Pt. 1. Lecture 1. Introduction to the study of language
Lecture 2. The historical study of language
Lecture 3. Indo-European and the prehistory of English
Lecture 4. Reconstructing meaning and sound
Lecture 5. Historical linguistics and studying culture
Lecture 6. The beginnings of English
Lecture 7. The Old English worldview
Lecture 8. Did the Normans really conquer English?
Lecture 9. What did the Normans do to English?
Lecture 10. Chaucer's English
Lecture 11. Dialect representations in Middle English
Lecture12. Medieval attitudes toward language.
Pt. 2. Lecture 13. The Return of English as a standard
Lecture 14. The great vowel shift and modern English
Lecture 15. The expanding English vocabulary
Lecture 16. Early modern English syntax and grammar
Lecture 17. Renaissance attitudes toward teaching English
Lecture 18. Shakespeare : drama, grammar, pronunciation
Lecture 19. Shakespeare : poetry, sound, sense
Lecture 20. The Bible in English
Lecture 21. Samuel Johnson and his Dictionary
Lecture 22. New Standards in English
Lecture 23. Dictionaries and the word histories
Lecture 24. Values, words, and modernity.
Pt. 3. Lecture 25. The beginnings of American English
Lecture 26. American language from Webster to Mencken
Lecture 27. American rhetoric from Jefferson to Lincoln
Lecture 28. The language of the American Self
Lecture 29. American regionalism
Lecture 30. American dialects in literature
Lecture 31. The impact of African-American English
Lecture 32. An Anglophone world
Lecture 33. The language of science
Lecture 34. The science of language
Lecture 35. Linguistics and politics in language study
Lecture 36. Conclusions and provocations.