Incorporating Multilingualism in the Development of the English ...

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Table 5: Overall distribution of Go versus SAYgo goes going went GO say says saying said SAYquotations 152 918 222 103 1395 183 82 60 423 748percentage 7 73 16 22 27 15 33 19 36 25overall freq. 2104 1249 1373 479 5205 1198 251 323 1170 2942(Stenstrom, Anderson, & Hasund, p. 118)Students interview English speakers and gatherinformation on the usage and stylistic implicationsof these new reporting verbs. The interview arousesstudents’ interest in new meaning of the words, goand like, that are familiar to them. They also haveto investigate if grammar books and dictionariesoffer explanations on this new usage of “go” and “belike.” They eventually find that there are not manythat have clear explanations, and they also becomeaware of the unique feature of the grammar bookby Biber et al. in reflecting current tendencies incasual speech. Students share their findings in classand through these activities become more consciousabout the semantic and syntactic changes thatEnglish is undergoing right now.Topic 3: Powerful word formationThe third material has students find newvocabulary created by common word formationmethods such as affixation, compounding,conversion, and clipping. Searching throughnewspapers, magazines, and web-pages, studentswill know that new fashionable words are actuallybased on traditional rules and recognize howinnovative the English language can be. These arethree examples that my students collected:“I dow.” (diamond company ad)“Ichirific” (“Ichiro” + “terrific”)“iPod, therefore, I Am” (iPod ad)From every language that it encountered, Englishborrowed words and grammatical paradigms, andeven phonemes. Some words such as take, people,joy, peace, and tea are difficult to be identifiedas loan words: take from a Scandinavian dialect,people, joy, and peace from French, and tea fromChinese. Lexical doublets/triplets are another specialfeature of the teeming vocabulary of the Englishlanguage. The following are from Crystal’s examplesof doublets and triplets:ox/beef pig/pork motherhood/maternityhide/conceal love/charity rise/mount/ascend wish/desirewedding/marriage freedom/liberty room/chamberthankful/grateful/appreciate/gratitudeIn search of new vocabulary, my students areasked to look into different types of texts such asacademic texts, commercial texts, digital texts, etc.Their findings always include the exciting use ofword formation rules (Refer to Appendix 3.). Thefollowing are a few more examples:affixationuncomfortableness, preview, microwaveablecompounding karaoke-pub, pod-castconversion Let’s google it.The tires are bill-gating. They britneyed.clippingmook (“magazine” + “book”), netizon (“net” + “citizon”)combination Mcjob I emailed him.146Educational Studies 52International Christian University
English is indeed a hybrid language that has alwaysbeen in the multilingual situation, and unlikespeakers of other European languages such asFrench or German, English speakers have beenflexible or even eager in using innovative wordsand expressions. English can be one of the mostmixed languages in the world. The Oxford EnglishDictionary contains all the words that have appearedin print, and the vocabulary size of the secondedition in 1989 is more than 615,000 words. Thisis extremely larger than the German vocabulary,which is estimated about 185,000, and the Frenchone, which is estimated about 100,000. As to therelationship between native words and foreignborrowings, the OED classifies its vocabulary intofour categories (Preface xxvi):Naturals: native wordsDenizens: words fully naturalized as touse, but not as to form, inflexion, orpronunciation, e.g. aide-de-campAliens: foreign objects, no native equivalents,e.g. shah, targumCasuals: foreign word of the same class not inhabitual use, temporaryCrystal explains, “Most English vocabulary arisesby making new lexemes out of old ones-either byMiddle EnglishCole: Is that thy child?Alice: Yea, hir name is Ann.Cole: A good and holy name.Alice: Soon she will be three years of age.Cole: Will she speke to me?Alice: Yea, she speketh wonder loude.1650-1750Cole: Is that thy child?Alice: Yea, her name is Ann.Cole: A good and holy name.Alice: Soon she will be three years of age.Cole: Will she speak to me?Alice: Yea, she speaks wonderfully loud.adding an affix to previously existing forms, alteringtheir word class, or combining them to producecompounds. . . . Alongside the Anglo-Saxon rootin kingly, we have the French root in royally andthe Latin root in regally” (Crystal, p. 128). Thispowerful word formation is expanding the Englishvocabulary not only within English-speakingcountries but also all over the world now.4. ConclusionThe first-hand experience of observing synchronicvarieties and diachronic changes significantly helpstudents acquire reasoning skills to explain speciallinguistic phenomena regardless of whether Englishis their first language or not. Multilingualism andlanguage contact have always had significantinfluence on the English language, and this influenceis in all linguistic phases: pronunciation, grammar,meaning, vocabulary, and the writing system.[či:ld], [ta:ke], [hu:s], and [bo:k] underwent adramatic sound change called the great vowel shiftand became fixed as [čaIld], [teIk], [haUs], and[bUk] respectively. Here is a conversation plot inMiddle English and Modern English. The phonetictranscription follws each line:Is θat θi čildyε hIr namə Is anə god and h lI naməcsonə še wIl be θre yerIzwIl še spεke to mecv aĵəyε še spεkeθ wUndər ludəIz ðæt ðəI čəIldye hər nem Iz ænə gUd ænd holI nemsun ši wIl bi θri yIrz əv eĵwIl ši spik tu miye ši spiks wəndərfUlI laUdEducational Studies 52International Christian University147
Page 2 and 3: is well known, but other languages
Page 4 and 5: Figure 1: The functional distributi
Page 6 and 7: Productive affixes:Flatwise London
Page 10 and 11: As to the syntax too, English has u
Page 12 and 13: Appendix 1: Fieldwork worksheet on
Page 14 and 15: you fellows Southern USyou sweeties
Page 16 and 17: good day mates Australialadiesserio
Page 18: Appendix 3: New vocabulary via affi

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