English in the 21st Century Flashcards
What is a medium?
The mode of communication
E.g. email, text message, voicenote
What is the purpose (medium)?
Why that specific medium is used
What are benefits?
Advantages of
What are constraints?
Restrictions and limitations of
What are loans?
Words borrowed from other languages
Jungle, Bungalow= Hindi, Cafe= French
What are composites?
Types: Compounding, Affixation
Words made up from combinations of words or parts of other words
Composites
What is blending?
Take parts from 2 words and combine together
Combination of shortening and compounds
E.g Brunch
Composites
What is compounding?
Combine or add words together
E.g. postman
Composites
What is affixation?
Use of prefixes and suffixes
E.g un-sympathetical-ly
What are shifts?
Types: Narrowing, Amelioration, Prejoration, Widening
Shifts in meaning or a ‘functional shift’
Shifts
What is narrowing?
Meaning of word includes fewer objects/ ideas
E.g. ‘weed’ used to mean any plant
Shifts
What is widening?
Meaning of word broadens to include more objects/ ideas
E.g. ‘butcher’ once meant slaughter of a goat
Shifts
What is pejoration?
Meaning of word is more negative than original
E.g. ‘wench’ used to mean girl
Shifts
What is amelioration?
Meaning of word is more positive than original
E.g. ‘pretty’ used to mean cunning and crafty
What are shortenings?
Types: Acronyms, Initialisms, Clippings
Parts of the word left out for brevity (economy)
Shortenings
What are acronyms?
First letter of each word in phrase to make a new word
E.g. RAM spoken as ram
Shortenings
What are initialisms?
Takes first letter of word in a phrase- sounded as each letter in sequence
E.g. BBC spoken as bee-bee-see
Shortenings
What are clippings?
Words clipped down to shortened forms
E.g. television> telly
What is a chat room?
Means of ‘real time’ communication either through video, voice or text
What is Synchronous chat?
- Waits for server
- Immediate response
E.g. Instagram, Snapchat, Facetime
What is asynchronous chat?
- Does not wait for server
- One way communication
- Delayed response
E.g. Tiktok, Email, Twitter
What is netspeak?
A type of language that is unique from the internet- Grice’s maxims are relevant
What is vowel omission?
Leaving out vowel sounds in text speak/ electronic communication
What is homophonic representation?
The use of single letters/ numbers to represent word based on a similarity in sound
What is an initialism?
An abbreviation that used the first letter of a group of words and is pronounced as individual letters
What is an acronym?
Abbreviation- uses first letter of a group of words and is pronounced as a single word
What’s a variant spelling?
Deliberately non- standard spelling for effect
What is a reactive token?
A tag on textspeak that shows a reaction e.g. hahaha
What is a pictogram/ logogram?
Making faces and symbols to show reaction e.g. :) <3
What is an emoticon?
An emoji, shows reaction
What are borrowings?
Loan words- many words were borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese
What is coinage and neologisms?
The deliberate creation of a new word-
What are abbreviations?
Shortened form of word or phrase
What is morphological change?
The study of forms of words
Spread of Language Change
What is the functional theory?
-language will always change and adapt to the needs of it’s users
-views language as part of social semiotics
-language is a tool for social interactions, supports social functions
Spread of language change
What is the substratum theory?
-focuses on different languages that come into contact with English through non-native speakers/ regional dialects
e.g. “like” from American TV to British dialects
Immigration has brought words from native tongue into adopted one (conquerors, wars, invasions also effect language change)
What is grammar made up of?
Syntax and Morphology
Who is Robert Lowth and what rules did he put in place in terms of grammar?
Grammarian
• Regularisation for ‘which’ and ‘who’
• No longer use ‘thou’
• Infinitive verb should not be split
What is a predicative adjective?
Adjective comes after noun
What is an object and a compliment?
Compliment adds further info, objects are featured in sentences
