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Essay on evolution of english language
Introduction on the evolution of contemporary English
Evolution of the English language as a world language
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British Identity and Literature
What does it mean to be British? Britain's national identity has evolved and transformed over the years. Through the works of Phyllis Wheatley, Aphra Ben, William Shakespeare, Daniel DeFoe, Coetzee and Caryl Phillips we have explored the different meanings and aspects of British identity. Britishness is not just confined to England (or the United Kingdom in recent times), Britishness extends far beyond the nation. Britishness is not a simple concept and is complicated by the existence of many British colonies all over the world. The colonized people of the British colonies also have claims on Britishness. So what determines if an individual is British or not? Is it one's religion? Is it the way one speaks? Is it just the difference of skin color? Is it one's appearance and dress? Is it based on citizenship? Is it one's knowledge of social norms of England? The colonized people of British colonies defied many of those above. The Britishness of these people did not just rely on their language, their appearance, their citizenship and at many times their understanding or application of social norms to their life yet their claim on Britishness, them demanding their claim on British identity is as legitimate as any. So if not on these basic characteristics, that define national identity, on what is the Britishness of the colonized people based on?
An important part of the formation of British identity within the colonized people lies in their interaction with the British that came from England to colonize them. Interaction with the British mainly depended on language and the colonized individual's ability to speak English. For most their ability to learn the language depends on their master's ge...
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...w claim their British idenity, yet in the beginning of the colonizing process they had to prove their Britishness. Their ability to speak the language, understand the culture and adopt the religion were all ways they could claim their Britishness. The strong influence of the British in their colonies was inevitable because if people live together, there will be interaction and that will lead to the exchange of ideas. This exchange of ideas lead to the development of a British identity among the colonized. This exchange wasn't one-sided as this interaction lead to the British discovering, understanding and sometimes adopting the ideas of the people in their colony. Yet the claim of the colonized on British identity was not considered legitimate in the colonial times and was only recognized years later when the notion of racial superiority was somewhat obliterated.
First, I want to establish that English settlers did not bring a concrete ideology of race to their new colony. As Brown explains, while English traders had contact with other peoples in Ireland and on the West African coast, the everyday English concept of race was very much abstract in the early seventeenth century. That is not to say that the English did not justify their domination of other peo...
During the colonial era, the economic conditions of both the New World and Great Britain were taking more notice then the religious concerns of the colonies. This was why Britain wanted to solve further economic problems through the colonization of the New World. For instance, many of their earliest settlers migrated to the New World due...
The Chesapeake Bay Colonies and the New England Colonies were both colonized by the British, but both regions were vastly different from one another. The English-Native American relations remained tense since the moment the English arrived, and the results of the war was the same: English won, Indians lost. The Chesapeake and New England were both influenced by the geographical differences and lead to a difference in economic values as well as governments. The Chesapeake and New England were both established for different reasons: to expand an empire and to get away from religious prosecution. The oversea British Empire was the most dominant in the world, and even though the colonies were all “British”, they are all vastly different from one another.
All in all, the colonists had felt an identity from the very beginning and forming a unity with one another was not difficult for them to achieve. They were prepared to tackle a situation together and they had begun referring to themselves as not British. To conclude, colonists had already a sense of identity and unity because they all had one common problem and they had to act together to deal with it.
Often in history textbooks the British are casted in an evil light, while the American colonist are se...
The English colonization looked very different from the French; during the period 1536-1691 “the English used a model of forcible segregation with the Irish that would mirror their future relationships with Native Americans.” Rather than integrating with the Natives, England acquired lands by using violent force that caused them to disperse the areas where they once occupied and leaves
Although the only explanation we were presented regarding the reasoning or motives of this colonization was the vague answer of Gold, God and Glory. Which from a general perspective is correct, although similar to various topics in history, there is much more then what we have originally thought. Likewise, Taylor explains how, “until the 1960s, most American historians assumed that the “the colonists” mean English-speaking men confined to the Atlantic seaboard.” Overall, after much research and information from various sources, I will explain the overall motives these countries had and how they intertwine with one another.
In Jamaica Kincaid’s article “Excerpt from on Seeing England for the First Time”, she notes that people should not forget their own traditional culture and should protect traditional cultural. Kincaid lived in a British colony when she was a child. When she saw England on a map in her school, she thought England was a beautiful place and like a jewel. In addition, England is an important and seriousness and adoration in her country because most people thought England is a leader of the country, and most things came from England in the life of her childhood, such as a cup of cocoa, shoes, and clothes. In a hot summer, her father wore a felt hat which came from England just because he saw a picture that an Englishman wore a similar felt hat in
The portrayal of men and women has varied in different stories throughout history. Many portray women as beautiful, deceptive, manipulative, and smart, while men are portrayed as being strong, masculine, and easily tricked. In many of the works covered in the course “Major British Writers to 1800,” men are advised to refrain from acting lustful, believed that it would harm their overall ability to succeed in whatever the characters aimed to do. An example of this is seen in “Sir Gawain and the Green Knight” when Gawain is deceived by Lady Bertilak in an effort to prove that Sir Gawain is imperfect. The depictions of men and women are very similar in Fantomina by Eliza Haywood, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Phyllis and Aristotle. . While each of these stories maintain a similar image on men and women, the means in which the deception is very different. Unlike these three stories however, Paradise Lost by John Milton does not depict women as being deceptive or manipulative, nor men as being easily tricked or deceived. John Milton’s depiction of men and women is portrayed very differently in comparison to Fantomina, Sir Gawain and the Green Knight, and Phyllis and Aristotle.
...erall, Great Britain wanted to rule colonies to benefit themselves and only concerned for their own welfare and not that of the American people.
There were a myriad of differences between Great Britain and her American colonies in the seventeenth and eighteenth centuries, but these differences can be divided into three basic categories: economic, social, and political. The original American settlers came to the colonies for varied reasons, but a common trait among these settlers was that they still considered themselves British subjects. However, as time passed, the colonists grew disenfranchised from England. Separated from the king by three thousand miles and living in a primitive environment where obtaining simple necessities was a struggle, pragmatism became the common thread throughout all daily life in the colonies. It was this pragmatism that led the colonists to create their own society with a unique culture and system of economics and politics.
In British Literature religion plays a role in a vast majority of works. Even if the role is not explosively apparent, there are a generous amount of small inspirations and distortions in the texts. Some texts are theorized to have even been altered from their original state to reflect an amount of religion in them. Other texts are formatted as a result of religious influence. Religion has an elaborate and intricate influence in a variety of ways in many works throughout the development of British Literature.
The debate about British Identity has been prominently featured in recent years as a public concern. The foundation of British Identity was based on the act of union in 1801 between England, Scotland, Wales and Ireland that created Great Britain. Heath and Roberts describe this identity as “a relatively recent construct and was gradually superimposed on earlier national identities of English, Welsh, Scottish and Irish” (2008:4). The four nations were unified mainly because of the political and economic project of the British Empire that developed a shared agenda and The Second World War which melted the distinctive differences between the constituent nations (Ward, 2004). According to Colley, the interests that unified the nations do not exist and even if they do” they are less distinctive” (1992). Although there is identification with Britishness, it is noticeable that Britons hold a stronger allegiance to their primary nation. The British Identity is decreasing as many writers suggested, and this is due to many different trends and influences such as globalization, immigration and communication (Heath and Roberts, 2008). This essay highlights some of the reasons of the decline in the British national identity and the rise of the consentient nation’s sentiment. This is approached by firstly considering the internal factors of the devolution of power to Scotland and Wales, and secondly the external factor of immigration and will analyze the relationship between age and identification with a nation.
Their has been several additions and changes to English throughout the years. Today students are taught English through literature from some of the greatest authors of all time. When a student reaches the twelfth grade they start to learn the history of the language in British Literature. Works like Beowulf and Canterbury Tales represent two eras and two stages of English, old and middle. Historic landmarks play a part in an author's writing. Monarchs control the authors environment. The study of British literature and its authors is a lasting endeavor bound to the timeline of the British kingdom and its people.
Postcolonial authors use their literature and poetry to solidify, through criticism and celebration, an emerging national identity, which they have taken on the responsibility of representing. Surely, the reevaluation of national identity is an eventual and essential result of a country gaining independence from a colonial power, or a country emerging from a fledgling settler colony. However, to claim to be representative of that entire identity is a huge undertaking for an author trying to convey a postcolonial message. Each nation, province, island, state, neighborhood and individual is its own unique amalgamation of history, culture, language and tradition. Only by understanding and embracing the idea of cultural hybridity when attempting to explore the concept of national identity can any one individual, or nation, truly hope to understand or communicate the lasting effects of the colonial process.