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How and why did grammatical gender, found in Old English and in other Germanic languages, gradually disappear from English and get replaced by a system where the gender of nouns and the use of personal pronouns depend on the natural gender of the referent? How is this shift related to 'irregular agreement' (such as she for ships) and 'sexist' language use (such as generic he) in Modern English, and how is the language continuing to evolve in these respects? Anne Curzan's accessibly written and carefully researched study is based on extensive corpus data, and will make a major contribution by providing a historical perspective on these often controversial questions. It will be of interest to researchers and students in history of English, historical linguistics, corpus linguistics, language and gender, and medieval studies.
Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: A, Syracuse University (USA) (USA: Syracuse University), language: English, abstract: This paper analyzes the question of how and why grammatical gender got lost in English. In order to do so, it reviews the recent literature on gender shifts in Old English and Middle English. The paper identifies several theoretical explanations based on both diachronic studies of English and general theoretical studies of gender. More concretely, the paper discusses the work of Greville Corbett (1991) on gender, Anne Curzan’s (2003) analysis on gender shifts in the history of English, and Charles Jones’s (1988) assumption of a possible paradigm shift in Old English. At the same time, older studies are given as an example for why certain premises did not work in the past. The paper first coments the relationship of English within the language families, provides a linguistic definition of grammatical gender, and describes major properties of the Modern English gender systems as well as those of the Old English gender system. It looks at the morphological and syntactic changes that triggered a shift in the English gender system. It is argued that not only external changes but also an underlying paradigm shift induced the demise of grammatical gender in Old English. In addition, the role of the personal pronouns is analyzed. According to Curzan (2003) and Corbett (1991) the role of the personal pronouns may prove to be the key in explaining the shift in the gender system.
Helene Moglen offers a revisionary feminist argument about the origins, cultural function, and formal structure of the English novel. While most critics and historians have associated the novel's emergence and development with the burgeoning of capitalism and the rise of the middle classes, Moglen contends that the novel princi- pally came into being in order to manage the social and psychological strains of the modern sex-gender system. Rejecting the familiar claim that realism represents the novel's dominant tradition, she shows that, from its inception in the eighteenth century, the English novel has contained both realistic and fantastic narratives, which compete for primacy within individual texts.
A lively social history of the roles of men and women - from workplace to household, from parish church to alehouse, from market square to marriage bed. Robert Shoemaker investigates such varied topics as crime, leisure, the theatre, religious observance, notions of morality and even changing patterns of sexual activity itself.
Placing women’s experiences in the context of the major social, economic and cultural shifts that accompanied the industrial and commercial transformations of this period, Hannah Barker and Elaine Chalus paint a fascinating picture of the change, revolution, and continuity that were encountered by women of this time. A thorough and well-balanced selection of individual chapters by leading field experts and dynamic new scholars, combine original research with a discussion of current secondary literature, and the contributors examine areas as diverse as the Enlightenment, politics, religion, education, sexuality, family, work, poverty, and consumption. The authors most importantly realise that female historical experience is not generic, and that it can be significantly affected by factors such as social status, location, age, race and religion. Providing a captivating overview of women and their lives, this book is an essential purchase for the study of women’s history, and, providing delightful little gems of knowledge and insight, it will also appeal to any reader with an interest in this fascinating topic.
Routledge English Language Introductions cover core areas of language study and are one-stop resources for students. Assuming no prior knowledge, books in the series offer an accessible overview of the subject, with activities, study questions, sample analyses, commentaries and key readings – all in the same volume. The innovative and flexible ‘two-dimensional’ structure is built around four sections – introduction, development, exploration and extension – which offer self-contained stages for study. Each topic can also be read across these sections, enabling the reader to build gradually on the knowledge gained. This revised second edition of History of English includes: ❑ a comprehensive introduction to the history of English covering the origins of English, the change from Old to Middle English, and the influence of other languages on English; ❑ increased coverage of key issues, such as the standardisation of English; ❑ a wider range of activities, plus answers to exercises; ❑ new readings of well-known authors such as Manfred Krug, Colette Moore, Merja Stenroos and David Crystal; ❑ a timeline of important external events in the history of English. Structured to reflect the chronological development of the English language, History of English describes and explains the changes in the language over a span of 1,500 years, covering all aspects from phonology and grammar, to register and discourse. In doing so, it incorporates examples from a wide variety of texts and provides an interactive and structured textbook that will be essential reading for all students of English language and linguistics.
A nuanced re-evaluation of the ways in which gender affected the use of physical space in early modern England. Space was not simply a passive backdrop to a social system that had structural origins elsewhere; it was vitally important for marking out and maintaining the hierarchy that sustained social and gender order in sixteenth- and seventeenth-century England. Gender had a considerable influence on its use and organization; status and gender were displayed physically and spatially every moment of the day, from a person's place at table to the bed on which he orshe slept, in places of work and recreation, in dress, gesture and modes of address. Space was also the basis for the formation of gender identities which were constantly contested and restructured, as this book shows.Examining in turn domestic, social and sacred spaces and the spatial division of labour in gender construction, the author demonstrates how these could shift, and with them the position and power of women. She shows that the ideological assumption that all women are subject to all men is flawed, and exposes the limitations of interpretations which rely on the model and binary opposition of public/private, male/female, to describe gender relations and theirchanges across the period, thus offering a much more complex and picture than has hitherto been perceived. The book will be essential reading not just for historians of the family and of women, but for all those studying early modern social history. AMANDA FLATHER is a lecturer in the Department of History at the University of Essex.
This collection of eleven essays traces the complex paths of change taken by the English language in its long history, from its Indo-European origins to the present day. Just like any other language, English is a complex system made up of several interconnected sub-systems – lexical, syntactical, phonological, morphological – and all of those sub-systems are subject to change, resulting in constant shifts and readjustments. Additionally, more than some other languages, English has a history marked by strong upheavals, particularly with the influence of Scandinavian and Romance languages in the Middle Ages. The contributions here consider all aspects of that complex history, with four of them taking a particular interest in the issues brought about by language contact with French and Latin.
Based on encyclopedias, medical journals, historical, and literary sources, this collection of interdisciplinary essays focuses on the intersection of women, gender, and disease in England and France. Diverse critical perspectives highlight contributions women made to the scientific and medical communities of the eighteenth century. In spite of obstacles encountered in spaces dominated by men, women became midwives, and wrote self-help manuals on women’s health, hygiene, and domestic economy. Excluded from universities, they nevertheless contributed significantly to such fields as anatomy, botany, medicine, and public health. Enlightenment perspectives on the nature of the female body, childbirth, diseases specific to women, “gender,” sex, “masculinity” and “femininity,” adolescence, and sexual differentiation inform close readings of English and French literary texts. Treatises by Montpellier vitalists influenced intellectuals and physicians such as Nicolas Chambon, Pierre Cabanis, Jacques-Louis Moreau de la Sarthe, Jules-Joseph Virey, and Théophile de Bordeu. They impacted the exchange of letters and production of literary works by Julie de Lespinasse, Françoise de Graffigny, Nicolas Chamfort, Mary Astell, Frances Burney, Lawrence Sterne, Eliza Haywood, and Daniel Defoe. In our post-modern era, these essays raise important questions regarding women as subjects, objects, and readers of the philosophical, medical, and historical discourses that framed the project of enlightenment.
"On November 24, 1929, rumors that British colonial officials planned to tax Igbo women reached the village of Oloko in southeastern Nigeria. Mark Emeruwa, instructed by the local warrant chief, Okugu, to carry out a census of women in preparation for their taxation, entered the compound of a woman named Nwanyeruwa and told her to begin counting her animals. She replied angrily that people had died from colonial counting, and insulted him and his mother by demanding of him, "Was your mother counted?" Emeruwa, enraged, grabbed her by the throat and tried to throttle her. She, her hands wet with oil from the palm nuts she had been pounding, smeared his Western-style suit with the red sticky stuff. He ran off to Okugu's compound to tell him of the events. The warrant chief summoned her to his dwelling and insisted she would pay the tax, threatening her with deep trouble and promising that "when the District Officer comes, he will take charge of you." To a woman uncertain of what lay in store under the British legal system, his threat could well have meant she would be executed. Upon hearing of Okugu's treatment of Nwanyeruwa, a large crowd of women surrounded his compound. There they "sat on" him, a locally recognized practice undertaken when men committed offenses against women. When "sitting on a man," women danced and sang until the object of their grievance acknowledged his offense and promised to make restitution. In this particular instance, the chief not only refused to admit to any wrong-doing, he set male members of his compound on the women, causing injury to eight of them. In response to Okugu's transgressions-entirely out of step with the expectations of his office-and owing to the persistent rumors of taxation of women circulating in other towns and villages, enormous crowds of women-amounting to tens of thousands-attacked native courts, looted banks, and stormed a number of European warehouses in a variety of towns and villages in southeastern Nigeria"--