a-changin’
in David Crystal. (2004). The Stories of English. Abrams Press.

Abley, Prodigal Tongue Selections
Mark Abley, The Prodigal Tongue: Dispatches from the Future of English (Houghton Mifflin, 2008)

United Language Group. “What Is Global English?”
Chotiner, “Globish for Beginners.”
Chotiner, Isaac. “Globish for Beginners.” The New Yorker, May 24, 2010.
McWhorter, “Is Texting Killing the English Language?”
McWhorter, John. “Is Texting Killing the English Language?” Time, April 25, 2013.

Week 12-17

Week 12: 11/15: Library Research Workshop, Library Room 120; Take-home final-exam due Friday 11/18

Week 13: 11/22: Annotated bibliography workshop; readings TBA. Annotated Bibliography due.

Week 14: 11/29: Research conferences; Final paper proposal due

Week 15: 12/6: Research presentations. 2 pages of essay due.

Week 16 12/13: Peer-editing workshop. Full research paper draft and

peer review due.

Week 17: 12/20: Revised research paper due

ENGL 7160X: History of the English Language: Schedule

Table of Contents

Week 1-3

Week 4-6

Week 7-8

Week 9-11

Week 12-17