PART IV. VARIETIES OF ENGLISH

STANDARD ENGLISH. NATIONAL VARIANTS AND LOCAL DIALECTS

Standard English is the official language of Great Britain used in its literary form. Regional varieties possessing a literary form are called national vari ants. Local dialects are varieties of English peculiar to some districts and having no normalized literary form. In Great Britain there are two variants, Scottish English and Irish English, and five main groups of dialects: Northern, Midland, Eastern, Western and Southern. Every group contains several (up to ten) dialects. The local dialects are used mainly by the rural population and only for the purposes of oral communication. Local distinctions are more marked in pronunciation, less conspicuous in vocabulary and insignificant in grammar. The British local dialects are traced back to Old English dialects. Numerous and distinct, they are characterized by phonemic and structural peculiarities.

One of the best known Southern dialects is Cockney, the regional dialect of London. This dialect exists on two levels: as spoken by the educated lower middle classes and as spoken by the uneducated. In the first case Cockney is a regional dialect marked by some deviations in pronunciation but few in vocabulary and syntax. In the second case it differs from Standard English not only in pronunciation but also in vocabulary, morphology and syntax.

The Scottish Tongue and the Irish English have a special linguistic status as compared with dialects because of the literature composed in them. The name of Robert Burns, the great national poet of Scotland, is known all over the world. The poetic features of Anglo-Irish may be seen in the plays by J.M.Synge and Sean O'Casey.

English is the national language of England proper, the USA, Canada, Australia and New Zealand. Hence, there exist five national variants: British English (BE), American English (AE), Canadian English (CnE), Australian English (AuE), New Zealand English (NZE).

These five varieties of English are national variants of the same language, because their structural peculiarities, especially their word-formation system, syntax and morphology, as well as their word-stock and phonetic system are essentially the same. The main lexical differences of these variants from Standard English (General English) are connected with the lack of equivalent lexical units in one of them, divergences in the semantic structure of polysemantic words and peculiarities of usage of some words on the British Isles and in the

named countries. The historic causes of the deviations in lexis are based on the fact of exporting the language of the mother country on a certain date of colonization.

The existing cases of difference between regional lexis and General English are classified into several groups:

1. cases when different words are used for the same denotatum,

2. cases when the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word is dif
ferent,

3. cases when otherwise equivalent words are different in distribution,

4. it sometimes happens that the same word is used with some difference
in emotional and stylistic colouring,

5. there may be a marked difference in frequency characteristics.
Special words used in these variants are called: briticism, americanism,

canadism, australianism, newzealandism. They have no equivalents in General English, and they mostly belong to the following semantic groups: flora and fauna, trades and agriculture, names of the inhabitants of the country and the geographical names, everyday life, customs and traditions, historical events. Every national variant includes words from the language(s) of the native population.

AMERICAN ENGLISH

The variety of English spoken in the USA has received the name of American English. The term variant or variety appears most appropriate for several reasons. American English cannot be called a dialect although it is a regional variety, because it has a literary normalized form called Standard American, whereas a dialect has no literary form. Neither is it a separate language, as some American authors, like H. L. Mencken, claimed, because it has neither grammar nor vocabulary of its own.

An americanism - a word (set expression) peculiar to the English language as spoken in the USA. E.g. cookie 'a biscuit'; frame house 'a house consisting of a skeleton of timber, with broad or shingles laid on''; frame-up 'a staged or preconcerted law case'; guess 'think'; store 'shop'.

A general _Aand comprehensive description of the American variant isgiven in Prof. A.D. Shweitzer's monograph. An important aspect of his treatment is the distinction made between americanisms belonging to the literary norm and those existing in low colloquial and slang.

The difference between the American and British literary norm is not systematic. The American variant of the English language differs from British

English in pronunciation, some minor features of grammar, but chiefly in vocabulary.

The historic causes of the deviations. American English is based on the language imported to the new continent at the time of the first settlements, that is on the English of the 17th century. The first colonies were founded in 1607, so that the first colonizers were contemporaries of Shakespeare, Spenser and Milton. Words which have died out in Britain, or changed their meaning may have survived in the USA. Thus, I guess was used by Chaucer for / think. For more than three centuries the American vocabulary developed more or less independently of the British stock and was influenced by the new surroundings. The early Americans had to coin words for the unfamiliar fauna and flora. Hence there appeared bull-frog 'a large frog', moose (the American elk), oppossum, raccoon - (an American animal related to bears), for animals; and corn, hickory, etc. for plants. The settlers also had to find names for the new conditions of economic life: back-country 'districts not yet thickly populated', back-settlement, back woods 'the forest beyond the cleared country', backwoodsman 'a dweller in the backwoods'.

The opposition of any two lexical systems among the variants described is of great linguistic and heuristic value because it furnishes ample date for observing the influence of extra-linguistic factors upon the vocabulary. American political vocabulary shows this point very definitely: absentee voting Voting by mail', dark horse 'a candidate nominated unexpectedly and not known to his voters', to gerrymander 'to arrange and falsify the electoral process to produce a favorable result in the interests of a particular party or candidate', all-outer 'an adept of decisive measures'.

Many of the foreign elements borrowed into American English from the Indian dialects or from Spanish penetrated very soon not only into British English but also into several other languages, Russian not excluded, and so became international. They are: canoe, moccasin squaw, tomahawk, wigwam, etc., and translation loans: pipe of peace, pale-face and the like, taken from Indian languages. The Spanish borrowings like cafeteria, mustang, ranch, sombrero, etc. are very familiar to the speakers of many European languages.

As to the toponyms, for instance, Iowa, Kansas, Michigan, Missouri, Utah (all names of Indian tribes), or other names of towns, rivers and states named by Indian words, it must be borne in mind that in all countries of the world towns, rivers and the like show in their names traces of the earlier inhabitants of the land in question.

Another big group of peculiarities as compared with the English of Great Britain is caused by some specific features of pronunciation, stress or spelling

standards, such as [ae] for [a:] in ask, dance, path, etc., or [e] for [ei] in made, » day and some others.

The American spelling is in some respects simpler than its British counterpart, in other respects just different. The suffix -our is spelled -or, so that armor and humor are the American variants of armour and humour. Altho stands for although and thru for through. The table below illustrates some of the other differences but it is by no means exhaustive.

British spelling American spelling

cosy cozy

offence offense

practice practise

jewellery jewelry

travelling traveling

thralldom thraldom

encase incase

In the course of time with the development of the modern means of communication the lexical differences between the two variants show a tendency to decrease. Americanisms penetrate into Standard English and briticisms come to be widely used in American speech. It was, for instance, customary to contrast the English word autumn with the American fall In reality both words are used in both countries, only autumn is somewhat more elevated, while in England the word fall is now rare in literary use, though found in some dialects and surviving in set expressions: spring and fall, the fall of the year are still in fairly common use.

Cinema and TV are probably the most important channels for the passage of americanisms into the language of Britain and other languages as well: the Germans adopted the word teenager and the French speak of Г automatization. The British term wireless is replaced by the americanism radio. The jargon of American film-advertising makes its way into British usage; i.e. of all time (in «the greatest film of all time»). The phrase is now firmly established as standard vocabulary and is applied to subjects other than films.

The personal visits of writers and scholars to the USA and all forms of other personal contacts bring back americanisms.

The existing cases of difference between the two variants are conveniently classified into:

1) Cases where there are no equivalent in British English - drive-in

'a cinema where you can see the film without getting out of your car' or 'a shop where motorist can buy things staying in the car'; dude ranch 'a sham ranch

used as a summer residence for holiday-makers from the cities'. The noun dude was originally a contemptuous nickname given by the inhabitants of the Western states to those of the Eastern states. Now there is no contempt intended in the word dude. It simply means 'a person who pays his way on a far ranch or camp^”.

2) Cases where different words are used for the same denotatum, such as can, candy, mailbox, movies, suspenders, truck in the USA and tin, sweets, pillar-box (or letter-box), pictures or flicks, braces and lorry in England.

3) Cases where the semantic structure of a partially equivalent word is different. The word pavement, for example, means in the first place 'covering of the street or the floor and the like made of asphalt, stones or some other material'. The derived meaning is in England 'the footway at the side of the road¹. The Americans use the noun sidewalk for this, while pavement with them
means 'roadway'.

4) Cases where otherwise equivalent words are different in distribution. The verb ride in Standard English is mostly combined with such nouns as a horse, a bicycle, more seldom they say to ride on a bus. In American English combinations like a ride on the train, to ride in a boat are quite usual.

5) The same word is used in American English with some difference in emotional and stylistic colouring. Nasty, for example, is a much milder expres sion of disapproval in England than in the States, where it was even considered obscene in the 19th century. Politician in England means 'someone in polities', and is derogatory in the USA.

6) There may be a marked difference in frequency characteristics. Thus, time-table which occurs in American English very rarely, yielded its place to
schedule.

This question of different frequency distribution is also of paramount importance if we wish to investigate the morphological peculiarities of the American variant.

Practically speaking the same patterns and means of word-formation are used in coining neologisms in both variants. Only the frequency observed in both cases may be different. Some of the suffixes more frequently used in American English are: - ее (draftee 'a young man about to be enlisted),- ettte (tambourmajorette 'one of the girl drummers in front of a procession¹), -dom and -ster, as in roadster 'motor-car for long journeys by road' or gangster dom.

American slang uses alongside the traditional ones also a few specific models, such as verb stem + -er + adverb stem + -er: e.g. opener-upper 'the first item on the programme' and winder-upper 'the last item¹, respectively. It also possesses some specific affixes and semi-affixes not used in literary col-

loquial: - о , -eroo_t ~aroo, -sie/sy, as in coppo 'policeman', fatso ^ла fat man', bossaroo 'boss', chapsie 'fellow'.

The trend to shorten words and to use initial abbreviations is even more pronounced than in the British variant. New coinages are introduced: in advertisements, in the press, in everyday conversatiori; soon they fade out and are replaced by the newest creations. Ring Lardner, very popular in the 30's, makes one of his characters, a hospital nurse, repeatedly use two enigmatic abbreviations: G.F. and B. F.; at last the patient asks her to clear the mystery,

«What about Roy Stewart?» asked the man in bed.

«Oh, he's the fella I was telling you about» said Miss Lyons, «He's my G. F.’ s B.F.»

« М ay be Гт a D.F. not to know, but would you tell me what a B.F. and G.F. are?»

«Well, you are dumb, aren't you?» said Miss Lyons, «A G.F, that's a girl friend, and a B.F. is a boyfriend. I thought everybody knew that.»

Particularly common in American English; are verbs with the hanging postpositive. They say that in Hollywood you never meet a man:, you meet up with him, you do not study a subject but study up on it. In British English similar constructions serve to add a new meaning.

The lexical peculiarities of American English are an easy target for ironical outbursts on the part of some writers, John Updike is mildly humorous. His short poem «Philological» runs as follows:

The British puss demurely mews;

His transatlantic kin meow,

The kine in Minnesota moo;

Not so the gentle Devon cows:

They low,

As every schoolchild ought to know.

Although not sufficiently great to warrant American English the status of an independent language, it is considerable enough to make a mixture of variants sound unnatural, so that students of English should be warned against this danger.

The American English, apart from British English, is not the only existing variant. There are several other variants -where difference from the British standard is normalized. They are Australian English, Canadian English, New Zealand English. Each of them

has developed a literature of its own, and is characterized by peculiarities in phonetics, spelling, grammar and vocabulary.

The vocabulary of all the variants is characterized by a high percentage of borrowings from the language of the people who inhabited the land before the English colonizers came. Many of them denote some specific realia of the new country: local animals, plants or weather conditions, new social relations, new trades and conditions of labour. The local words for new notions penetrate into the English language and later on may become international, if they are of sufficient interest and importance for people speaking other languages. The term international words is used to denote words borrowed from one language into several others simultaneously or at short intervals one after another.

Canadian English

English appeared in Canada in the 17^th cent. with the British colonizers, who met there not only the native people - Red Indians and Eskimos, but with the French colonizers as well, who settled in Canada even earlier – in the 16^th cent. Consequently there appeared “French Canada” and “British Canada”. Since the second half of the 18^th cent. there enforced immigration of Englishmen and Americans. Besides, quite a large group of Scots and Irish moved to Canada, who settled the province of Nova Scotia.

Modern Canada is a federal state which consists of ten provinces and two territories. The population of Canada is mixed: the main part consists of British Canadians (one half) – the descendants of the British and American settlers, French Canadians (one third of the population) – the offsprings of the first settlers of Canada, and representatives of other nations – Slavonic, Germans, Dutch, Italians and the native people – Indians and Eskimos.

The mixed character of the population naturally finds its reflection in the language. Canadian lexis has much in common with general American, as well as with British. The Canadian vocabulary is comprised of borrowings from the Indian languages and from French, by the way of new coinages from English with the help of different word-forming means, as well as by giving new meaning to old words.

The Indian languages gave names to animals, birds, fishes plants, etc., and also to objects and phenomena which were new for the colonizers: barboka – приспособление для жарения или копчения мяса, dunch – недопеченный хлеб, huggerum buff – поджаренная рыба с картофелем, запеченные в лепешку, lassie loaf – хлеб с патокой, dwy – неожиданная буря со снегом или с дождем, shad – небольшой снег, rampole, rampike – сухой пень, pack - удар, abito, bito, abordeau - шлюз, frazil – лед на дне реки, bog-slad – сани для перевозки бревен, shack - хижина, gobby – помешанный на чем-либо, puckerin – больной , cowly - жестокий, liverish - тошнотный, muckered - усталый, slinky - тонкий, slovey – нежный, мягкий, lund - спокойный, to douse - одурачивать, to glutch - глотать, to heck – идти быстро, moolie , mulley – безрогая корова.

Most of the geographical names in Canada are also borrowed from Indian and French. In the parts of the country inhabited by the French, there are English and French names at the same time: Trois-Rivieres or Three Rivers.

Some English words acquired new meaning in Canada: airsome - холодный, cozy - энергичный, proud - довольный, tidy - быстрый, fist - хватать, to saddle - соглашаться, hocks - сапоги, raw – неотесанный парень, rack - гребенка, smack – короткое время, scheme - несчастье, batch – сильный снег, pandy - почти, lop - волна, frog – название напитка.

In Canadian slang there are many lexemes made from the material of the English language, as well as hybrid compounds or collocations: bake, white nose - новичок, corner-boy - горожанин, merry-me-got – внебрачный ребенок, omaloor – неуклюжий парень, hang-ashore - бродяга, hardware – спиртные напитки, drop-ball – серьги; to go on the breese – напиться пьяным, to go to oil – стать ничтожеством, to live fast (against) – серрдиться на кого-либо, to make wonder - удивляться, on a pig’s back – в хороших условиях, to make fire – скандалить.

The words used in Canada are called canadianisms (by analogy with Americanisms and Briticisms).

Australian English

The Australian Commonwealth – the British dominion – was founded in 1901; before that the states were independent colonies, ruled separately by the British Government.

In the 20^th century the population of Australia was a special nation differing from the British, and it was united by the common language, territory, economic relations and culture. On the Australian continent, the word Australian does not denote an aborigene, but an offspring of the first English settlers, so by speaking about Australian nation, Australian literature and language, we mean the nation, literature and language of the white population.

Australian English has peculiarities in pronunciation, intonation, spelling and grammar. But the greatest difference is observed in lexis.

In Australia the first settlers (1788) found themselves in quite new natural surrounding. The new objects and concepts required creating new names. In this two ways were used: making up words of English morphemes and exploiting English means of word-formation, and borrowing.

In Australian English some words keep the meanings which in England became obsolete and even disappeared, e.g. the word stock in the meaning «скот» in England is used only in the combination live-stock, but in Australia this meaning is kept in the word itself, in compounds and derivatives: stockman – пастух,stock yard – скотопригонный двор,stock-house – скотный двор, stock-holder – скотовод, stock-run - выгон,stock-station – скотоводческая ферма,stock-keeper – владелец фермы,to stock-keep – заниматься скотоводством,to stock up – разводить скот, the word paddock in England has the meaning небольшой выгон, лужайка, but in Australia – огороженный земельный надел любого размера, to paddock – поместить за ограду (о скоте), to paddockland – огородить землю,heifer-paddock – женская школа.

The word station (скотоводческая ферма)acquires a broader usage in Australia. This word is used in a great number of collocations: heifer-station – ферма, на которой выращивается молодняк, outside station – ферма, расположенная во внутренних районах страны, station black - туземец, station mark – клеймо, station jack – мясной пудинг, etc.

The word pastoralist in great Britain has the meaning фермер-овцевод, in Australia – человек, занятый производством любых продуктов сельского хозяйства, township in England – церковный приход, in Australia – город; wattle in England - прут, плетень, сделанный из прутьев, in Australia – акация (the first settlers built their homes from branches of Australian wattle and clay; so the wattle itself was named by this word, and homes of this kind – wattle-and-dub huts or simply wattles.

The usage of the same word-forming means in England and Australia often leads to appearing of differences in lexis, which can be possibly explained by the long distance between the countries.

The analysis of the following extract proves this fact.

We “embossed”. This hideous word was the invention of some military genius and meant simply that we got aboard trucks. Having “embussed” we travelled the few miles to Liverpool railway station. There we “debussed” and “entrained”. The train then chugged erratically down to Darling Harbour, where we “detrained” and “embarked”. Everyone got aboard and no spies had observed us embussing or debussing, entraining or detraining, nor even embarking. (From: R.Brandon, The Naked Island).

The verbs embus, debus, entrain, and detrain are not registered in dictionaries.

To the same kind of words the following lexemes can be referred: greyness – серый цвет, sundowner – бродяга (человек, который на заходе солнца ищет пищи и крова на ночь); two-up – игра двумя монетами – наподобие игры в орлянку, milk-bar – молочное кафе, push – толпа, peopleless – безлюдный, to unsit – лишать места, sundown - бродяжничать (back-formation from sundowner ), finalize – завершать, заканчивать, and its derivative finalization.

The noun Australia was the basis for forming such derivatives and word-combinations as: australism – австрализм, australiana - австралиана, un-Australian – чуждый Австралии, pan-Australian - проавстралийский, Aussie (slang) – австралиец (formed from the stem Australian with the help of the suffix –ie), Westralian – житель Западной Австралии (blending of the nouns West Australian), australite – австралит (meteorite found in the states of Victoria, South and West Australia), australize – натурализоваться в Австралии, Australian grip – австралийское, т.е. сильное, дружеское рукопожатие, Australian policy – политика запрещения иммиграции из стран Азии.

In colloquial speech and especially slang Australians use many shortenings: abo – aborigine - туземец, bacca – tobacco, exes – expences, moles – moleskin trousers – брюки из молескина, Nor-Wester – северо-западный ветер, this after – this afternoon, my troubs – my troubles, pub – public, man-o’-war – man of war, god-o’mighty – god-almighty, etc.

Very often Australians use suffixes –y and –ie for word-formation, and they do not give diminutiveness to the words as it happens in England, but make the words sound a bit rough and friendly: roughy (rough) - грубиян, shrewdy (shrewd) – проницательный человек. The suffix can join the cut stem of the word: possie – position, adjie – adjutant, cryssie – chrysanthemum; to the stem of the first element of of a compound: milky – milkman, footie – football; to the stem of the word which is part of a word-combination: bussy – bus driver, trammy – tram conductor, rocky – rock wallaby – каменный кенгуру.

Differences of Australian English in the sphere of literary layer of vocabulary can be observed in phraseology as well: to do a perish - умирать, to do a get – быстро удалиться, to whip the cat – потерянного не воротишь (cf. with English to cry over spilt milk), to be within cooee, to keep in touch by cooeeing – быть, держаться в пределах слышимости (the word cooee in the meaning окликать, аукать was borrowed from the language of the aborigines of the country), to keep out of harm’s way – держаться от греха подальше, to get bushed - заблудиться, bush-telegraph – ложный слух, (from the vocabulary of bushrangers, where this word had the meaning передача сведений о движении полицейских отрядов через сообщников), to pay on tick – платить в рассрочку.

The number of borrowings from other languages is not large. These are mainly borrowings from aborigine languages. According to the census of 1933 geographical names of Australia include about 4700 words of native population, which makes one third of the whole number of geographical names. The melody and unusual sounding of the words inspired D.D.Lang to create a poem which consists of the geographical names only :

I like the native names as Paratta

And Illawarra, and Woolloomooloo,

Nandowra, Woogarora, Bulkomatta,

Tenah, Toongabbie, Mittagong, Meroo...

(From: S.J.Baker, The Australian Language, Sydney, 1945, p.198).

At present the words of native origin are broadly used for the names of hotels, ships, pet names, etc.

As for the names of large settlements, the Australians did not show much inventiveness: there are two Cardiffs, two Virginias, Liverpool, Toronto and others in Australia.

Other borrowings from the aborigine languages mainly refer to the names of objects and events of everyday life: coolamon – сосуд для хранения влды, boomerang - бумеранг, woomera – приспособление для метания копья, walpa – род лодки, waddy - дубинка, tabee – ритуальная песнь туземцев, corroboree – религиозные праздничные пляски, (in colloquial language this word also means шум, производимый группой людей), humpy, uloo - хижина, miah (mia-mia) - шалаш, lava-lava – набедренная повязка, gina-gina – женская одежда, gin, lubra – туземная женщина или девушка, cooboo - ребенок, kangaroo - кенгуру, dingo – динго (дикая австралийская собака), malee – австралийская акация, mulga – разновидность эвкалипта, etc.

The speech of Australians was enriched by the words which lost the native colour: cooee – окликать, аукать, willy-willy - смерч, jabber - язык (to jabber - говорить), billy – котелок для кипячения воды, bogie - купаться, dillybag – мешок, сплетенный из травы и овечьей шерсти, gibber - камень (mainly it is used in collocations: gibber plains, gibber country), myall – дикий, неприрученный, etc.

The 20^th century saw the tendency of broadening the number of borrowings from aborigine languages. The appearing of the genre of historical novel devoted to to the years of gold rushes and to the severe life of first settlers naturally arose interest to the native people of the country, and that was the reason of enriching litatrary language of Australian English by the native words.

Enlarging the number of borrowings was facilitated by the fact that till recently in Australia there was no system of terminology reflecting flora and fauna of the continent which comprises thousands of endemic plants and animals. In 1955 the dictionary Australian Aboriginal Words and Place Names, which included about three thousand of word entries, was published in Melbourne. There is a very interesting idea in the Introduction: “Australian people are now showing an inclination to favour the use of aboriginal names for their homes, the idea could perhaps be extended to other things or places for which an Australian name would be desirable, with advantage to the furthering of the growth of a distinct national feeling.” (From: S.J.Endacott, Australian Aboriginal Words and Place Names, Melbourne, 1955, Foreword).

New Zealand English

New Zealand is one of the farthest former dominions of Great Britain, and from the first days of its development is economically closely connected with Australia. Their relations found reflection in the vocabulary. New Zealanders’ speech and especially New Zealand slang include a great number of australianisms, which appeared in different historical periods of the development of the country. In the early years of colonization there appeared such words as: bush – лес (alongside with bush in New Zealand the word forest is still used, whereas in Australia it came out of usage long ago), backblocks – внутренние районы страны, paddock – огороженный земельный надел или приусадебный участок, gridironing, spotting – выборочная скупка земли, post-and-rail fence – обмазанный глиной забор из прутьев акации, break – забор, который по мере надобности легко разбирается и переносится на другое место, squatter - землевладелец, cocky – мелкий фермер-арендатор, stock-whip - кнут, stock - скот (together with it the word cattle is used in New Zealand), mob – отара, стадо, табун (the word flock is also used ).

In the years of gold rush such common for Australia and New Zealand words appeared in the language as: digger – золотоискатель, парень, to fossick - искать золото, nugget – золотой слиток, reef – золотоносная жила, shanty - трактир, colour – золотой песок, etc.

Other words of Australian origin are everyday words of New Zealand English: tucker - еда, damper – пресная лепешка, lollies - конфеты, sundowner, swagger – бродяга, сезонный рабочий, wowser - ханжа, sheila - девушка, billy – котелок для кипячения воды, dincum - честный, etc.

The divergence of the New Zealand and British vocabulary definitely is not limited by the australianisms spread in New Zealand. Though the influence of literary English on New Zealanders’ speech is great it cannot slow down the process of creating new words. One of such early creations is the word Newzealander which on the dawn of colonization meant native (Maori). The whites in their turn were called by the word pakeha, which was borrowed from Polinesian (pakeha aggression, pakeha customs, pakeha Maori). By the end of the 19^th cent. the word Newzealander broadens its meaning and begins to be used to name any member of the population. Sometimes Newzealanders are called

pig-islanders, which has the historical basis: the pigs brought to New Zealand on ships by captain Cook multiplied in number, got wild and became a threat to the economy of the country. By the way, the New Zealand wild pig is called Captain Cooker.

Colonization of New Zealand began on the western coast of the South Island, its inhabitants till now have kept the name coasters. The first colonizers settled in poor dwellings called shacks, cob cottages or whares on the coast, and then penetrated further into the country – bush. Later on this word gave birth to a number of New Zealand collocations: bushfighting – войны с маори, bushlayer – стелющаяся лесная куманика, доставлявшая много хлопот при расчистке лесных участков, bush-siddy – рабочий на лесной просеке, по которой стволы деревьев переправляются на лесопильный завод, break-down men – рабочие, очищающие от коры и сучьев стволы деревьев, bush-sickness – название одной из болезней скота, bush warbler, bush hawk, bush wren – породы новозеландских лесных птиц.

The years of hard and persistent work passed; in the time of gold rush and boom land development there were born and disappeared boom cities, boom towns; the profile of the national economics was determined. Land owners which earlier preferred to live in Great Britain (absentees), moved to New Zealand or sold the land in parts (blocks, sections) to squatters. Gradually the landscape of the country changed: thick forests gave way to pastures and fields, wild animals were killed. Coniferous forests characteristic of New Zealand - endemic pine trees kauri, totara, kahikatea, rimu, maire – were energetically cut down. Especially valuable was the gigantic tree kauri used in ship-building. Like most New Zealand trees, it grows very slowly, that is why the cruel cutting out of that tree was a sad loss for the nature.

Consequences of colonization turned out to be disastrous for animal world as well, which is especially rich and various among the birds. Since the beginning of the 20^th cent. the government of New Zealand has been taking care of the environment and the law now protects plants, animals and birds. There are birds sanctuaries too, for the Newzealanders have grown more conscious of their birds and trees. They are proud of fantails and shining cuckoos, the tius, and strange flightless birds, the wood hen or the weka, and the kiwi. The bush to the Newzealander means the stillness and quiet of trees. It means the totara, the rimu and the maire, it means the lancewood and coprosomas, the ribbonwood and puriri with bright pink flowers, the rata with red blossoms flaming on a hillside.

PART VI LEXICOGRAPHY

The ultimate goal of lexicography is the art of making dictionaries. Lexicology deals with words, forms and structure, lexical meaning, usage and diachronic analysis (origin and development). Lexicography is applied knowledge of lexicology. There is a constant give and take reciprocal relationship between lexicology and lexicography. They both strive for completeness and systematization. The only distinction is that lexicography is exhaustive in listing and describing all the existing words, i.e. the lexical units in a language, which is not the case with lexicology that only chooses examples to provide rules and principles.

1.Types of dictionaries

1. Problems in lexicography.

2. 3.H. Sweet about dictionaries.

Types of dictionaries

1. Monolingual (explanatory); bilingual (translation); multilingual.

2. General - very general lexical stock and vocabulary; specific – covers some specific parts or areas of vocabulary.

3. The size of the dictionaries could be: pocket, standard, encyclopedic.

4. Specific such as: linguistic, medical or technical, etymological, phonological, etc.

5. Linguistic monolingual dictionaries which deal with one specific aspect from linguistics: dictionary of proper names; of proverbs; loanwords; phraseology, etc.

In standard dictionaries there is information and order — alphabetically listed words, phonetic transcription and a word class.

Problems in Lexicography

1. Selection of head words - selection of the items included in the dictionary is done according to the typeand size (general, pocket dictionary).

2. Arrangement of lexical entries — the way the items are arranged, e.g. each other, where these two words should be listed under E or O.or they

should be separated, e.g. department store under D or S. Whatever option is implied there has to be used only one principle.

3.. Problem of homonymy and polysemy, e.g. pupil and pupil' - whether they have different entries in the dictionary;

4. Whether to list all the compounds of a word, all the derivatives possible; whether to list the obsolete words, the archaic words or slang words.

5. Definition of meaning - there are two types of dictionaries:

a. linguistic type - the interpretation is given in metalinguistic way; use of language is to describe language (sense);

b. encyclopedic type - using geographical and historical data to define the words - (reference).

H.Sweet about Dictionaries

Study of the Vocabulary

It will, perhaps, be most convenient to begin with that aspect of the dictionary which makes it the reverse of the grammar. From this point of view we have already defined a dictionary as a collection of the isolated phenomena of a language - those which cannot easily and conveniently be brought under general rules. It follows from this that the main function of a dictionary is to give the meanings of separate words. Some dictionaries confine themselves strictly to this function. But a dictionary which does not sacrifice everything to giving as large a vocabulary as possible in the shortest space ought to give a good deal more than this.

Idioms fall entirely within the province of the dictionary, because the meaning of each idiom is an isolated fact which cannot be inferred from the meaning of the words of which the idiom is made up: a dictionary which explains the meaning of do without explaining that of How do you do? is useless as a guide to the meanings of words.

A thoroughly useful dictionary ought, besides, to give information on various grammatical details, which, though they fall under general rules of grammar, are too numerous or too arbitrary and complicated to be treated of in detail in any but a full reference-grammar: such a dictionary ought to give full information about those grammatical constructions which characterize individual words, and cannot be deduced with certainty and ease from a simple grammatical rule. Thus it ought to give full information about the prepositions by which verbs are connected with the words they govern (think of, think about, think over, part from, part with). (...)

As convenience of reference requires that a dictionary should be as little bulky as is consistent with efficiency, it is advisable that its scope should be

distinctly defined and strictly limited, A dictionary of English for practical use by foreigners, or a French or German dictionary for practical use by English speakers, is, in the nature of things, mainly a dictionary of the present stage of these languages: its foundation is the modern colloquial and literary language, which involves, of course, the inclusion of a certain number of archaic words used in the higher literature, together with a certain amount of slang and vulgarisms and those dialectal words which, have found their way into general literature and conversation. (...)

Most of our larger English dictionaries, ;are also compromises between an expanded dictionary and an abridged cyclopedia. The fundamental distinction between a dictionary and a cyclopedia is, that the dictionary has to explain words, the cyclopedia has to explain things. The main function of the dictionary is to identify each word with its meaning or meanings, and give the details of its linguistic use as far as they do not fall entirely and exclusively under the province of grammar. This is clearly shown in the use we make of dictionaries of foreign languages. If we are ignorant of the meaning of the French word fleur, we look it up in our French-English dictionary, where we find the English translation 'flower', without any further comment, it being assumed that we know what a flower is. We feel that the translation is a surer guide to the meaning than the most elaborate definition. In an English dictionary for English people the same method of translation is followed as far as possible: commence and purchase are defined by being translated into the simpler 'begin' and 'buy', and we fall back on definition only when absolutely obliged to do so. Some of the more naive among the older dictionaries openly give up the attempt to define by such evasions as telling us that dog is 'the name of a well-known animal'. Even Walker's celebrated definition of a flea as 'a small insect of remarkable agility' would be of little use to any one who did not know already what a flea was.

But it may happen that in reading French we come across the name of some flower that is not found out of France, or, at any rate, not in England, so that when we look up the word in the French dictionary, the only explanation we find is 'name of a flower' with, perhaps, the botanical name, which probably conveys no meaning to our minds; we have not, therefore, learnt anything from the dictionary beyond what we could probably have gathered from the context without any further help. Nevertheless, the dictionary has done everything in its power to identify the word with the thing expressed by it; it is our want of knowledge of the thing itself which prevents us from profiting by the dictionary's identification. If we look up the botanical name in a cyclopedia, we can acquire a more or less definite idea of the thing itself- the flower.

There can be no question of the usefulness and convenience of the brief explanations of the ideas and objects expressed by rare words which our larger dictionaries give: these explanations afford the reader enough information to

enable him to form an idea of the real nature of the thing represented by the unfamiliar word without obliging him to wade through a sea of detail.

. But it is a question whether it would not be better to publish such information in a separate book than to mix it up with the legitimate material of a dictionary - namely, the identification of familiar ideas with the words which express them. An educated Frenchman just beginning English is ignorant of the meaning of the commonest verbs and adjectives in English, but he will not require to be told what oxygen is, or how lithography is carried on. It is not meant that these words should be excluded from a practical dictionary; on the contrary, they are examples - especially the latter - of a numerous class of words which form a debatable ground between necessary, everyday words and purely special and technical words.

A further reason for separating the special or encyclopedic from the general or lexical words lies in the different treatment they require. While the former demand, or, at least, allow, a more or less elaborate and lengthy description of the thing they denote, accompanied, perhaps, with pictures or diagrams, they are generally barren from the linguistic point of view, for they offer neither varied shades of meaning nor irregularities of form, nor do they enter into idiomatic combinations or special grammatical constructions. With the lexical words the relations are reversed: the greater the number of irregularities of form a word offers, and the more complex and varied its meanings and idiomatic combinations and special constructions are, the more indispensable for expressing ideas, and the more independent of encyclopedic treatment it is sure to be.

We arrive, then, at the result that for purposes of practical study of modern languages we require dictionaries which are strictly limited to the modern language, and exclude all encyclopedic elements - that is, all words of which it is conceivable that an educated native might say that he had never seen them in literature or that he did not know what they meant. Such a dictionary would, of course, include debatable words, unless it were intended for very elementary purposes, in which case it might exclude even such words as abacus, habeas corpus, iambic, nabob, oxygen.

But it would be very difficult to lay down any general principles by which we could exclude all encyclopedic words without hesitation, and the ordinary compromise has its practical advantages. (...)

The first business of a dictionary is to give the meanings of the words in plain, simple, unambiguous language. There must be no 'etymological translation¹, no translation into obsolete or dialectal words. When we look up Isece in an Old-English dictionary and find it translated 'leech' as well as 'physician', we ought to be quite sure that leech here has its genuine modern meaning, and is not a mere repetition of the meaning of the other word.

Again, some dictionary-makers think it necessary to translate every slang

or colloquial word or expression in one language into a slang word or expression in the other language. The result is that they sometimes use some provincial or obsolete word or expression which may be quite unintelligible to the majority of their readers, and, indeed, may soon become unintelligible to all of them, for nothing becomes obsolete sooner than a certain class of slang colloquialisms. Most languages are so ambiguous in themselves that it is folly to go out of one's way to make them more so; and in a dictionary everything is detached and isolated, so that there is but little context to help. In fact, without the help of quotations it is almost impossible to define meanings with certainty. (...)

Quotations are next in importance to definitions. Indeed, in a large dictionary or thesaurus, the quotations are the, dictionary, and their arrangement is a matter of almost subordinate importance. They cannot, of course, be given with any great fullness in most short dictionaries. But in some cases a quotation is both shorter and clearer than a definition. All sentences that have anything of the character of proverbs or formulae deserve a place in every dictionary. Such sentences, indeed, can hardly be regarded as quotations, any more than idioms, which are as much a part of the common stock of the language as the words themselves: like them, they cannot be constructed a priori. (...)

In the first place, it must be borne in mind that the ultimate ideas of language are by no means identical with those of psychology, still less with those of metaphysics. Language is not in any way concerned with such psychological problems as the¹ origin of our ideas of space and matter; for at the time when language was evolved, these conceptions were already stereotyped in the form of simple ideas, incapable of any but deliberate scientific analysis. Even such universally known facts as the primary data of astronomy have had little or no influence on language, and even the scientific astronomer no more hesitates to talk of "the rising to the sun” than did the astrologers of ancient Chaldэea. Language, in short, is based not on things as we know or think them to be but as they seem to us. (...)

At first, the meanings of words will be learnt mechanically one by one by associations with their context. In every language there are a certain number of words which the learner remembers at once, either because they are borrowed from or are cognate with words already familiar to him in his own or some other language, or through some chance resemblance to known words. These words are, as it were, centres round which other words crystallize, each new association leading to further associations, till at last the chief part of the elementary vocabulary of the language forms a solid mass of associations each connected in various ways with others.

From: The Practical Study of Languages by Henry Sweet

CONCLUSION

Дата добавления: 2019-09-13; просмотров: 1404; Мы поможем в написании вашей работы!

Поделиться с друзьями:

⇐ Предыдущая 9 10 11 12 13 14 151617 18 Следующая ⇒

Мы поможем в написании ваших работ!