1. Development of English 6 Spelling, pronunciation, vocabulary

2. Changes in Spelling Shortening, but not noticeably in formal prose: may become so in the future A tendency towards American spelling where this is more rational. Probably stabilization because of world- wide use of English and the enormous amount of text already available

3. Some distinctive characteristics of PDE pronunciation stress-timing use of intonation to convey meaning (e.g. stress, question, doubt, certainty) relatively large number of diphthongs and triphthongs plosive /t/, /k/, /p/

4. lack of guttural fricative /x/ /θ/, /ð/ /I/ - /i:/ distinction assimilation elision weak/strong forms: the schwa sound

5. Some distinctive characteristics of PDE spelling non-phonetic ‘leftovers’ from previous eras (one, night, etc.) the use of final e and consonant doubling to indicate shortened or lengthened vowels the use of upper-case letters to indicate the first word in a sentence, proper names, emphasis the use of digrams (pairs of letters) to indicate single phonemes (e.g. sh, ee, oo)

6. Changes in pronunciation Raising intonation for statements. A tendency towards rhotic dialects a tendency to use full vowels rather than schwa.

7. New lexical items How and why does the language expand?

8. Sources: new phenomena (e.g. technology) changes in thinking, mass movements mass media: news, literature, songs, entertainment Jargon (p.68), slang (p.67), slogans(p.66) other?

9. Single words Single words: Affixation (prefixes and suffixes) Borrowing / Loan words + loan-translation (calque) Eponymy: brand-names, names of people, mythological references, places

10. Blending Acronyms and initials Clipping (p.70) Compounding Functional shift

11. Onomatopeia Meaning shift or extension through: –Similarity in form or function –Metaphorical extension or metonymy –Euphemism –Changes in real world application –Confusion with something similar (disinterested/ uninterested) Coinage

12. Chunks ‘Chunks’ phrasal verbs pairs (x and x) fixed collocations

13. ‘Stagnation’ of items Cliché p.71

14. Loss of items Because: –The referent has disappeared (old-fashioned clothes, horse-drawn vehicles) –Unacceptable / distasteful (cripple, backward child) –Replaced by something more fashionable (rucksack / backpack, singer / vocalist)

15. Assignment Open the dictionary to any page. Check through the headwords, and count how many of them follow regular spelling rules (e.g. magic ‘e’ or pronunciation of final –tion), and how many are irregular. Express as a percentage. Upload to website