Compare your notes with those of your partner.

Put the sentences below in chronological order. Use transitional words or phrases if needed between the sentences to form a paragraph.

1. After 407 A.D., Angles, Saxons, and Jutes overran England and brought a Germanic dialect.

2. English was influenced by the conquest of foreign powers.

3. In 1066, the French occupied England.

4. As a result of foreign domination, there are many synonymous words in English that have been borrowed from other languages.

5. The dialect of the Roman soldiers had an impact on the English language.

6. First, Britain was conquered by the Romans in 43 A.D.

7. Consequently, the vocabulary was supplemented with many French words.

Work with your partner, refer to your notes and summarise the information given in the text. You may use the paragraph from the previous exercise as an example.

Read the text once again and decide if the statements below are true or false according to the article. Correct the false statements.

1) Scientists theorize that language evolved as early humans used sounds to symbolize objects, people, and needs.

2) Language change can reflect knowledge that is added to the human storehouse of information.

3) When the French-Normans conquered England, English became the language of the ruling class.

4) The Greeks contributed many words to the English language, especially in the areas of government, schools, and church.

5) As French words supplemented the English language, a richness of synonyms resulted.

6) Thomas Jefferson started a crusade to reform the spelling system of American English.

7) Early Americans adopted the Indian names for animals that had no counterparts in England.

8) The inconsistency between spelling and pronunciation can be partially explained by the fact that the spoken word evolved constantly, while the printed language remained more fixed.

9) The tendency to change brand-name products into generic words accounts for new words like Kleenex.

10) English vocabulary has constantly expanded as a result of the impact made by a multilingual population.

Discuss the following questions with your class.

1) Do you think it would have been better if English had remained as it was 1000 years ago? Has it become simpler over the years?

2) What does the change in a language show about the history and development of the country it belongs?

3) Do you think it is important to study a language, in terms of its origin and history, its literature and its grammar? Why?

LISTENING 2. 'Do You Speak American?'

Дата добавления: 2015-11-16