Attitudes To Language Change Flashcards
What are the four main ways new words are formed?
- Popular culture
- Major event (e.g. COVID)
- Borrowing of Words
- Technological and scentifc advancements
Historically what were the prescriptivist views/ events?
- Johnathan Swift- Protested against language change as saw it being ruined by vagueness, wanted something similar to the Academie der Francais
- Robert Lowth- Introduced grammatical standardisation by writing grammar books
- The Inkhorn Controversy- Against the invention of new word being introduced by writers and scholars
What is the Academie di Francais?
- Official body to protect the ‘sanctity’ of French
What was the great vowel shift?
Change in how words are pronounced where the emphasis of words shifted
Hence the Shakespeare sonnet rhyming ‘Prov’d’ with ‘Lov’d
What is a compound word?
When two whole words are combined
E.g. Facebook
What is a blend?
When two words are combined e.g. Blog
What is perjoration?
When the meaning of a term becomes more negative e.g. Beef
What is amelioration?
When the meaning of a word becomes more positive e.g. Sick
What is affixation?
Adding a prefix or a suffix
E.g. Mis-understanding
What is an eponym?
When a brand name becomes the name of an object e.g. Hoover
What is a descriptivist view?
That change is inevitable
What were Jean Aitchisons three prescriptivist views?
Infectious disease- That changes in language spread like a contagion
Damp Spoon- That neologisms and shifts i language are down to laziness
Crumbling Castle- That English should be preserved
What were the main factors of orthographical change?
- Education
- Accent
- Dictionaries
- Caxtons printing press meant it made more sense to standardise the alphabet
What is linguistic determinism?
That language controls our perception
What is linguistic reflectionism?
- Language reflects the needs and views of society
What is linguistic relativity?
That language exerts a powerful force over how we think but does not control it
What is the euphemism treadmill?
- That words used to replace offensive terms becomes offensive
- It’s the idea and intention behind the euphemism which is harmful
What is the lexical gaps theory?
New words enter our language when there is a need for it
What did Trudgill state about langauge change?
- That smaller towns and villages often miss out on language change- Less common now due to internet/television
What is the functional theory?
Language changes because we need it to change
What was Baileys wave model?
That change has a geographical epicentre and ripples out
What is semantic reclamation?
When a group/organisation reclaim a word with often negative connotations
What is semantic change?
Change in meanings over time
What is synchronic variation?
Considers a language without taking its history into account
