Die englische Sprache - Sprachstile unterschiedlicher Kulturen im Vergleich

Gliederung

1. Vorwort

2. Einleitung

3. Hauptteil
3.1 Britisches Englisch
3.1.1 weitere Entwicklung
3.2 Amerikanisches Englisch
3.2.1 Entstehung
3.2.2 Besonderheiten in der Sprache
3.2.2.1 Rechtschreibung
3.2.2.2 Grammatik
3.2.2.3 Vokabular
3.3 Australisches Englisch
3.3.1 Entstehung
3.3.2 Besonderheiten in der Sprache
3.3.2.1 Vokale
3.3.2.2 Grammatik
3.3.2.3 Vokabular
3.4 Südafrikanisches Englisch
3.4.1 Entstehung
3.4.2 Besonderheiten in der Sprache
3.4.2.1 Progressiv

4. Schluss

5. Anhang
5.1 Quellen- und Literaturverzeichnis
5.2 Selbstständigkeitserklärung
5.3 Bewertung der Facharbeit
5.4 Bewertung der Präsentation

1. Vorwort

In English lessons, I am not as good as I want to be. For example in class tests I have not the time that I need to look carefully enough after my grammar and spelling, because I am concentrating on the content. Unfortunately, my language is sometimes very confusing and so the context does not make sense. Due to that, I wanted to write my paper in English, because I hope to improve my language a little bit and maybe my mark as well.

I got most of my information from the internet. I know that sometimes internet pages are not reliable. Therefore, I looked for one topic/section (for example for: South African English) at least at two other sites to be sure, that I have correct information. But there are not many pages in German, so I also searched the English internet, where I then found enough information. That brought about much work, because I had to translate the texts into German to understand the sense. Another problem was that I did not want to copy sentences. So I made short notes which I then transformed back into sentences.

Although the work was hard, it was interesting to learn something about the history of Great Britain, North America, Australia and South Africa in detail and also about the characteristic features of their languages.

2. Einleitung

Today, English is the language, which is spoken in nearly every country as mother tongue, first and second language, official language or as lingua franca. But where does it come from? Through which developments did it run? Another important question is: how has it happened, that there are so many different stiles of English all over the world?

English belongs to the Indo-European language family. More specifically, it is a Germanic language, which was the common language in the Elbe river region about 3,000 years ago. Germanic has three subgroups: East, North and West Germanic. The East Germanic language was spoken by people who migrated back to southeast Europe. Today, there is no spoken language left, but only a written language: Gothic. North Germanic became the modern Scandinavian languages, for example Swedish, Danish, Norwegian and Icelandic. West Germanic became modern German, Dutch, Flemish, Frisian and English (illustration 1).

In 449 AD, the Angles, Saxons and Jutes settled on British Islands. They spoke a language, they could all understand. The Germanic language that they brought was called Old English. Before that, a Celtic language was spoken, which was then pushed away. Reasons for the Germanic immigration may be the over population in their home land, and the indication that the Roman Imperia was shortly prior to a breakdown.

In 1100, a new language period began: Old English was replaced by Middle English. In 1066, the Normans invaded the British Isles under William the Conqueror, the Duke of the Normandy^[1]. That way, French-speaking masters and mistresses came to England. That brought consequences for the language of the common people. The influence of Latin and French on the English language increased. An important change was the maturity of inflection^[2]. The highly varied inflection system was decreased to a great extent. A reason for that was the contact between English and Old Nordic (inflection penniless). In 1204 King John lost the province of Normandy to the King of France. That was the beginning of the alienation of the English Norman aristocracy from their French cousins. In consequence of that, the nobility took the main interest in England, instead of taking care of the situation in France. The economic and social importance of the middle class grew and with it, the English language (Middle English) gained more importance. In 1362, the Statute of Pleading was adopted, with which English became the language of the Court and the Parliament.

A new period of the English language, Early Modern English, began in 1500 with the Renaissance. The revival of classic scholarship brought many Latin and Greek words into the English language. There were two other main conditions, that had an influence on the English language and who divided Middle English from Modern English. The first was the Great Vowel Shift. This is a change of pronunciation which began in 1400. Long vowel sounds began rise, and the letter “e” at the end of words became silent. The words “name” and “five” should serve as examples. In Middle English “name” was pronounced as [nam-a], whereas today it is [neim] and “five” was [feef] in Middle English and is [faiv] today. In linguistic terms, the shift happened fairly sudden, in only about one century. Another reason for the development of the Modern English was the beginning of the printing press. William Caxton brought the press to England in 1476. From now on, the production of books was cheaper, more books could be produced and literacy became more common among the people. Many English books were on the market and English became more common than Latin. The printing press also supported the process of standardization of English. The London dialect became standard, spelling and grammar were fixed, and the first English dictionary was published in 1604.

The period of Late Modern English began in 1700 and ended in 1900. The main difference between Early and Late Modern English was the lexicon. Late Modern English has a more extended lexicon, which is the result of two historical factors. The first is the industrial revolution and the rise of the technological society. Due to the industrialization, new words for new things and ideas were needed. Another influence went out from the British Empire. At its peak, Britain ruled one quarter of the earth’s surface. They adopted many foreign words into their language and they invented many new words (illustration 2).

Today, the English language is called Present-Day-English. It is spread all over the world and there are many dialects and variations. How did it come to that spreading and to the changes in pronunciation, vocabulary, grammar and spelling?

I chose four examples – British English, American English, Australian English and South African English – by which I will explain their formation and their differences.

3. Hauptteil

3.1 Britisches Englisch

3.1.1 weitere Entwicklung

Eine große Rolle für die weitere Entwicklung spielten ab dem 20. Jahrhundert die Erfindungen und Entwicklungen, die neue Namen brauchten und die deshalb erfunden werden musste (Neologismus).

Ein bedeutender Faktor, durch den die Sprache wiederum Zuwuchs erhielt, war, dass Großbritannien eine große Seemacht war. Zunächst wurden von (Entdeckungs-)Reisen neue Wörter „mitgebracht“ (aus Spanien, Portugal etc.), aber es wurden auch neue Wörter und Sätze an Bord der Schiffe gebildet, wie zum Beispiel „three sheets to the wind“ und „scuttlebutt“.

Ein weiterer Grund für die Weiterentwicklung der Sprache waren die zwei Weltkriege im 20. Jahrhundert. Vor den Kriegen nahm der militärische Jargon, mit Ausnahme der Seefahrt, noch keinen großen Einfluss auf die englische Sprache, da Großbritannien zuvor nur eine kleine Militärmacht war. Während der Kriege waren jedoch alle britischen Männer in der Armee, weshalb der militärische Jargon auch das britische Englisch erobert hat. Dadurch fanden Wörter wie „blockbuster“ (Kassenschlager/-magnet), „camouflage“ (Tarnung) und „radar“ ihren Weg in das alltägliche Englische.

3.2 Amerikanisches Englisch

3.2.1 Entstehung

Ab dem 17. Jahrhundert siedelten Einwanderer aus England, Irland und Schottland an der Ostküste von Nordamerika; später wurde auch der Westen besiedelt. Im 19. Jahrhundert hatte Nordamerika bereits über 50 Millionen Einwohner. Die Sprache blieb anfangs vorwiegend unverändert, aber durch die Besiedlung des Westens und durch weitere Einwanderer bildeten sich drei Hauptdialekte: „Northern“, „Midlands“ und „Southern“ (Abbildung 6). Die Standardsprache, die von allen Amerikanern von Virginia bis Südkalifornien verstanden werden konnte, heißt „General American“, was man auch allgemein als „North American English“ oder einfach als „American English“ bezeichnet.

Das amerikanische Englisch hat sich aus dem britischen Englisch des 17. Jahrhunderts herausentwickelt. Auch heute noch sind im amerikanischen Englisch Merkmale dieser Zeit vorhanden, die es im jetzigen britischen Englisch nicht mehr gibt. Beispiele finden sich in der Betonung, in der Grammatik, im Vokabular und in der Rechtschreibung. Aber es gibt auch Merkmale, die erst im Laufe der Zeit entstanden sind (meistens im Vokabular).

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^[1] battle of Hastings

^[2] a) declension, meaning of substantives, adjectives, articles and pronouns; b) conjugation, inflexion of verbs c) comparison of adjectives