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Международная научно-практическая
конференция интегративного характера
«КОНГРЕСС МАГИСТРАНТОВ»
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Международная научно-практическая
конференция интегративного характера
«КОНГРЕСС МАГИСТРАНТОВ»
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Секция: Языкознание
Овсенёв
Андрей Евгеньевич
ученик 11Акласса
учитель английского языка Ретунская Н.Н.
МБОУ гимназия №12
Г.Липецк
Эксперт:
к.п.н. Кудрявцева Л.В.
BASIC ENGLISH AND ITS USE
INTRODUCTION
If one were to take
the 25,000 word Oxford Pocket English Dictionary and take away the words with
the same senses of our overly full language and take away the words that are
able to be said by putting together simpler words, we see that 90% of the ideas
in that dictionary are able to be done with only 850 words. The shorter
word-list makes simpler the work to learn his letters and the ways of saying
things that are not regular. The rules of using words are the same as in full
English so that the Basic user is able to talk in good, but simple, English.
The name of this simple language is Basic English, the developer is Charles K.
Ogden, and was given in 1930 with the book: Basic English: A General
Introduction with Rules and Grammar. He started the Orthological Institute to
develop the ways for teaching Basic English. His most noted working friend,
I.A. Richards, started work in the Orient, which uses the Basic ways to this
day.
«It is clear that
the problem of a Universal language would have been solved if it were possible
to say all that we normally desire to say with no more words than can be easily
legible to the naked eye, in column form, on the back of a sheet of notepaper.
The fact is that it is possible to say almost everything we normally desire to
say with the 850 words on the frontispiece insert, which occupy about
three-quarters of the space on the back of an ordinary sheet of notepaper. » [1]
INFORMATION AND BACKGROUND
Basic English, also
known as Simple English, is an English-based controlled language created (in
essence as a simplified subset of English) by linguist and philosopher Charles
Kay Ogden as an international auxiliary language, and as an aid for teaching
English as a Second Language. It was presented in Ogden's book «Basic English:
A General Introduction with Rules and Grammar» (1930). Capitalised, «BASIC» is
sometimes taken as an acronym that stands for «British American Scientific
International Commercial».
Ogden's Basic, and
the concept of a simplified English, gained its greatest publicity just after
the Allied victory in the Second World War as a means for world peace. Although
Basic English was not built into a program, similar simplifications have been devised
for various international uses.
Basic English is an
attempt to give to everyone a second, or international, language which will
take as little of the learner's time as possible.
It is a system in
which everything may be said for all the purposes of everyday existence: the
common interests of men and women, general talk, news, trade, and science.
To the eye and ear
it will not seem in any way different from normal English, which is now the
natural language, or the language of the Governments, of more than 600,000,000
persons.
There are only 850
words in the complete list, which may be clearly printed on one side of a bit
of notepaper. But simple rules are given for making other words with the help
of these in the list; such as designer, designing, and designed from design, or
coal-mine from coal and mine.
The word order is
fixed by other short rules, which make clear from an example such as «I will
put the record on the machine here» what is the right and natural place for
every sort of word.
Whatever is doing
the act comes first; then the time word such as «will»; then the act or
operations («put», «take», or «get»); then the thing to which something is
done, and so on.
It is an English in
which 850 words do all the work of 20,000 and has been formed by taking out
everything which is not necessary to the sense. «Disembark», for example, is
broken up into «get off a ship»; «I am able» takes the place of «I can»;
«shape» is covered by the more general word «form»; and difficult by the use of
«hard».
By putting together
the names of simple operations - such as «get», «give», «come», «go», «put»,
«take» - with the words for directions like «in», «over», «through», and the
rest, two or three thousand complex ideas like «insert» which becomes «put in»,
are made part of the learner's store.
Most of these are
clear to everyone. But in no other language is there an equal chance of making
use of this process. That is why Basic is designed to be the international
language of the future.
In addition to the
Basic words themselves, the learner has, at the start, fifty words which are
now so common in all languages that they may be freely used for any purpose.
Examples are «radio», «hotel», «telephone», «bar», club.
For the needs of
any science, a short special list gets the expert to a stage where
international words are ready to hand.
PRINCIPLES
Ogden tried to
simplify English while keeping it normal for native speakers, by specifying
grammar restrictions and a controlled small vocabulary which makes an extensive
use of paraphrases. Most notably, Ogden allowed only 18 verbs, which he called
"operators". His General Introduction says "There are no 'verbs'
in Basic English", with the underlying assumption that, as noun use in
English is very straightforward but verb use/conjugation is not, the
elimination of verbs would be a welcome simplification.
WORD LISTS
Ogden's word lists
include only word roots, which in practice are extended with the defined set of
affixes and the full set of forms allowed for any available word (noun,
pronoun, or the limited set of verbs).
The 850 core words
of Basic English can be found in [Appendix 1]. This core is theoretically
enough for everyday life. However, Ogden prescribed that any student should
learn an additional 150-word list for everyday work in some particular field,
by adding a word list of 100 words particularly useful in a general field
(e.g., science, verse, business, etc.), along with a 50-word list from a more
specialized subset of that general field, to make a basic 1000-word vocabulary
for everyday work and life.
Moreover, Ogden
assumed that any student already should be familiar a core subset of around 350
«international» words. [Appendix 2] Therefore, a first-level student should
graduate with a core vocabulary of around 1350 words. A realistic general core
vocabulary could contain 1500 words (the core 850 words, plus 350 international
words, and 300 words for the general fields of trade, economics, and science).
RULES
Ogden's rules of
grammar for Basic English extend the 850 word vocabulary to the breadth needed
to describe objects and events in the environment and more smoothly communicate
with people.
The grammar of
Basic is similar to standard English except the rules fill one chapter rather
than a whole book. There are fewer exceptions.Not all meanings of each word are
allowed.
Rules are given in
[Appendix 3]
THE SURVEY
The first question
was «How do you evaluate your English language skills?». The majority of
participants evaluated their skills as good, second biggest part – as excellent.
The diagram in [Appendix 4] shows all the results.
Then the
participants were asked whether the agree with the statement on not. The
statement was «850 English words are enough to express 90% ideas in English».
The most of them disagreed. [Appendix 4]
Then they were
asked to turn the paper over and flick through 850 words of Basic English.
After that, they were given another question «Do you know all of the words?»and
were supposed to give an approximate answer. Only 3 participants out of 106
claimed to know all 850 words. The majority knows between 85 and 99 percent of
Basic English vocabulary. After doing this task they were asked to answer the
second question again. A lot of them changed their minds.
Participants were
also given two additional questions: «How much do you think it takes to learn
Basic English words and rules?» and «Would you like English language (even in
simplified form, like Basic English) to become worldwide-spoken?» Results are
shown on diagrams in [Appendix 4].
REFERENCES