ENG 385: History of the English Language (Summer Intensive, Hybrid Delivery)

You are currently looking at the ENG 385 welcome page, where you can find our course description, meeting times and location, requirements, policies, and ongoing anonymous feedback form. For the ENG 385 Schedule of Readings, Meetings, Lectures, and Assignments, click here; for ENG 385’s lecture slides click here (PDE through EMnE slides) and here (ME through OE slides); for ENG 385’s video lectures, click here; for the ENG 385 Google Drive (with all class audiorecordings), click here.

This site contains all the material that would normally be on a course syllabus, and more. There’s a lot of information here, but that’s because everything you need for ENG 385 is all collected here conveniently in one place! You’ll mainly use this site for reference during the year, but before you commit to joining our class, be sure you review the contents of this site.

If you are joining our class late, or miss the first couple of classes for any other reason, you are still responsible for the material you missed: click here for important instructions for late registrants.

I am happy to arrange accommodations or modifications to this class for anyone who would benefit from them — no documentation necessary — but in my classes, you must request accommodations and modifications according to these specific instructions (click here).

I’m your professor, Matthew Sergi. You can call me Prof. Sergi (not “sir,” please); you can contact me at sergi.utoronto@gmail.com, but I encourage you to approach me in Office Hours (click here for times and location) and to consult my FAQ first. I’ll only be able to answer emails sent to sergi.utoronto@gmail.com; if you send an inquiry about ENG 330 to another email address of mine, it will likely be delayed or missed.

ENG 385 also has a TA — once that TA has been appointed for the upcoming semester, I’ll post their contact information here.


Course Description

Speakers and writers of English, across the millennia and miles through which our strange dialect of West Germanic has spread and changed, diverge so widely that we often cannot understand each other. Indeed, there are many different varieties of English (“Englishes”) spoken and written in Toronto, each connected in a different way to the language’s complex and fascinating history. Our lecture-based (but discussion-friendly) course will explore the linguistic, practical, socio-economic, and cultural history of the language itself.  By the end of term, students will learn to recognize and study (and in some cases read and understand) a range of multiple Englishes, extending across time and around the globe. They will begin to perceive, embedded in any given English word or phrase, centuries of history, politics, tradition, and struggle. They will learn and apply the laws, rules, theories, and terms by which scholars have come to understand the development of the English language.  Students will be expected to treat their own Englishes — and each other’s — as subjects of study, allowing us to better understand by the end of the semester not only how English ended up looking and sounding the way it does, but also what English actually did, and does, look and sound like.

We will begin by surveying as many present-day global and virtual Englishes as we can manage (of which Standard Written English is only one). From there, we will work backward into the richly troubled and turbulent history of English: tracing the now-Global Englishes (1800–present) back to Early Modern English (1500–1800), then Middle English (1100–1500), then Old English (c. 449–1100).  We will discuss changes in English’s core systems of phonology (sound structure), morphology (word structure), and syntax (sentence structure); in its lexicon (vocabulary and all other meaningful units in a language) and semantics (the shifting meaning of those units); and in its graphics (how the language is represented in writing).  Meanwhile, we will approach the “outer histories” of English — that is, the series of historical events that influenced the development of the language — as stories of fragmentation, conflict, creativity, and power.

ENG 385 will hone students’ mastery of present-day language standards by examining key moments in the historical development of those language standards: how they have been controlled, preserved, described, prescribed, proscribed, or rejected. Who has the authority over the rules of the language in which we write and speak? Who makes the judgment about what is standard, proper, established, important, or significant? Does good English always facilitate communication, or can it sometimes muffle it? Can bad English do the opposite? And perhaps most urgently, how have new media technologies (not only internet, television, and radio, but also and most importantly, printing and writing) shaped language standards and practices? Consider: the way we articulate ideas verbally is linked to, even synonymous with, the way we think. 

While we will often draw on literature for examples of the language in development, this is not a course about literature; rather, we will focus primarily on the language itself.  There will be a quiz and a test, and presentations of original student-driven research, but little writing (only about 1000 words) assigned in this course. This is an intensive course, condensing the usual 12 weeks of course content into 6 weeks.  Be prepared to work and read intensively.

Class Meetings

A summer intensive course, ENG 385 will meet twice per week, for two 2.5-hour sessions, from 10:30am to 1pm on Mondays and Wednesdays at UC 161 on the University of Toronto campus, on the shared territory of many First Nations, including the Mississaugas of the Credit, the Anishnabeg, the Chippewa, the Wendat, and the Haudenosaunee Confederacy, under the Dish With One Spoon Treaty, and under Treaty 13 between the Mississaugas and subsequent settlers.

Normally, U of T summer courses meet for 3-hour sessions, but in order to make our real-time meetings more productive (and less exhausting) I will offer about 30 minutes of each session’s lecture content asynchronously, so that students can watch the video component at whatever time they wish (as long as they watch it before the next class meeting).

I also keep Zoom (or an equivalent application) open on my laptop during all meetings; I audiorecord and simulcast all meetings through that application. For this summer course, my policy for remote attendance differs from my usual fall/winter course policy: ENG 385 summer students may attend any class session they wish, for whatever reason, either in person or remotely — students who wish to attend remotely, however, must consult and follow my Rules and Requirements for Remote Attendance (click here and scroll down to “Rules and Requirements”).

But to be clear: in-person or remote, I require real-time attendance at every class meeting, during the scheduled hours of that meeting. If a student misses a session for any reason, that student must follow my set instructions for what to do after missing a class (click here).

Your TA and I both also hold weekly Office Hours during any week that courses are in session: click here for my current Office Hours times and locations; your TA will be in touch with their hours once they are scheduled.

Web Resources

Students in my ENG 385 class frequently use the International Phonetic Alphabet (IPA). Two online resources are very valuable in that regard: Peter Isotalo’s Interactive IPA Chart (with audio examples; click here) and TypeIt’s Type IPA Phonetic Symbols site (click here).

We also make use of two linguistic atlases: EWAVE (The Electronic World Atlas of Varieties of English) for global varieties in current use; ELALME (An Electronic Linguistic Atlas of Late Medieval English for varieties in use 1350-1500.

Course Requirements/Grading Weight:

Case Study Presentation, 15%
 Each student shares with the class a five-minute video lecture (and leads a real-time Q&A afterward) on a fellow student’s use of English. Click here for further instructions.

Engagement and Participation in class discussion sessions, 15%
If, by the end of term, we all have a pretty good idea of how you approach class material, you’ll do well. Click here to read my full policy on Engagement and Participation.

Actual Attendance during at least 9 of our 12 class sessions, 10%
(8 of 12 sessions attended = 5/10; 7 or fewer = 0/10)
You earn ten points of your course grade just for showing up; you lose those points if you miss too many classes, regardless of the reason. Click here to read my full policy on Actual Attendance.

Real-Time Comprehension Questions (CQs), asked at the mid-point and end of each class session, 15%
 Two pairs of quick short-answer questions, asked and answered in 2-3 minutes during class meetings. Click here to read full instructions for Real-Time Comprehension Questions.

Final Essay: Critiquing Authorities (about 1000 words), 15%
A written critique of any text that presents itself as an authority on English language or usage, past or present. Click here for further instructions.

Week 2 Take-Home Quiz (self-administered), 10%  
An early assessment of your basic understanding of class material, especially IPA and phonology. Click here for further information. 

Week 7 Take-Home Test (self-administered), 20%
A final, comprehensive assessment of your retention and mastery of class material. Click here for further information.

Required Texts

You must purchase two books for our course — make sure you have the correct editions:

We’ll also make frequent use of academic articles on sociolinguistics and linguistic history (primarily from the journal World Englishes), which you’ll access using your U of T Library membership — see the ENG 385 Schedule of Readings and Assignments for further instructions on how to access them.

The Smith and Kim texts should be available at the U of T Bookstore one month before our first meeting. You can purchase the Smith and Kim texts by any means you wish, in hard copy or electronic format — but you must make sure all the texts are available to you in time for you to get readings done on schedule: allow time for shipping delays, restocking, etc.


Ongoing Student Feedback

If there is any element of this class that you would like to see improved, changed, or removed, you don’t need to wait until the end of term to give your opinion. In fact, I welcome ongoing feedback about this class throughout term (and I still welcome it after term ends). You can offer feedback directly to me in three ways:

  1. Bring it up in class discussion or Office Hours! I don’t have thin skin and I don’t mind dedicating some class time to course housekeeping — and I love talking through solutions to make my courses better. If you feel comfortable doing so, feel free to bring your issue up in class so that other students can share their opinion too.

  2. Email me.

  3. Comment anonymously, using Google Forms, by clicking here.   You do not need to be signed into Google to fill out the feedback form — but even if you are, I still won’t know it! I’ll receive an email alerting me that someone has made comments, which will not reveal your identity.

From there, I may respond to you directly (unless you’ve chosen to remain anonymous), or bring up/enact the proposed change in class (without revealing who suggested it), or start a quick anonymous student survey in which fellow students can vote on whether to make the proposed change to our course.

Note: These avenues of direct student feedback are different from the university-run, automated evaluations made available at the end of every class — those give you a direct line to the graduate chair, the department chair, and higher administrative bodies (who may evaluate, reward, reassign, or penalize a professor in relation to the quality of evaluations), but they are not an effective way of delivering actionable feedback directly to me. If you would like me to take action or make changes, however small or large, you should send your feedback to me directly, through one of the above avenues (and as soon as possible, so I can make changes to the class you’re currently taking!).

Course Policies

Be sure you know the ENG 385 policies before joining our course — because joining ENG 385 means that you understand and agree to its course policies, as far as they are summarized below. If you are concerned that you may not be able to adhere to any of these policies, or if you want to learn more specific details about how or why I enforce a policy, click on the “further explanation” link next to that policy.

  • The summer version of ENG 385 is an intensive course, condensing the usual 12 weeks of course content into 6 weeks.  You will be required to work and read intensively.

  • I use Google apps and Zoom, not Blackboard or Quercus, for class announcements and contact. After term begins, you must make sure you are receiving class emails I send from sergi.utoronto@gmail.com; adjust your junk mail or spam settings if need be. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • All students, with no exceptions, are required to engage and participate actively in class discussion. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • For students who have difficulty jumping into class discussion, I offer an array of alternative avenues for participation, which the student must pre-arrange with me according to the specific instructions I make available on this website. (Click here for instructions on how to arrange for alternative avenues for participation.)

  • If you miss a real-time class session for any reason, including illness or late registration, you are responsible for making up the content of any class session you miss, including make-up Comprehension Questions (CQs) for that day, according to the specific instructions I make available on this website. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy and for the relevant instructions.)

  • Even if you make up missed content, it will not reverse the fact that you missed the class session (make-up CQs restore CQ credit, but do not restore attendance credit!). Be sure you’re clear on this: my course attendance policy allows for a certain number of missed sessions (see above) without penalty; if you exceed that number, I will deduct points from your course grade. There are no exceptions available, no matter what, for the requirement to attend class sessions in real time, at the time they are scheduled. I never require proof, documentation, or any reason for a student’s absence. You can use your allowed number of absences for any reason; if the allowed number is exceeded, I deduct credit regardless of the reason. (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • Students in ENG 385 can attend class sessions either in person or remotely as needed; please do not contact me ahead of time to inform me about your attendance or mode of delivery — just follow the instructions. (Click here for instructions on how to attend remotely.)

  • If you want a deadline extension for the Critiquing Authorities Essay, you must request it from your TA at least one week in advance (please do not share the reason for your request; just ask); the length of the extension is up to your TA’s discretion. I may be able to provide an emergency rescheduling for your Case Study Presentation if and only if there are free slots for presentations still remaining in term; other than that, there are no deadline extensions available for any other component of ENG 385; (Click here for a further explanation of this policy.)

  • If you are a student who has difficulty speaking up in class, or who wants extra help in English grammar and usage (including ESL/EFL), or who has a health consideration or atypical learning style that affects classwork, or who frequently has trouble with, or feels inadequately challenged by, classwork, or who is interested in investigating or applying to graduate school, or anything else that might benefit from an accommodation or modification, I can gladly customize my course to your needs or your style; I do not require any documentation or proof that you need accommodations. I do require that you request accommodations and modifications within the first two weeks of class — and that you follow my specific set of instructions for requesting accommodations and modifications when making your request. (Click here for instructions on how to request accommodations or modifications.)