THE LINGUISTIC TYPOLOGY OF ENGLISH VERSUS MOST ROMANCE LANGUAGES
After a brief analysis of the History of the English Language, one can understand why English is typologically classified as an analytical language with an isolating tendency, compared to the classification of Romance languages which is synthetic with an affixing tendency.
Analysis explains the very strict word order in English where the subject has to be explicit in its syntactic structure, while synthesis in Spanish, with a more flexible syntax, justifies the omission of the subject in most sentences. The tendency towards isolation in English is seen in the amount of root “short” words compared to the number of affixed “long” words in Spanish and most Romance languages. Comparative Typology is a branch linguistics which compares the basic characteristics of languages at their different linguistic levels. The goal is to find points of contrasts and similarities, which will help us to identify the differences as potential challenges and support our teaching with the similarities between the home (L1) and the new language (L2).
The contrasts between analytical-isolating languages and synthetic- affixing languages are paramount and affect aspects of their phonological, lexical, and syntactical levels. For instance in the phonological level, analytical languages as English tend to place the primary prosodic stress on the root of the word (e.g. characteristic) while synthetic languages such as Spanish place it on the affix (e.g. característica.) In the lexical level, the tendency of English is to create “new” root words with processes such as compounding, shortening, conversion, or blend; affixation (adding prefixes and suffixes) is not common in English.
In Spanish and all other Romance languages, affixation is the primary source of new word formation. In the syntactic level, it is probably where the analytical – synthetic contrasts have the most effect, since English has a more rigid word order which demands an explicit subject. Meanwhile, Spanish can omit this sentence constituent because all the information of number (singular/plural) and gender (masculine/feminine) is included (synthesized) in the verb through inflective or grammatical affixation; also the inversion of the word order has a bigger semiotic impact on rigid analytical languages than it does on flexible synthetic ones.
Here is a chart that illustrates the overall impact of the language typologies on the teaching of English to ESOL students. After studying the chart, answer these questions and discuss them with a colleague. Click to view the chart.
Questions:
1. Name some “periods” of English development described in the video?
2. What was the biggest impact of the Normand Invasion and settlement in 1066?
3. How have globalization and technology affected present-day English, specifically in the area of Academic vocabulary?
4. Why should an educator of ELLs have at least a basic knowledge of the process of historical language development?
