Category: PDFs

PDF #126 – The Great Vowel Shift

The Great Vowel Shift was a series of changes in the pronunciation of the English language that took place primarily between 1400 and 1700, beginning in southern England and today having influenced effectively all dialects of English. Through this vowel shift, the pronunciation of all Middle English long vowels was changed. Some consonant sounds changed as well, particularly those that became silent; the term Great Vowel Shift is sometimes used to include these consonant changes.

English spelling started being standardized in the 15th and 16th centuries, and the Great Vowel Shift is the major reason English spellings now often deviate considerably from how they represent pronunciations. The Great Vowel Shift was first studied by Otto Jespersen (1860–1943), a Danish linguist and Anglicist, who coined the term.

What is the Great Vowel Shift?

The Great Vowel Shift was a massive sound change affecting the long vowels of English during the fifteenth to eighteenth centuries.

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 has had long-term implications for, among other things, orthography, the teaching of reading, and the understanding of any English-language text written before or during the Shift. Any standard history of the English language textbook (see our sources) will have a discussion of the GVS. This page gives just a quick overview; our interactive See and Hear page adds sound and animation to give you a better sense of how this all works.

The main difference between Chaucer’s language and our own is in the pronunciation of the “long” vowels. The consonants remain generally the same, though Chaucer rolled his r’s, sometimes dropped his aitches, and pronounced both elements of consonant combinations, such as “kn,” that were later simplified. And the short vowels are very similar in Middle and Modern English. But the “long” vowels are regularly and strikingly different. This is due to what is called The Great Vowel Shift.

Beginning in the twelfth century and continuing until the eighteenth century (but with its main effects in the fifteenth and early sixteenth centuries) the sounds of the long stressed vowels in English changed their places of articulation (i.e., how the sounds are made).

Old and Middle English were written in the Latin alphabet and the vowels were represented by the letters assigned to the sounds in Latin. For example, Middle English “long e” in Chaucer’s “sheep” had the value of Latin “e” (and sounded like Modern English “shape” [/e/] in the International Phonetic Alphabet [IPA]). It had much the same value as written long e has in most modern European languages. Consequently, one can read Chaucer’s long vowels with the same values as in Latin or any continental European language and come pretty close to the Middle English values.

The Great Vowels Shift changed all that; by the end of the sixteenth century the “e” in “sheep” sounded like that in Modern English “sheep” or “meet” [IPA /i/]. To many it seemed that the pronunciation of English had moved so far from its visual representation that a new alphabet was needed, and in the sixteenth century we have the first attempts to “reform” English spellings, a movement still active today. In 1569 John Hart (in his Orthographie) went so far as to devise a new phonetic alphabet to remedy what he considered a fatal flaw in our system of language. (His alphabet and the work of other language reformers provides us with our best evidence for the pronunciation of English in his time).

After reading “The Great Vowel Shift” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #125 – Adele E Goldberg and Devin Casenhiser – English Constructions

Constructions have been defined variously in the literature, but the traditional use of the term corresponds to a conventional pairing of form with (semantic or discourse) function. This article provides examples of uncontroversial instances of constructions, clarifies some of the debates surrounding the term currently, and also briefly explores a broad based range of constructionist theories that have converged on the basic idea that traditional constructions play a central theoretical role in language.

It was the Roman orator, Cicero, who in the first Century BCE, provided our first known application of the word constructio (from which English derives the word ‘construction’) to a grouping of words. Half a century later, Priscian (c. 500 CE), began using the word constructio as a grammatical term, and the
Medieval Linguists known as the Modistae (12th Century) spent much of their time considering the nature of the construction itself. Their work centered on defining the construction as ‘an ordering of words that agree and express a complete meaning.’ Their basic criterion for a construction was that it consisted of at least two words in which one of the words was said to ‘govern’ or ‘require’ the other word or words. This notion of construction must be both grammatically well-formed and express a meaningful sentiment. The crowd run, would have been rejected on syntactic grounds (subject-verb agreement), and Colorless green ideas sleep furiously would have been rejected as a construction on the grounds that it is semantically vacuous. In short, the Modistae believed that constructions were not defined simply on the basis of form (i.e., syntax), but also on function (i.e., semantics)

After reading “Goldberg Casenhiser English Constructions” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs and visit my channel by Youtube.

PDF #124 – Stephen D Krashen – Principles and Practice in SLA

The purpose of this book is to take a new look at an old question: the relationship between second language teaching practice and what is known about the process of second language acquisition.

PDF #123 – Meisel, Jürgen M. – First and Second Language Acquisition Parallels and Differences 2011

this is an introduction to the study of the human Language Making Capacity. More accurately, it is a textbook presenting research questions and research results referring to specific manifestations of this capacity in monolingual and bilingual first language acquisition and child and adult second language acquisition.

PDF #122 – Ricardo Jaime da Silva Pereira – Embracing English as a Lingua Franca Learning From Portuguese Users of English in Higher Education, 2015

The last sixty years have witnessed a vast spread of English language teaching (ELT), which has led to a historically unique position of English in the world, where native speakers of English are now outnumbered by non-native users of the language.

As a result, a greater need for the lingua franca function of English is needed but, although English as Lingua Franca (ELF) is emerging as a legitimate alternative to Standard English or native speaker-based models in ELT, the truth is that the primacy of the latter is still upheld in most classrooms around the world.

With this in mind, this thesis begins by examining the reasons for learning
English and presents an outline of how English has come to be a global language. Due to the increasing use of English for intercultural communication, this study reviews the major developments in research into ELF and then outlines the position of ELF in the European Union, and surveys ELT practices in this specific setting.

This thesis then examines the presence of English in the national context of
Portugal and focuses on students of English at the School of Technology and
Management (ESTG/IPL), in Leiria. The methods used in this study combine the analysis of questionnaires and answers to a placement test that incoming students are required to take. Despite having successfully undergone at least seven years of prior English learning, it has been observed that the majority of these undergraduates struggle with the demands of this language in its standard form.

After reading “Embracing English as a Lingua Franca” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #121 – Anthony Pym – Nineteenth-century discourses on translation in language teaching

Renewed attention to the role of translation in language teaching raises questions about the historical causes of anti-translation discourse among contemporary language educationalists. The mainstream narrative sees the nineteenth century as being dominated by “grammar translation”, whereas the twentieth century saw progressive enlightenment from immersion and communicative methods.

After reading “The Myth of Native English Teachers” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #120 – Julie C Forrester – A Brief Overview of English as a Language in Change

This paper will make a brief review of the reasons for language change, before addressing the issue of how the concept of the native speaker as a model for English is also being modified. Some examples will then be given of recent changes that have been noted in the English language, covering the modification of pronunciation over time, the addition of lexis, and changing syntactical and semantic rules or levels of acceptability, to demonstrate how words and phrases are being used now in ways which might not have been considered acceptable in the past.

PDF #119 – Maria del Pilar Garcia Mayo – in Enric Llurda – Non-Native Language Teachers, Perceptions, Challenges and Contributions to the Profession, 2005

Research on the perceptions of non-native speaker (NNS) English teachers, those held by themselves, by their students, or by native speakers (NS), is an issue relatively recent in the academic arena. In fact, and as mentioned throughout the volume under review, there seems to have been a surge of such studies since the establishment of the Non-native English Speakers’ Caucus in the TESOL organization in 1999 and the seminal work by Braine (1999) that same year.

Non-native language teachers have often been viewed as an unavoidable fate of the profession, rather than an asset worth exploring and investigating. Now that non-natives are increasingly found teaching languages, and particularly English, both in ESL and EFL contexts, the identification of their specific contributions and their main strengths has become more relevant than ever.

As a result, there has recently been a surge of interest in the role of non-native teachers but little empirical research has been published so far. This volume is particularly rich in providing different approaches to the study of non-native teachers: NNS teachers as seen by students, teachers, graduate supervisors, and by themselves. It also contributes little explored perspectives, like classroom discourse analysis, or a social-psychological framework to discuss conceptions of NNS teachers.

After reading “Non-Native Language Teachers Perceptions” you can check important issues for ESL teachers on the section PDFs, and visit my YouTube channel.

PDF #118 – George Braine – A History of Research on non-native speaker English Teachers, HK Uni

This paper reports the outcome of a study carried out in Qassim University with 169 Saudi male novice university students to obtain a deeper insight into their perceptions of their native English speaker teachers (NESTs) and non-native English speaker teachers (NNESTs) in the English language classroom. Quantitative and qualitative data were collected in two stages by means of students’ questionnaires and interviews. The results reveal statistical significant difference in the respondents’ perceptions in favor of NESTs. Students showed more preference for NESTs as they go to higher levels. Students previous learning experiences may affect their general preference for NESTs since they were taught by both types of teachers. Subjects also exhibited an explicit preference for NESTs in relation to the teaching strategies adopted. However, the respondents showed moderately favorable attitudes towards NNESTs who provide a serious learning environment and a favorable response to learners’ needs.

PDF #117 – Richard Smith – Applied Linguistic Historiography, Uni of Warwick

A PowerPoint presentation