Lecture 5

THE FORMATION OF THE NATIONAL LITERARY

ENGLISH LANGUAGE

Plan

1. Historical background from the 15^th to the 17 century. Conditions for linguistic unity.

2. The formation of the national language. The spoken Standard.

3. Geographical expansion of English.

4. English today.

1. Historical background from the 15^th to the 17^th century. Conditions for linguistic unity.

The formation of the national English language, or Standard English, is considered to date from the period between the 15^th and the 17^th centuries. After that time the language continued to change, yet, henceforth one can speak of the evolution of Standard English instead of trading the similar or different trends in the history of its dialects.

We must mention at least two of the external factors that led to this development: the unification of the country and the progress of culture. Other historical events, such as the increased foreign contacts, produced a more specific kind of influence on the language: they affected the word-stock.

The 15^th and 16^th cc. saw striking changes in the life of the country. Trade had extended beyond the local boundaries and apart from farming and cattle-breeding an important wool trade and industry was carried on in the countryside. As the demand for wool and cloth rose, Britain began to export woolen cloth produced by the first big enterprises, the “manufactures”.

The changes in the economic and social conditions were accompanied by the intermixture of people coming from different regions, the growth of towns with a mixed population, and the strengthening of social ties between the various regions. All these processes played an important role in the unification of the English language.

Towards the end of the 15^th c. the period of feudal disunity in Britain came to an end, and Britain became a centralized state.

In 1485 the strongest royal power under Henry VII was established. Henry VII was the founder of the Tudor dynasty and of a new kind of Monarchy. He reduced the power of the old nobility and created new nobles out of the bourgeoisie and the middle class who ardently supported him. The royal power grew still stronger and the power of the church weaker when his successor, Henry VIII, broke with the Pope and declared himself head of the English Church (1534).

The Tudors encouraged the development of trade inside and outside the country. The great geographical discoveries gave a new impetus to the progress of foreign trade. English traders set forth on daring journeys in search of gold and treasures. Sea pirates and slave-traders were patronized by Queen Elizabeth as readily as traders in wool, for they made large contributions to her treasury. Under the later Tudors England became one of the biggest trade and sea powers. In 1588 England defeated the Spanish fleet, the Invisible Armada, thus dealing a final blow to Spain, her main rival in overseas trade and in colonial expansion. In the late 16^th c. England founded its first colonies abroad.

Thus the contracts of England with other nations – although not necessarily friendly – became closer, and new contacts were made in distant lands. These new ties could not but influence the development of the language.

All over the world the victory of capitalism over feudalism was linked up with the consolidation of people into nations and the unification of the regional dialects into a national language or rather the formation of a superdialect from of language used as a standard from of speech by the nation. The making of the English nation went hand in hand with the formation of the national English language.

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