Language Change Flashcards
Bailey’s Wave Model
closest to the geographical location of where the change occurs are more likely to pick up the change
e.g MLE quickly through London, took longer to diffuse out
Aitchison’s PIDC model
Potential- there is a gap / potential for change
Implementation- the change occurs
Diffusion- the change spreads
Codification- the change is official e.g added to dictionary
Chen’s ‘S-curve’ model curve
point 1 - change is made, some uptake
point 2 - more people, limited to location or group
point 3 - more people know it now
point 4 - many as possible, no change can ever reach 100%, resist change
Trudgill
challenges wave model
change comes from big cities to big towns to small towns missing country dwellings
key case: Yorkshire - archaic ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ instead of ‘you’
Halliday
language change as a result of needs and requirements of users
Halliday’s functional theory
lexical gaps - gap in lexicon needed to describe something function shifts - a word exists but different word class
Aitchison’s Damp Spoon Syndrome
people are lazy and disrespectful of language e.g ‘g-dropping’
Aitchison’s infectious disease metaphor
changes are like germs which spread and infect the language e.g texting
Aitchison’s crumbling castle view
English at the ‘golden age’ and now in disrepair
Crystal’s tide metaphor
all change is different
lasts differing amounts of time
affects different groups of people
Hockett’s random fluctuation theory
accounts for errors
errors can be standardised and recognised
e.g iphone ‘duck’ and ‘fuck’ autocorrecting
substratum theory
changes made from interactions with other languages and variations
e.g British English - ‘like’ increase as a result of FRIENDS
substratum changes
media
invasion e.g French invasion 1066
immigration e.g MLE
travel and exploration e.g birth of America
Amelioration
gain positive status and meaning e.g sick
pejoration
gains a negative meaning e.g cunning
linguistic reclamation
an attempt to remove the stigma by ‘claiming the term’ e.g queer younger LGBTQ+ generation as form of empowerment
weakening
loses strength e.g soon (immediately - anytime)
narrowing
more specialised e.g engine machine - power source
broadening
widens it’s meaning e.g place ( wide street - area)
metaphorical
new meaning when used metaphorically e.g bug (insect, annoy, fault in system)
blending
two existing words make new word e.g smog
clipping
when part of a word is removed but meaning remains e.g sync
compounding
when two existing words are stuck together e.g blackbird
conversion
the word class of an existing word has changed e.g text
affixation
adding a bound morpheme to change the word class of a word e.g ‘ing’ to form present progressive form texting
back formation
removal of morpheme in order to change the word class of an existing word e.g verb ‘enthuse’ from noun ‘enthusiasm’
reduplication
repetition of words which are similar e.g nitty gritty
neologising
new words created e.g yeet
neosemic shift
gay 1st half of 20th century joyful - homosexual label societal dislike - term became pejorated then narrowed to only meaning homosexual
acronym example
SCUBA
intialism
BBC
sharon goodman
increased formalisation
forms reserved for close personal relationships, not used in wider social contexts
