Professor Joakim Wrethed and Andrew Cooper gave a lecture each about literary studies and linguistics, respectively, to a small but interested audience.

Andrew and Joakim started their lectures by reciting the poems “Beowulf” and “Inglan is a Bitch” (the latter by Linton Kwesi Johnson) respectively. Joakim, a professor in literary science with the Department of English, talked about his field, while Andrew gave an introduction to linguistics.

- The Department of English at Stockholm University is the only department which has an undergraduate programme that covers both linguistics and literature, Andrew said, starting his introduction.

- So why do we study linguistics? It’s because the only way to understand each other is language, which consists of signs and symbols in a structure. Thus, we are connecting symbols and ideas with language. But it changes all the time, and it differs from generation to generation.

- Language is not only a system for communication. Are we communicating when we’re singing in the shower, or swearing when we’ve lost our keys? Language is self-expression, which allows us to communicate in the first place, in the ongoing struggle for being heard, Andrew said.

Our view on the teacher’s role is that a teacher is not a device for information delivery, but a guide on a journey. What we want to do is make people use the language. A knowledge of linguistics and literature, especially in English, gives one resilience and the ability to say exactly what one wants to say. It’s about who we are and what we do.

How English evolved

Andrew continued his lecture, talking about how the English language developed after the Viking age, using Beowulf, a poem about the Danes written in Old English approximately in 900 AD, as an example. The only word in the poem that resembles a word in our modern language is Künig, which, of course, means king.

In the first decades of the AD era, the Romans started pushing Germanic tribes North into Scandinavia, and when the Romans left England in around 450 AD, Germanic-speaking tribes started to move to what is now England. By 900 AD, a people called Danes had settled in North-East England. Andrew talked about how the Germanic languages are related and what influence the Vikings, who spoke Old Norse, had on English.

Alfred of Wessex drew a border between the English-speaking England and the Danish-speaking England.

- One interesting thing is how the old English language was influenced by French after the Norman invasion, beginning with the Battle of Hastings in 1066. The English language got lots of new words related to power, military, law, and politics, which the old English didn´t have, says Andrew.

150 varieties of English

Joakim Wrethed started his introduction to literary studies by reciting the Poem ”Inglan is a Bitch” by Linton Kwesi Johnson, a British poet of Jamaican origin. The poem describes a Jamaican immigrant’s life in England. It is written in a strong Jamaican accent with a reggae rhythm and a strict structure throughout the poem.

- Jamaican Patois is a creole language that started as a pidgin language, which is a simple means of communication that forms between groups of people who don’t share a common language. It developed during the 16th and 17th century in the West Indies, as a result of slaves being separated in order to avoid riots on the plantations where they were forced to work, Joakim said.

He wrapped up the contribution of our department with an overview of the study of English: It’s a study of how English works, English language history, English as a Lingua Franca (meaning that it’s a common language for people of different native languages), varieties of English (of which there are 150-160), how English feels (the study of litterature) and English in society and politics.