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Language change Flashcards

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1
Q

KEY DATES
When were the earliest Old English inscriptions

A

450 - 480

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2
Q

KEY DATES
When was the old english poem beowulf composed?

A

800

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3
Q

KEY DATES
When did King Alfred the Great become king, and encourage English prose and translations of latin work?

A

871

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4
Q

KEY DATES
When was the Norman invasion?

A

1066

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5
Q

KEY DATES
When was Oxford University established?

A

1167

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6
Q

KEY DATES
When was Cambridge uni established?

A

1209

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7
Q

KEY DATES
When is english used in english parliament for the first time?

A

1362

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8
Q

KEY DATES
When did the great vowel shift begin?

A

1450

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9
Q

KEY DATES
When and who established the first english printing press?

A

William Caxton, 1476

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10
Q

KEY DATES
When was the start of the english renaissance?

A

1500

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11
Q

KEY DATES
When did Shakespeare write his first play?

A

1590

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12
Q

KEY DATES
When and who published the first english dictionairy?

A

Samuel Johnson 1755

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13
Q

KEY DATES
When is the 1st edition oxford dictionary published?

A

1928

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14
Q

LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define a change from above

A

A conscious attempt by those in positions of authority to impose a correct form of language on users

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15
Q

LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define a change from below

A

Occurs when language users adapt their language to suit a particular need

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16
Q

LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define determinism

A

The theory language over history determines the way we think and behave

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17
Q

LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define reflectionism

A

The theory language change reflects the society that produces it and has no influence on the changing society solely

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18
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
Give the dates

A

5th century to 1100

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19
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
What type of language was old english?

A

A case language (used inflections rather than SVO to indicate the function of a word in a sentence)

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20
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
How many endings could nouns have?

A

4

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21
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
How many genders did anglo saxon nouns have?

A

3 (feminine masculine neuter)

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22
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
As with modern english, what did nouns depend on?

A

Whether they were plural or not

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23
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
What was the old english word for children, and where does it still feature?

A

Bearn - Scotland

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24
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
What was the great advantage old english had over modern english?

A

The case system meant writers did not have to rely on word order - poetry

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25
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
Did some articles and pronouns of old english survive?

A

Yes
Ic - I
Is - this

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26
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
When did King Alfred reign?

A

871 - 899

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27
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
What did Alfred do in terms of books?

A

Translate books from Latin to English

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28
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
Was Roman influential on old English?

A

No, only about 20 words survived such as rosa, ancor or candel

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29
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
What are the three common place names inspired by old english?

A

-ing, -ton, -ham

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30
Q

OLD ENGLISH (anglo saxons)
Give four examples of common old english words

A

Daughter, friend, house, drink

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31
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What was the Norman Conquest?

A

A disaster for English culture

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32
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What followed the NC?

A

The country became linguistically split for 2 centuries

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33
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What did the English court produce?

A

A wealth of literary, administrative and religious documents in Latin and French

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34
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What was English regarded as?

A

A sign of low classes/ the speaker having social inferiority

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35
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
Define dioglossic

A

A nation of 2 languages divided by class

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36
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
Describe the reestablishment of english

A
  • French ruled: powerful but a minority
  • Peasants became more imp after black death 1348 killed 30 - 60% of Europe’s pop, Labour became a scarce resource
  • Lower clergy began preaching in English rather than Latin
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37
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
When was the first english monarch?

A

1399 Henry IV

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38
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
When english reemerged what was there no longer?

A

A case system. The infliction ‘e’ remained on a number of words. Not much consistency until Caxton’s pp 1476

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39
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What did dialect diversity continue along the lines of?

A

The anglo-saxon dialect

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40
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What did writers become more conscious about?

A

Dialectual differences, something commented on by Caxton

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41
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
Where did Caxton print?

A

The east midlands, as it contained oxbridge. Later this became known as modern standard english.

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42
Q

MIDDLE ENGLISH
What can the rise of the prestigious image of standard english be associated with?

A

The tudor policy deliberately encouraging a unified national identity

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43
Q

CAXTON AND THE PP
Describe printing in Europe

A
  • Orgins in the 1430s Germany
  • Moving types meant a variety of books could be printed
  • Established in many of the low countries
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44
Q

CAXTON AND THE PP
What was Caxton’s most famous publication?

A

The canterbury tales

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45
Q

CAXTON AND THE PP
What did the pp do for english lit?

A

Set up a template for english lit, making books more readily available and cheap

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46
Q

CAXTON AND THE PP
What did the pp lead to?

A

The standardization of english language

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47
Q

CAXTON AND THE PP
Was the pp in Britain a renaissance fuel?

A

No, medieval texts published more regularly

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48
Q

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
What does 1500 tend to mark the boundary for?

A

Modern English

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49
Q

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
What did the rapid growth of London encourage?

A

The beginnings of an attitude that London English was the best type of English

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50
Q

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
What were the most notable features of change in the renaissance era?

A
  • Introduction of foreign loan words
  • Great vowel shift
  • Grammar school emphasis on classical learning
  • Inkhorn terms
  • Dictionaries and grammar guidebooks
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51
Q

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
Give five examples of Latin loan words

A

Advert
Calendar
December
Educator
Fungus

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52
Q

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
Give five examples of French loan words

A

Money
Denim
Advice
Origin
Honesty

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53
Q

EARLY MODERN ENGLISH
Give five examples of Greek loan words

A

Acrobat
Cemetery
Democracy
Dinosaur
Europe

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54
Q

CREATING NEW WORDS
Give three examples of words w anglo saxon origin

A

Day, thing, world

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55
Q

CREATING NEW WORDS
What are the three ways of creating new words?

A
  • External factors: borrowing loan words from other countries
  • Internal factors: adapting existing words by modifying them
  • Creation of entirely new words (neologism/coinage): less common
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56
Q

CREATING NEW WORDS
How many words do we have now?

A

250,000

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57
Q

CREATING NEW WORDS
Give three examples of blendwords

A
  • Carbicide
  • Cronut
  • Smartwatch
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58
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
During the 16th and 17th century what was growing?

A

Pride in the mother tounge. Return to English after years of french rule bought an increase in national pride

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59
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
What did renaissance writers begin to expand?

A

Vocab by coining new words, using compund or affixation, or borrowing from other languages

60
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
Give examples of two spanish and two portugeze loan words

A

S cargo breeze
P banana albino

61
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
What did Thomas Wilson refer to inkhorn terms as? 1533

A

‘straunge ynke horne termes’

62
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
What were IH terms considered?

A

Pretentious and artificial, but enabled creativity and writers made frequent use of them

63
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
What did opposition to IH terms believe?

A

They would corrupt the english language, and were merely fashionable

64
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
Describe Johnathan Swift 1712

A

A proposal for Correcting, Improving, and Asserting the English Tongue. Main dislike: vagueness, shortened words, unnecessary contractions, unnecessary polysyllabic words, inkhorn terms

65
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
Describe Thomas Nash 1593

A

‘most swarmeth with the single money of monasyllables’

66
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LEXICAL CHANGE
Describe Samuel Dakin 1599

A

‘the treasure of our tounge’ ‘the greatness of our stile’ ‘our best glorie’

67
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Describe neosemy

A
68
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Describe neosemy

A

A process whereby words are used in new ways or require new meanings

69
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Define broadening or generalisation

A

Meanings broaden so as it retains old meaning but takes on new aswell

70
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Define narrowing or specialisation

A

Word becomes more specific in meaning but can again retain old meaning aswell

71
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Define amelioration

A

Word takes on a more pleasant or positive meaning than originally held

72
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Define pejoration

A

Words og meaning becomes less favourable

73
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Define metaphor

A

Words take on new, metaphorical meaning

74
Q

SEMANTIC CHANGE
Define idioms

A

Formed from existing words but assume new meanings often as fixed frame forms

75
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define borrowings

A

Loans taken from foreign languages

76
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define affixation

A

Two words are combined in their entirety to make a new word

77
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define blending

A

Two words are moulded together to form a new word

78
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define conversion

A

Changing of word class

79
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define acronym

A

NATO, AIDS

80
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define shortening or abbreviation

A

Clipping part of a word

81
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Define initialism

A

Words abbreviated to initial letter

82
Q

LEXICAL CHANGE
Words from proper ____

A

Name

83
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define action

A

To show off

84
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define boh-chup

A

Couldn’t care less

85
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define chope

A

Reserve

86
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define kayu

A

Dumb or stupid

87
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define lah

A

Emphasis at the end of sentences

88
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define shiok

A

Fantastic

89
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define kiasu

A

Afraid to lose face

90
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define tersk

A

Troublesome or difficult

91
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define utu

A

Rural

92
Q

VARIETIES OF ENGLISH
Singlish
Define ya ya

A

Boastful/arrogant

93
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
What is political correctness?

A

An area of semantic change which has caused many new words and phrases to be generated

94
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
How is this thought of by some?

A

A pernicious form of censorship, seen by promiters as a search for more caring language

95
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
What was political correctness born out of?

A

American University campuses, it seeks to rid the lexicon of words which beray racist, sexist and ablist ways of thinking

96
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Joanna Coles Guardian 1992

A

‘Political correctness is simply a new name for what, in the old days, we used to call good manners’

97
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Bernard Levens, the times, 1993

A

‘The US is experiencing an atrocious form of censorship’

98
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
Time

A

when something happens

99
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
place

A

where something happens

100
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
manner

A

the way something happens

101
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
degree

A

expresses degrees of qualities, states, properties, conditions, and relations

102
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
focusing

A

point attention to something

103
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
evaluative

A

give an opinion

104
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
viewpoint

A

personally

105
Q

TYPES OF ADVERBS
linking

A

make links between clauses

106
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
What did the Los Angeles Times “guidelines on racial and ethnic identification” do?

A

Ban or restrict some 150 words, phrases such as ‘birth defects’ or ‘step child’

107
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
What does the economist allow?

A

Use of he for both sexes, crippled for disabled people

108
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
Steven pinker quote

A

“words are not thoughts, despite the theory language determines what we think about”

109
Q

POLITICAL CORRECTNESS
What is political correctness?

A

A mandated replacement of formerly unacceptable words w new ones1

110
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What is often claimed about english?

A

There is no logic, but it has been impacted by historical influences

111
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
When was the roman alphabet introduced to england?

A

6th century by christian missionairies

112
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What did the OE alphabet not include?

A

Some consonants, and had extra vowels

113
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What type of language was OE?

A

Phonetic, words spelt as they sounded. As there was considerable regional diversity meant could be very different spellings of same word

114
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What happened to OE alphabet after the invasion?

A

Some letters abandoned and others introduced

115
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
Describe caxton’s work for the spelling system

A

Regularise, selected east midlands dialect as standardized spelling. He was irregular with his own spelling however - booke and boke

116
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
Give some examples of the great vowel shift

A

Sit = seat
Loss = lose
Teem = time
Hosse = house

117
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What are the two types of spelling reformists?

A
  1. Those who believe current alphabet should be enlarged so that sounds that are not adequately expressed have a corresponding letter
  2. Those who believe current alphabet should be attained, but trickier issues addressed
118
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What did Noah Webster set out to do?

A

‘Ascertin the true principles of the language to purify it from palpable errors, and reduce number of anomolies’ 1832

119
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
Give two types of spelling reform

A

Readscript, soundspel

120
Q

ORTHOGRAPHY
What did the english spelling society set out to do?

A

Make spelling simpler

121
Q

GRAMMATICAL CHANGE
In middle english what did the second person pronoun do?

A

Distinguish between singular and plural form
Singular = thou (subject position) or thee (object position)
Plural = ye (subject) or you (object)

122
Q

GRAMMATICAL CHANGE
From 13th century onwards what happened?

A

Possibly due to french influence, ye and you also came to be marked as polite forms

123
Q

GRAMMATICAL CHANGE
By the 16th century what were thou/thee and ye/you firmly linked to?

A

Social distinction between users, thou/thee lower status and ye/you higher

124
Q

GRAMMATICAL CHANGE
By 18th century what happened to thou/thee?

A

Use was mostly obsolete. You became preferred pronoun as it was considered unmarked

125
Q

GRAMMATICAL CHANGE
In old/middle english how was the verb “to do” used?

A

With inflicted endings: i doth, he dost

126
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
Which dialect was selected as the standard for writing?

A

East Midlands

127
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
Give two reasons why the east midlands dialect became the standard for writing

A
  • Printing press
  • The London-Oxford-Cambridge triangle
128
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
By Shakespeare’s writing what was non standard language use considered?

A

Simplicity or buffoonery, such as in King Lear the high born Edgard disguises himself as a peasant and uses kentish speech

129
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
What is the goal of standardisation?

A

Maximal variation in function, minimal variation in form

130
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
What act was passed in 1731?

A

One to limit the use of french and latin

131
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
What were classicists in favour of?

A

Injecting more latin loan words and structures into english, purists against

132
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
What does codification involve?

A

The defining and prescription of the form of language to be used with the aim to minimise variation

133
Q

THE STANDARDISATION OF ENGLISH
Give the milroy and milroy quote

A

“Standardisation is an ongoing process and an ideological struggle”

134
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Give Jean Aitchinson’s three metaphors

A

Damp spoon syndrome
Crumbling castle
Infectious disease

135
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
In a series of BBC lectures, what did Aitchinson put forward?

A

A series of metaphors for explaining the declinism view of the english language

136
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANG
What is the declinism view of the english language?

A

Irreversible decline from a great peak

137
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
What did Donald Mackinnon suggest?

A

Lang can be seen as:
- Correct/incorrect
- Pleasant/ugly
- Appropriate/innappropriate

138
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
What is Mackinnon’s notion?

A

Attitudes change over time

139
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
What are the limits of Mackinnon’s theory?

A

Deterministic, regional diversity, code switching

140
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Give the Samuel Johnson quote

A

“Tounges, like governments, have a natural tendency to degenerate”

141
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Where is the Johnson quote from?

A

Dictionairy of the English Lang 1755

142
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Give the Henry Hitchings quote

A

“We can see diversity of language in a different way (to degeneration): as permitting through it’s richness, greater possibilities for creativity and adaptability”

143
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Where is the Hitchings quote from?

A

A history of proper english 2011

144
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define sticklerism

A

Hyperfocus on correctness, standards must be set and maintained

145
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define degeneration/regeneration

A

Getting worse/better over time

146
Q

ATTITUDES TOWARDS LANGUAGE CHANGE
Define progressivism

A

Moving forward, not following rules just for the sake of following them

English Language (9 decks)

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