KAN

The goals of the course are:

• to enable students to look upon the English language from the point of view of its historical development;
• to provide general characteristics of relevant changes in the individual linguistic areas, mainly in phonology, grammar and vocabulary (internal history of English), with reference to the changes in the social, economic and cultural development of the society which either directly or indirectly influenced the development of its language (external history of English);
• to draw students’ attention to the changes of the language caused by the influence of other foreign languages (Greek, Latin, French, Scandinavian) on phonology, grammar and vocabulary;
• to outline the typical features of individual stages in the development of the language, i. e. Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Present Day English.

At the end of the course, students should be able to:

• reproduce information about the form of the language in the individual stages of its development;
• describe the consequences of the influence of foreign languages upon English in a particular period of its development;
• comprehend certain regularities in the development of English, the contemporary status of English including some tendencies in its further development by applying the two-fold viewpoint: linguistic and social-historical.