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This test consists of 5 short answer questions and 1 (of 3) essay topics.
Short Answer Questions
1. Which 1914 English dictionary made many important concessions to American spellings?
2. To what does Mencken ascribe the inflection of English adjectives?
3. Which of the following is one of the three great causes of change in language according to Sayce, as reported in Chapter 9.3?
4. Which Americanized foreign loan-word in the common speech means, in its vulgar loaned form, "to prance or to walk consciously"?
5. What was the common, popular American slang word used for Germans during the First World War, according to Mencken?
Essay Topics
Write an essay for ONE of the following topics:
Essay Topic 1
One of the hardest aspects of any language that is almost impossible to classify is the nuances of pronunciation. Write an essay analyzing the problems caused by the varieties and degrees of pronunciation. Have the difficulties it causes those who study the American language. What is the definition of pronunciation? How does Mencken treat of pronunciation? What are the ways in which it may change an auditor's understanding of a language? How is the American pronunciation divergent from the British? What particularities of the American pronunciation are significant in comprehension of the American language?
Essay Topic 2
A significant contributor to the present state of the American language is the influx of foreign words, particularly in the 19th and 20th centuries. Compose an essay analyzing the impact and influences of these various foreign words. What particular contributions have they made to the language? How do they reflect the overall composition of the American populace? How have these words themselves changed? How have they changed the language overall? How do all of these changes indicate the tendencies of the American English dialect?
Essay Topic 3
In describing the ways in which American became a distinct dialect, Mencken ascribes great power to the development of a national literature. Examine the relationship between a national literature and a distinct national dialect. What effect does literature have on its readership? What effect does local speech have on authors? How do authors and the literature they write influence a whole nation? How do they help to make the speech of the whole nation distinct from other nations? What, in particular, emerges from the works of popular authors? What is the overall significance of the relationship between a national literature and a national dialect?
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This section contains 405 words (approx. 2 pages at 300 words per page) |
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