1. Melchers and Shaw:1 Roots of English
Þórhallur's or my course on the History of English, Spring Term of the First Year.
Different "layers" of vocabulary – Old English, Norse, Latin, French: not relevant except for
Norse vocabulary in "Traditional" dialects in the N. of England and Scotland
Developments and processes
NG Coalescence, Gide Cluster Reduction, GVS, Diphthong Shift, food/good/blood etc.

2. Melchers and Shaw:2 The Spread of English
We will come back to this chapter inthe second half of the term, when we talk about "overseas" English.

3. Melchers and Shaw: 3 Variation in English
Background reading for the "theoretical" element in the first half of the course (dialectology)
Read in conjunction with Readings 1 and 3 in Ugla (Chambers and Trudgill, Dialectology)

4. Melchers and Shaw: 3 Variation in English
p.11 Some basic concepts: language, dialect, accent
autonomy and heteronomy
extra- or sociolinguistic:
standard and non-standard
written codification
domains and elaboration of function
regional and social
mutual intelligibilty
dialect and accent

5. Melchers and Shaw: 3 Variation in English
p.13 Types of variation of form
written: little variation
spoken: much greater regional and social differences in
lexis (vocabulary)
grammar (morphology, syntax)
phonology/phonetics (pronuncitation, accent)
spelling (p. 14)
very minor effects in autonomous standards
no standard codification of non-standard varieties

6. Melchers and Shaw: 3 Variation in English
p.14 Phonetics/phonology
we know all this, don't we ... ?