ENG367Y –
Take-home test
Due: ALL TERM WORK HAS TO BE SUBMITTED BY FRIDAY APRIL 12th.
See page 473 of the current Arts & Science Calendar.
Submit to: The
Wetmore Hall Porter at New College, who will date-stamp it.
Collecting: You
will be emailed when the tests have been marked, and will be able to pick
them up from the porter’s lodge
during the examination period.
2. The test must be entirely your own work:
do not collaborate with anybody else.
It is an academic offence "to
represent as one's own an idea or expression of an idea or work of another in
any academic ... work" (Faculty of Arts and Science Calendar).
3. You may use whatever resources you like
(e.g. Crystal, OED, other resources
like the Oxford Companion to the English
Language, Millward); cite all of them in the text (use parenthetical
references: e.g. “arse”, OED;
Crystal, p. 93; “H”, OCEL) and in a
bibliography.
4. Please note: you must explain everything in
your own words. No credit will be given for “dumps” from the OED, for instance.
All three questions are of equal
weight.
Question 1 (Early/Modern English
lexicon and semantics):
Choose two
of the four extracts attached to this test: C18th
cooking (1-2), PDE
holistic dentistry (3), PDE
bear hunting tourism (and
older version with “honey/grease burn tactics”)(4-5), PDE
postcolonial language studies (6-8).
First, identify the words in your extract that are drawn
from their occupational variety of English. Second, can you describe any
patterns or trends in the source of your variety’s lexicon? You might consider
semantics (and perhaps spelling) as well as vocabulary: your answer should use
appropriate terms and concepts (e.g. from Crystal chapter 9 and 10:
“affixation”, “conversion”, &c.)
Finally, can you interpret any of those patterns? (Keep the
“insecticide” project from first term in mind.)
Question 2 (Middle English texts
from Crystal)
Chapter 4 of Crystal (“Middle
English”) contains a number of short extracts from Middle English texts,
conveniently translated for you. Choose four
of the texts listed below.
For each
text, identify and exemplify about 5 of the most
significant
(representative, important) features under each of 3 headings: (1) spelling and/or pronunciation, (2) grammar,
(3) vocabulary. You
may use point form. Organize your points coherently, and describe them
clearly and accurately and concisely, using appropriate terms and
symbols. Make sure that you have indicated why your point is important:
does it illustrate change since
OE? continuity? regional variation?
Early ME texts (do both: no
choice):
Page 33: extract from the Peterborough Chronicle.
Page 36: extract from The Owl and the Nightingale.
Later ME texts (choose 2):
Page 35: extract from John of
Trevisa’s Polychronicon.
Page 35: extract from Margaret
Paston’s letter.
Page 37: extract from Sir Gawain and the Green Knight.
Question 3 (explaining PDE from a
historical perspective)
Using what you have learned this term and any resources
that you care to use (the OED,
Crystal, Millward, the Oxford Companion
to the English Language, etc.),
(a) explain (accurately, thoroughly,
coherently, but as concisely as you can) how the examples below exemplify
general trends in the history of English (as relevant: spelling, pronunciation,
morphology, and/or meaning), and
(b) if possible, demonstrate your
understanding of the concept by providing another example that illustrates the
same trend(s).
Some of
the pairs of words below are related to each other but differ in form, meaning,
etc.: your answer will account for
those differences. For example, the pair horse
and hoss illustrate “/r/-dropping
before /s/” (Millward 252): you should briefly explain this phenomenon and its
significance (first stage of the /r/-dropping that distinguishes certain regional
varieties of English!), and produce the examples arse and ass.
NB: I am not expecting more than
about 2 sentences per “phenomenon”. If you understand the concept and can use
appropriate terminology, you’ll be able to explain and exemplify it concisely.
NB: Some pairs of words involve more
than one phenomenon. Therefore, not all questions are of equal value.
(i)
kin and genus
(ii)
foul and filth
(iii)
the
prefix for- in forsake
(iv)
comb and unkempt
(v)
disk and dish
(vi)
the
spellings of PDE tough and knight
(vii)
plough and plow
(viii)
pea (sg.), peas (pl.)
(ix)
bath and bathe
(x)
treachery and trickery
(xi)
variant
pronunciations of the word herb
(xii)
purvey and provide
(xiii)
sign and signature
(xiv)
curly and cruller
(xv)
parson and person.
(xvi)
explain and explanate
(xvii)
the
variation between drunken and drunk, e.g. “the drunken sailor had drunk
too much”.
(xviii)
gentile and genteel
(xix)
tele- in telephone and telemarketer
(xx)
sit-in (noun), ripoff (noun)