35.. Origins and sources of phraseological units.

According to their origins, phraseological units in Modern English may be divided into:

native, e.g. to eat the humble pie ‘to submit to humiliation’ < ME to eat umble pie (umbles ‘the internal organs of a deer’); to save for a rainy day; to beat about the bush ‘not to speak openly and directly’; to lose one’s rag ‘to lose one’s temper’ etc.;

borrowed, which, in their turn, can be either intralingual (borrowed from American English and other variants of English) or interlingual (borrowed from other languages).

Types of Borrowed Phraseological Units: Intralingual borrowings: e.g. to bite off more than one can chew; to shoot the bull ‘’to talk nonsense’ (from American English); to pull sb’s leg (from Scottish Gaelic); a knock back (from Australian English) etc.

Interlingual borrowings:

translation loans from Latin, e.g. to take the bull by the horns, a slip of the tongue (Lat. lapsus linguae), with a grain of salt (Lat. cum grano salis), second to none (Lat. nulli secundus); from French, e.g. by heart (Fr. par coeur), that goes without saying (Fr. cela va sans dire); from Spanish, e.g. the moment of truth (Sp. el momento de la verdad), blue blood (Sp. la sagre azul) etc;

barbarisms (non-assimilated loans), e.g. sotto voce (It.) ‘quietly, in a low voice’, la dolce vita (It.) ‘the good life full of pleasure’, al fresco (It.) ‘in the open air’, cordon bleu (Fr.) ‘high quality, esp. of cooking’.

36..Standard English: features and the problem of definition.

a variety of English with standardised pronunciation, grammar, vocabulary and spelling that have no local base;

used as the norm of communication by the government, law courts, and media;

taught to native speakers in school and to learners of English as a foreign language;

a canon of literature and translations;

prestigious within a country;

only a minority of people within a country (e.g. radio newscasters, translators) use it. Most people speak a variety of regional English, or a mixture of standard and regional English.

37.. Local dialects in the British Isles. Scotticisms in Standard English.

Scottish English is the result of language contact between Scots and English after the 17^th c. It is the most distinctive from Standard English (not to be confused with the Scottish Gaelic language, which is a Celtic language spoken in the Highlands). Its special status is conditioned by:

a strong literary tradition and the Bible (1983);

its own dialects;

vast lexicographic description: John Jamieson's Etymological Dictionary of the Scottish Language (1808-1825, 4 vols

Scottish National Dictionary (1976, 10 vols); the Scots Thesaurus (1990, 20 000 items).

Scotticisms: a lassie, a laddie, a billy, a kilt, a tartan, a glamour ‘magic spell; charm’, a slogan ‘a battle cry of a Scottish clan’, a wean ‘child’; wee, bonny; to greet ‘to cry’, to keek ‘to peep’, to ken ‘to know’; ilk ‘the same’, ilka ‘every’;

Scotticisms of Germanic origin: a bairn ‘a child’, a burgh ‘a small town’; stark ‘strong’, couthie ‘nice, pleasant’, to awe ‘to have, to possess’, to wale ‘to choose’; Scotticisms of Celtic origin: a bannock ‘flat quick bread’, an ingle ‘fire, fireplace’, a binn ‘a waterfall’;

English words that underwent semantic changes in Scottish English: scheme ‘local government housing estate’, mind ‘memory, recollection’, travel ‘go on foot’, gate ‘road’; idioms: to miss oneself ‘miss a treat’; to be up on high doh ‘to be overexcited’, etc.;

colloquial words: high ‘highest quality’ as in it’s high; fair ‘completely’ as in I fair forgot; brave ‘good’ etc.;

a wide usage of contractions: canna (cannot), dinna (do not), mebbe (may be), didna (did not), twouldna (it would not).

Irish English (Hiberno-English) is the variant of English spoken in Ireland. It is the product of the Irish language and the interaction of English and Scots brought to Ireland during the 16^th – 17^th c. The linguistic influence of the Irish language is most clearly seen in Gaeltachaí. English first appeared in Ireland during the Norman invasion of Ireland in the late 12th century. Since the 19th century, it has become the dominant language, with Gaelic found only in certain rural parts of the west. In the east, the link was the strongest with England, but in the north it was with Scotland (now Ulster Scots).

Welsh English refers to the dialect of English spoken in Wales. It is significantly influenced by Welsh grammar and often include words derived from Welsh. In addition to the distinctive words and grammar, there is a variety of accents found across Wales from the Cardiff dialect to that of the South Wales Valleys and to West Wales.

Features of Welsh English are:

distinctive pitch difference giving a ‘sing-song’ effect;

adding the words like and indeed to the end of the sentence for emphasis or using them as stop-gaps;

straightforward borrowings from Welsh: to cwtsch ‘to hug, to cuddle’; an awdl ‘a long poem’; an englyn ‘a short poem form’.

Cockney English is generally considered one of the broadest of the British accents and is heavily stigmatised. It is considered to epitomise the working class accents of Londoners and in its more diluted form.

The term Cockney refers to both the accent as well as to those people who speak it. To be a true Cockney, a person has to be born within hearing distance of the bells of St. Mary le Bow, Cheapside, in the City of London. This traditional working-class accent of the region is also associated with other suburbs in the eastern section of the city such as the East End, Stepney, Hackney, Shoreditch Poplar and Bow.

Cockney rhyming slang: in a pair of associated words the second word rhymes with the word a person intends to say; the first word of the associated pair indicates the word you originally intended to say. Some rhymes have been in use for years and are very well recognised, if not used, among speakers of other accents, e.g.:

apples and pears – stairs; plates of meat – feet; bees and honey – money.