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Discussion Groups / English Usage / November 2006history of english
I have some problems in understanding the text quoted below. There's anybody who can reformulate this text making it more clear and understandable? The efforts made by official historians and linguists to trace back the history of standard English also applies to the early Middle English period, in particular to the continuity of the Anglo-Saxon 10th and 11th centuries written tradition in the southwest-Midland area. This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the copying and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Thanks P. picky <cucucu@yahoo.it>, the phlegmatic beautician, deprecated: > I have some problems in understanding the text quoted below. There's > anybody who can reformulate this text making it more clear and > understandable? > The efforts made by official historians and linguists to trace back > the history of standard English also applies to the early Middle > English period, That means the efforts made by official historians and linguists to trace back the history of standard English also applies to the early Middle English period. > in particular to the continuity of the Anglo-Saxon > 10th and 11th centuries written tradition in the southwest-Midland > area. That means the efforts made by official historians and linguists to trace back the history of standard English also applies to the early Middle English period, in particular to the continuity of the Anglo-Saxon 10th and 11th centuries written tradition in the southwest-Midland area. > This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the > copying and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. That means this socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the copying and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. > Thanks You're welcome. > P. <aside> What a f.cking brainless c.nt.  Signaturealt.usenet.kooks - Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook, Line & Sinker: September 2005 and April 2006 "K-Man's particular genius, however, lies not merely in his humour, but his ability to make posters who had previously seemed reasonably well-balanced turn into foaming, frothing, death threat-uttering maniacs" - Snarky, Demon Lord of Confusion "If the truth be known, the only reason Osama is still on the loose is because he himself hasn't fallen victim to the K-Man." - Wog George Thou she-wolf. Thou contaminated stale. " >> This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the >> copying and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. [quoted text clipped - 6 lines] > > You're welcome. your ability in rephrasing texts is highly remarkable picky <cucucu@yahoo.it>, the penurious spurrier, bitched: >>> This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the >>> copying and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. [quoted text clipped - 7 lines] > > your ability in rephrasing texts is highly remarkable Thanks, though the same can't be said about your typing. Signaturealt.usenet.kooks - Pierre Salinger Memorial Hook, Line & Sinker: September 2005 and April 2006 "K-Man's particular genius, however, lies not merely in his humour, but his ability to make posters who had previously seemed reasonably well-balanced turn into foaming, frothing, death threat-uttering maniacs" - Snarky, Demon Lord of Confusion "If the truth be known, the only reason Osama is still on the loose is because he himself hasn't fallen victim to the K-Man." - Wog George Thou hasty-witted feeble carrion. Thou inbred dissembling knight. > I have some problems in understanding the text quoted below. There's anybody > who can reformulate this text making it more clear and understandable? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] > This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the copying > and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. No: I doubt that anyone can make this text clearer without also removing the errors that give it a distinctive style, e.g. 1. "Official historians:" English has none (has no offices or officials.) 2. Subject EFFORTS (plural) fails to agree with main verb APPLIES (singular). This expression is also nonsensical. 3. Adjectives SOCIOCULTURAL and LINGUISTIC may be applied to (a) scholars, (b) scholars' subject-matter. Sentence 2 is unclear whether (a) or (b) is intended. 4. TRADITION may be copied and may be understood: but the last clause is similarly ambiguous. 5. General: these two sentences add nothing to the universe, viz. tell no reader anything he did not know before reading them. They may thus be of a type common in academic prose, but they have no distinct meaning or flavour that may be sharpened by a wise editor. SignatureDon Phillipson Carlsbad Springs (Ottawa, Canada) >I have some problems in understanding the text quoted below. There's anybody >who can reformulate this text making it more clear and understandable? [quoted text clipped - 5 lines] >This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the copying >and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Afraid not. It doesn't make any sense. It is more or less clear what topic the author is discussing, but what he or she has to say about it remains a mystery. SignatureDon Aitken Mail to the From: address is not read. To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" > >I have some problems in understanding the text quoted below. There's anybody > >who can reformulate this text making it more clear and understandable? [quoted text clipped - 9 lines] > topic the author is discussing, but what he or she has to say about it > remains a mystery. Pobably the work of an academic (spit). > -- > Don Aitken > Mail to the From: address is not read. > To email me, substitute "clara.co.uk" for "freeuk.com" > The efforts made by official historians and linguists to trace back the > history of standard English also applies to the early Middle English period, > in particular to the continuity of the Anglo-Saxon 10th and 11th centuries > written tradition in the southwest-Midland area. > This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the copying > and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. Well, I think it means that in order to trace the origins of standard english, historians studied the middle english (10-11 century) texts which were essentially a continuation of the Anglo-Saxon (5-6 century) writing style as found in the southwest-Midland area. Then the author goes on to say that the process of evolution (standardisation) of the language was similar to the process of incorporation of the anglo-saxon culture with the later norman culture. Aravind Nair --- picky wrote: >> The efforts made by official historians and linguists to trace back the >> history of standard English also applies to the early Middle English period, >> in particular to the continuity of the Anglo-Saxon 10th and 11th centuries >> written tradition in the southwest-Midland area. >> This socio-cultural and linguistic process is associated with the copying >> and understanding of the Anglo-Saxon tradition. It's unclearly written, and is hard to make work in one sentence. The force of it seems to depend on the notion that there is a traditionally recognized point of origin for the idea of 'standard English'. (What this might be isn't specified, but it might refer to the Chancery Standard, which was fairly late Middle English innovation.) What this paragraph seems to have in mind, then, is a desire by philologists to push back the horizon of 'standard English' to the earlier ME period by treating late West Saxon (which has often been referred to as a kind of 'standard Old English') as a standard which survived the Norman Conquest and the linguistic innovations it prompted. West Saxon texts, after all, continued to be copied and used until the early thirteenth century (especially Aelfric's sermons). If this supposedly trans-medieval continuity of linguistic standards and tradition is what's implied, it's not really philological rocket science: as a credible idea it last saw the light of day in 1932 in R. W. Chambers, On the Continuity of English Prose from Alfred to More and his School. Nor is it exclusively (or even particularly notably) a south-west Midland phenomenon: here the passage may be getting confused with another supposed continuity with Old English, that of alliterative poetry. (The so-called 'alliterative revival' has taken a bit of a hammering of late.) If that's the notion of standard English that this passage is taking on (and it's hard to know whether or not it endorses it), it's all rather muddled. If anyone's interested in more recent research on the post-Conquest uses of Old English, M. Swan and E. Treharne (eds.), Rewriting Old English in the Twelfth Century (Cambridge, 2000) is a good starting point. |
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