Lecture 1 Introduction

Lecture 1
Introduction
The History of the English Language appeared as a serious science in the 19^th century. Every science has its object, subject and aims.
The object of The History of the English Language is the English Language itself, its phonetic, grammatical and lexical aspects.
The subject of The History of the English Language is:

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  main changes in the phonetic structure and spelling of the language at different stages of the development of the language;
  
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  the evolution of the grammatical system;
  
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  the growth and development of the vocabulary.
  

All these changes are considered against the background of the main historical events that took place in the country.
The aim of The History of the English Language is to study the changes mentioned above.

The History of the English Language has been reconstructed on the basis of written records of different periods. The earliest written texts in English are dated in the 7^th century. The earliest records in other Germanic languages go back to the 3^rd or 4^th centuries A.D.

Language is constantly changing, at different speed and at different linguistic levels (phonetics, grammar, lexicon). The linguistic history explains many features of present-day language (see § 3-5, p. 10-12 in “История английского языка” by Т.А. Расторгуева).

A language can be studied synchronically:

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  a certain period in the history of the development of a language is taken (fixed time boundaries) – horizontal study;
  
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  each level of a language is studied (phonetics, grammar, lexicon);
  
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  different functional varieties of a language are studied (different dialects of this period).