Essay from the year 2007 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Linguistics, grade: 2,7, Free University of Berlin (Institut fur Englische Philologie), course: History and Variation of English II, language: English, abstract: The question about the grammaticalization process of the modal auxiliary verbs from Old English to Modern English is a highly discussed topic among linguistics and scholars today. It is undisputed that, in the English that is spoken today, words like 'should', 'could' etc. form a separate category, or rather a subcategory, 'modal' that does not only...

Seminar paper from the year 2007 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 2,3, Free University of Berlin (John-F. Kennedy-Institut fur Nordamerikastudien), course: Slavery and Race in the Period before the Civil War (1820-1860), language: English, abstract: Exactly 400 years ago, English settlers founded the first settlement called Jamestown near the Chesapeake Bay in the state that today is Virginia. The following four-hundred years were filled with battles for land, struggles for independence and the building of the myth of a new, promised land that held life,...

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Linguistics, grade: 1,0, Free University of Berlin (John-F. Kennedy-Institut fur Nordamerikastudien), course: Language Change II: Language Contact Phenomena and Change in English, language: English, abstract: The number of indigenous people that inhabited the American continent before the European settlers arrived is still debated about today. Based on numerous different sources, printed as well as online, it ranges from 8 million to 112 million people who lived in tribal societies. Those tribes were often very different in...

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject American Studies - Culture and Applied Geography, grade: 1,3, Free University of Berlin (John-F. Kennedy-Institut fur Nordamerikastudien), course: Ethnic (Post) Modernism and the Invention of Ethnicity, language: English, abstract: These introductory words, printed in the appendix of the novel itself, give a very clear and critical insight into the topic of Black Elk Speaks by author John G. Neihardt. Largely considered to be an autobiographical narration, it has become one of the most famous books dealing with the story of individuals of Native...

Seminar paper from the year 2009 in the subject English Language and Literature Studies - Literature, grade: 2,3, Free University of Berlin (Institut fur Englische Philologie), course: Surveying English Literatures II: Epistolary Fiction, language: English, abstract: When we hear the name "Dracula," nearly everybody in our society today immediately thinks about vampires, horror and Transylvania. The material has been commercialized throughout the last century, dozens of different films and theatrical versions have been brought to life which concern themselves with the history of the dark...