3000-WORD ESSAY

Answer ONE of the following questions. Your essay should show clear familiarity with relevant recommended reading and credit will be given for the breadth of knowledge and research evidenced in your work. You should include a full bibliography, and your references should follow either MLA or Harvard style.

1) Investigate the ways in which a study of place-names can inform our understanding of historical cultures in what is now the UK. Your essay should focus primarily on ONE of the following specific languages: Old English, Old Norse, French or Latin.

2) Discuss, with examples, the ways in which the study of genetics can contribute to research into family names and genealogy.

3) With reference to specific fictional texts (these may be poems, plays, novels, short stories, etc), examine the ways in which the study of invented names may contribute to literary analysis.

4) In grammatical terms, names are often classified as nouns, but some linguists dispute this classification. Which argument(s) for the grammatical classification of names do you find most convincing and why?

5) From a study of the most popular names given to girls and boys since 1900, what trends can be observed in patterns of naming in the UK, and how do these relate to the origins of the names and their historical (or other) uses?

6) The United Nations Group of Experts on Geographical Names (UNGEGN) usually encourages the use of endonyms rather than exonyms. Do you agree with this view? Explain your answer with reference to relevant examples.

7) Acts of naming (and renaming) are often understood as acts of power. Evaluate the ways in which ONE of the following types of names may encode social and political attitudes: personal names, street names or place-names.