CLASSICAL CULTURE IN ENGLISH LANGUAGE Liceo Scientifico “A. Einstein” Class 3A Students: Scarpin Cosetta, Vitale Elisa

WORDS OF LATIN ORIGINS  We have read and analized Obama’s acceptance speech: we searched the English words from Latin language.  405 words out of 4320 in the text have latin origins: there are 237 nouns, 86 verbs, 66 adjectives and 16 prepositions / adverbs  Latin language is still living in today’s English.

SUBDIVISION BY SEMANTIC FIELD

 Economy: asset, cost, crisis, debt, deficit, economy, financial, import, million, millionaire, money, monopoly, mortgage, poverty, price, rate, recession, surplus, tributes, tax, value, invest, pay, spend, economic, poor, export, restore.  Education: class, classroom, college, education, school, student, university.  Energy: air, carbon, climate, energy, fuel, gallon, impact, oil, plant, pollution, turbine, reduce, remedy, waste, nuclear, renewable, solar, toxic.  Family: family, father, grandfather, grandmother, grandparent, generation, mother, parents.  Medicine: cancer, hospital, Medicare, prescription, surgery, amputated, cure, recover, save, safe.

SUBDIVISION BY SEMANTIC FIELD  Military: ally, army, attack, battle, bomb, coalition, coverage, enemy, extremists, sailor, soldier, uniform, tragedy, victories, military, tragic, recruit, serve, defend, support, protected, sacrifice, defeat, eliminate.  Politics: administration, campaign, candidate, competitors, convention, decision, delegate, democracy, dictator, diplomacy, election, government, legacy, member, nomination, November, opponent, politicians, president, republicans, reform, senate, states, unions, approve, control, decide, elect, vote, national, republican, united, commission, congress, governor, political, regulation, state, country, power, alliance, coverage.  Religion: charity, Christian, faith, creator, celebrate.

SUBDIVISION BY SEMANTIC FIELD  Science: deductions, engine, experimentation, exploration, innovative, notion, progress, science, scientist, advance, know, prove.  Values: ambitions, aspirations, dignity, dreamers, faith, honor, idea, ideals, interests, heroes, initiative, optimism, spirit, inspire, pride, principle, promise, sustain, human, inalienable, innocent, loyal, pacific, respected, responsible, responsive, right.  Work: acceptance, career, company, construction, corporation, customer, effort, factory, failings, farmer, foundation, founder, industry, inaction, manufacture, mill, office, opportunity, people, product, success, system, create, founding, corporate, efficient, principal, truck.

OBSERVATIONS AND HYPOTHESIS ABOUT WORDS  Most of the words are names. This is because in English the verbs have few flections: you need more nouns to make meanings.  The English language uses mostly short sentences  there aren’t many textual connectives.  The Puritans (a significant grouping of English Protestants) influenced the political sphere (they promulgated the Declaration of Independence)  there are words linked to religion.  The larger semantic fields are those linked to politics and the economy, followed by values, work and education. This is because the gradual loss of work, values ​​ and education is one of the issues that concern mainly the president.  Obama repeats particular words with the intention to focus the attention of his supporters on ideas or questions quite specific.