Language Change Flashcards
What are the 2 types of variation?
- Diachronic
- Synchronic
What is diachronic variation?
The study of how/why language changes and attitudes towards language change
What is synchronic variation?
The study of how/why language varies over an area and attitudes towards language variation
What are the reasons for lexical change?
- External factors
- Internal factors
- Neologism
What are external factors which may lead to language change?
- Arise because of outside influences of people or society
- The source is another language
- E.g. loanwords
What are internal factors which may lead to language change?
- Usually for reasons that lead to more balance in the language
- The source is the sane language
- E.g. compounds, the regularisation of grammar systems, reduction of synonyms
What are neologisms which can lead to language change?
Brand new lexemes
What is lexical borrowing?
Lexemes absorbed by 1 language through contact with another
What is a neosemy?
- The process whereby a new meaning develops for an existing word (e.g. pirate turns to virus)
- The original lexeme and semantic meaning still exist alongside the new one
What is a semantic shift?
The change in a word’s meaning over time
What are levels of synonymy?
- The idea that, as a language absorbs loanwords, some will be similar in meaning to existing lexemes
- Meanings can diverge to become more semantically specific
What is standardisation?
- The process by which conventional forms of a language are established and maintained
- May occur as a natural development or an effort by members of a community to impose 1 dialect or variety as standard
What is ascertainment?
Making language usage certain; fixing/freezing a language in 1 state
What is codification?
The process where certain linguistic features are recognised as standard and others are rejected; designing a writing system and writing conventions for a language
What is regularisation?
- A ‘neatening’ of language elements to fit the prominent patterns
- E.g. stadia becomes stadiums
What are the 2 types of attitude to language change?
- Prescriptive
- Descriptive
What are prescriptive attitudes to language change?
- View language change as decay
- The attitude/belief that 1 variety of language is superior to others and should be promoted as such
- The promotion of a set of rules for language; prescribing 1 ‘standardised’ method for communication
What are descriptive attitudes to language change?
The view that language is defined by what people actually do with it
What is informalisation?
A trend for language, particularly in the written mode, to become more informal over time
What is the inkhorn term?
Lexical borrowing into English considered unnecessary or pretentious (especially during the Renaissance)
What is diffusion?
The spread of a change, especially sound, through language
What theory did Halliday propose?
Functional theory
What is the functional theory and who proposed it?
- Halliday
- Language alters as the needs of its users alter
- New lexemes appear as they’re required for new inventions/ideas
- Other lexemes become archaic once they’re unnecessary in real life
What is the lexical gap theory?
- New lexemes coined through necessity fill ‘lexical gaps’
- These neologisms aren’t already in use but will fit current patterns within the language
- E.g. git, get and gut already exist so gat could fill a lexical gap
What did Postall propose?
Random fluctuation
What is random fluctuation and who proposed it?
- Postall
- Language is an unpredictable as fashion; hard to foresee future trends
What does Hockett believe?
- Change is to be unpredictable due to the errors which occur by chance and are then transmitted through contact
- E.g. the typo ‘pwned’ for ‘owned’ has spread in online gaming
What is linguistic reflectionism?
The theory that a person’s language reflects their way of thinking; the use of sexist language reflects a sexist viewpoint
What is linguistic determinism?
The idea that language can determine thought; if a person has non sexist language available to them they’re less likely to hold sexist attitude s
What is linguistic relativism?
The idea that the language a person speaks has an influence on this person’s thought
What did Haugen propose?
The process of standardisation
What is the process of standardisation and who suggested it?
- Haugen
- Selection: a prestigious variety of a language is chosen
- Codification: linguistic norms are established
- Elaboration: language is developed for a variety of purposes
- Implementation: language variety is given currency through the production of written texts
What did Bailey propose?
The wave model
What is the wave model and who proposed it?
- Bailey
- A new aspect of language is initiated in 1 place at 1 time and spreads outwards from that point
- A person or group close to the epicentre of a language change will pick it up whereas a person or group further away from the change are less likely adopt it
What did Chen propose?
S-curve model of diffusion
What is the S-curve model of diffusion and who suggested it?
- Chen
- A pronunciation change occurs on 1 word or a small number of words
- The innovation then gathers momentum and the rate of diffusion to other lexeme becomes rapid
- After a while, a critical point is reached and the rate of change slows
What did Mackinnon propose?
Polarised views to language
What are polarised views to language and who suggested them?
- Mackinnon
- Language is viewed towards extremes: correct or incorrect, pleasant or ugly, socially acceptable or unacceptable, useful or useless
What are the 3 illusions proposed by Zwecky?
- Recency illusion
- Frequency illusion
- Adolescent illusion
What is the recency illusion and who suggested it?
The belief that a word, phrase, grammatical construction or meaning is recent when in fact it has existed for a long time
What is the frequency illusion and who suggested it?
- Zwicky
- Once you’ve noticed a phenomenon, you think it happens a lot more/ all of the time
What is the adolescent illusion and who suggested it?
- Zwicky
- The belief that young people are responsible for what some consider to be undesirable language trends (text speech/abbreviations)
What are 3 types of influence?
- Superstratum influence
- Substratum influence
- Adstratum influence
What is superstratum influence?
- The more powerful language influences a less powerful language
- E.g. Norman French influence on English
What is substratum influence?
A language with lower power and prestige influencing a language with higher power and prestige
What is adstratum influence?
- Languages of equal status and prestige
- E.g. Old Norse on old English
What are the.3 types of transmission?
- Horizontal transmission
- Vertical transmission
- Oblique transmission
What is horizontal transmission?
Language change among individuals of the same generation
What is vertical transmission?
A member of 1 generation talks to a biologically related member of a later generation
What is oblique transmission?
A member of 1 generation talks to a non biologically related member of a later generation
What is the Anglo-Saxon influence on language change?
- Germanic tribes began their invasion of the British Isles in 449AD, therefore the vocabulary
- Approximately 85% of lexis brought to Britain by the Anglo-Saxons are no longer in use in modern English
- Words which have survived include the basic elements of the vocabulary, such as pronouns, prepositions and determiners
- Some significant content words have also remained, as they represent concepts key to our way of life (mann- man and fæder- father)
What is the Norse influence on language change?
- Norse raids on Britain began in the late 8th century
- Because Old English and Norse were so closely related, much of the languages were largely mutually intelligible
- Old English= heaven Old Norse= sky
What is the Norman French influence on language?
- The Norse settlers in France adopted the French language
- In 1066 England’s king died leaving no heirs, leaving the door open for an invading force to take the throne
- The French army defeated the English at the Battle of Hastings, leading to the Norman leader seizing the English throne
- the Normans made Norman-French the language of the government and Latin the language of the church
- Co-exisiting side by side for many years meant Norman French loanwords entered Old English
- Old English= king/queen Normal French loanword= monarch/ majesty
What is compounding?
Joining 2 whole lexemes together
What is an eponym?
Naming an item after its creator
What are the 3 metaphorical models for the attitude that language change is a slow decay and who proposed them?
- Aitchison
- Damp spoon syndrome
- Crumbling castle
- Infectious disease
What is the damp spoon syndrome and what is it a metaphor for?
- Aitchison’s model for the attitude that language change is a slow decay
- Laziness is leading to change and variation in language
What is the crumbling castle and what is it a metaphor for?
- Aitchison’s model for the attitude that language change is a slow decay
- The English language is a beautiful old building that needs to be preserved, but has long passed its pinnacle
What is the infectious disease and what is it a metaphor for?
- Aitchison’s model for the attitude that language change is a slow decay
- Changes are ‘caught’ through contact with dangerous varieties
What did Otto Jesperson?
Language change is progressive when it creates more economical structures
What is amelioration?
When the change gives the word a meaning that’s more pleasant or positive (sick/wicked)
What is pejoration?
When the change in meaning becomes less favourable
What is semantic broadening?
Meaning gets broader (holiday originally meant holy day)
What is semantic narrowing?
A word becomes more specific
What is semantic weakening?
Words lose their original force/strength
What is a metonym?
Using a word associated with an object instead of its actual name (cash)
What was the Appeal to Authority?
- A period in 1650-1800 when many people had an urge for clarification of language
- They were unimpressed by the past individualism of the renaissance period and now wanted a consistent approach to constructing written words and language
- They wanted linguistic rules and standardised strictures that a naturally evolving tongue had never had before
When did the great vowel shift take place?
1400-1650
What was the great vowel shift?
- A massive sound change affecting the long vowels of English
- The long vowels /u:/, /i/ and /ɔ:/ shifted upwards (a vowel that used to be pronounced in 1 place in the mouth would be pronounced in a different place)
- Many long vowels became diphthongs
- Occurred most prominently in London/ East Midlands
What are the 2 theoretical models of the pattern of vowel change?
- Pull theory
- Push theory
What is the pull theory and what is it a model of?
- The pattern of vowel change
- Upper vowels moved 1st and pulled lower ones along
What is the push theory and what is it a theoretical model of?
- The pattern of vowel change
- Lower vowels moved forward and up, pushing the others ahead
What is this grapheme: þ and what did it do?
- Thorn
- Germanic rune representing the /θ/ and /ð/ sounds (<th>)
- Corrupted to <y> during Middle English</y>
- Disappeared in the renaissance
What is this grapheme: æ and what did it do?
- Ash
- Originally a ligature representing the Latin diphthong ‘a e’
- Took its name from its runic equivalent <a></a>
- Survived into 20th century in archaeology and medieval words
What is this grapheme: ʃ and what did it do?
- The long S
- Latin grapheme representing /s/ or /z/
- Entered within the spread of christianity
What is this grapheme: & and what did it do?
- Ampersand
- Based on the ligatures <E> and <T> from the Latin coordinating conjunction 'et'</T></E>
What is this grapheme: ʸᴱ and what did it do?
- Superscript letters
- Used for abbreviations of frequent lexeme
- Ye was used for ‘the’: corrupted thorne and vowel
What is this grapheme: Ᾱ and what did it do?
- Macron
- Indicated a missing letter for an abbreviation
What is this grapheme: @ and what did it do?
- At sign
- 1st used in the 19th century as an accounting abbreviation
What is this grapheme: @ and what did it do?
- At sign
- 1st used in the 19th century as an accounting abbreviation
What is this grapheme: ; and what is it used for?
- Semicolon
- Links 2 main clauses closely related
- 1st used in late 15th century European printing
What is this grapheme: # and what is it used for?
- Hashtag
- Designated a number until the early 21st century where it was first used for twitter to suggest significance
What is the history of the long S?
- Often appeared in middle and early to mid modern English in manuscript and printing
- Often appeared word initially or word medially, but not at the end of a word
- Commonly occurred before a vowel, in a consonant cluster or as part of a diagraph
- Would be used in a double S spelling
- Used to represent /s/ or /z/ phoneme
- Fell out of use in English around 1800
What is proto-indo European?
- The theory that most European and Indian languages are now seen as coming from a single common language
- Archaeologists think that PIE speakers may have been a single tribe in Southern Russia in 4000-7000 BC
What are some reasons why words get banned?
- Changes in social attitudes (e.g. homosexuality)
- Historical events (e.g. suffragettes)
- Social media (e.g. ‘cancel culture’
- Education
- Accommodation
- Myths/false etymology
- Politically correct language
What are some prescriptive attitudes towards non standard grammar?
- Lack of education
- Lazy
- Unattractive
How was language affected after the 1500’s?
- Technology- word processing, computers, typewriters, internet, text/image cohesion, emoticons
- Globalisation- American influence (z instead of s)
- Renaissance- Latin/Greek influence on alphabet
- Education- literacy notes/codification
- Genre- letter writing, essays, story telling
- Overt prestigious varieties- institutionalised gatekeeping
- Media, news, advertising
How has punctuation changed throughout time?
- Many marks not introduced until 1600’s and 1700’s
- 1800 capital letters were standardised to modern usage- proper nouns, 1st person pronoun, sentences
- Not uncommon to find stressed lexemes or open word classes carrying capitals not used today
- Changed due to the modern computer, advertising/media influence, electronic mode developments led to many previously obscure symbols being used more widely
What are some of the key influences on English graphology up to 1500?
- Ruric alphabet- Old Norse and German
- Latin alphabet- 597 St Augustine
- French monks/French scribal practices (handwriting, orthography, <au> and <ch> diagraphs)</ch></au>
- 1430 and 1476 William Caxton
- Thorne
What are some of the reasons for spelling reform?
- System was created which had a 1:1 correspondence between sounds and phonemes
- Homophones reduced for clarity
- Phonetic spelling
- American spelling reform (colour= color)
- Increase on literacy rates
- Irregular words/unusual spellings reduced
What were some of the reasons against the spelling reform?
- Meaning may be lost (knight–> night)
- Lots of time and cost (reprinting, internet, education)
- Confusing
- Lose access to old documents
- Global documents
- Regional variation in pronunciation
- Names
- Etymology
What happened in the year 597?
St Augustine and the Roman missionaries arrived
What happened in 878 AD?
Alfred the Great and the Vikings agreed for the saxons to keep the south and west and name it wessex
What happened in 1348?
The Black Death arrives in England
What happened in 1381?
The peasants revolt
When was the printing press invented?
1450
What happened in 1476?
William Caxton brought the printing press to England
When was William Tyndale’s bible created?
1526
When was King James’ bible created?
1604
When was Dr Johnson’s dictionary created?
1755
When was the first education act?
1870
What happened in 1884?
Oxford University press begins to produce OED
When was the BBC 1st set up?
1922
What happened in 1936?
1st television broadcast by the BBC
When was the launch of the world wide web?
1993
