Lerer, Seth

The History of the English Language, 2nd Edition (Complete set of 6 DVDs + Course Guidebook)

Chantilly, VA: The Great Courses / The Teaching Company, 2008.
DVD set of 6 discs in box + paperback guidebook.

Course #2250.  Professor Seth Lerer is Avalon Foundation Professor in Humanities and Professor of English and Comparative Literature at Stanford University. In this series of 36 30-minute lectures, Dr. Lerer surveys the history of the English language, from its origins as a dialect of German-speaking peoples, through the literary and cultural documents of its 1,500-year span, to the state of American speech of the present day.

Disc 1

1. Intro to the Study of Language
2. The Historical Study of Language
3. Indo-European and the Prehistory of English
4. Reconstructing Meaning and Sound
5. Historical Linguistics and Studying Culture
6. The Beginnings of English

Disc 2

1. The Old English Worldview
2. Did the Normans Really Conquer English?
3. What Did the Norman’s Do To English?
4. Chaucer’s English
5. Dialect Representations in Middle English
6. Medieval Attitudes toward Language

Disc 3

1. The Return of English as a Standard
2. The Great Vowel Shift and Modern English
3. The Expanding English Vocabulary
4. Early Modern English Syntax and Grammar
5. Renaissance Attitudes toward Teaching English
6. Shakespeare – Drama, Grammar, Pronunciation

Disc 4

1. Shakespeare – Poetry, Sound, Sense
2. The Bible in English
3. Samuel Johnson and His Dictionary
4. New Standards in English
5. Dictionaries and Word Histories
6. Values, Words, and Modernity

Disc 5

1. The Beginning of American English
2. American Language from Webster to Mencken
3. American Rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln
4. The Language of the American Self
5. American Regionalism
6. American Dialects in Literature

Disc 6

1. The Impact of African-American English
2. An Anglophone World
3. The Language of Science
4. The Science of Language
5. Linguistics and Politics in Language Stud
6. Conclusions and Provocations

Item #900842
ISBN: 1598034022

6 discs in case, 36 lectures, 30 minutes per lecture, includes 218pp 5-1/4 x 7-3/8" guidebook in pictorial wrappers.

Previously owned set in excellent unused condition.

Price: $30.00