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This introductory lecture gives a survey of the fundamentals of historical change in phonology, grammar and the lexicon across the Old, Middle and Modern English periods to the present day as well as of contemporary regional/national, social and functional variation in English, emphasising the close relationship between language change and variation. It introduces the concept of the linguistic situation with its various parameters and presents language change and variation as complex processes determined by the interaction of intralinguistic forces and extralinguistic factors resulting from the history of the respective speech community and its social differentiation. The lecture sets the framework for a more detailed treatment of historical change of or, alternatively, contemporary variation of the English language in the seminars offered in this module. |
