Language change

Question 1

Michael Halliday?

Answer 1

Functional Theory

Question 2

What is Functional Theory?

Answer 2

Functional Theory suggests that “language changes and adapts to the needs of its users”. When stuff changes, words change too

Question 3

Criticisms of Functional Theory

Answer 3

• It only explains lexical and semantic change
• Sometimes new words replace existing word
• Only does words and meanings, cant explain grammar or syntax change e.g. walketh
• Sometime words change for no reason e.g. Hound->Dog

Question 4

Sapir-Whorf’s Reflectionism

Answer 4

Argues a persons language reflects their way of thinking. An example of this is someone who uses racist words could be said to be using language that reflects their prejudice towards ethnic groups different from their own

Question 5

Sapir-Whorf’s Determinism

Answer 5

The idea that, if people can be persuaded not to use such terms, but ones that are seen as more acceptable, this will determine a new way of thinking

Question 6

Who are Sapir-Whorf?

Answer 6

Edward Sapir and Benjamin Lee Whorf

Question 7

Pinker’s Criticism of Sapir-Whorf

Answer 7

Steven Pinker argues that thought is independent of language. Human beings do not think in ‘natural’ language. E.G. any language that we actually communicate in

Question 8

Changes in Social Attitudes

Answer 8

As people think differently about the world around them, their languages changes to reflect this. For example:
- Changing attitudes to marriage i.e. Bastards- change of idea about legitimacy
- Changing language used to refer to LGBTQIA+ people i.e. Homosexual medical textbook - externally exposed

Question 9

What is reclaiming?

Answer 9

The use of an abusive term by the group it was used to abuse

Question 10

Donald Mackinnon

Answer 10

Mackinnon claimed that language is caused by users’ attitudes to language such as whether a variation is:
- Socially acceptable or unacceptable
- Morally acceptable or unacceptable
- Useful or Useless

Question 11

Criticisms of Substratum Theory

Answer 11

This can only explain a narrow range of changes.

Question 12

What is Informalisation?

Answer 12

Informalisation is the process whereby features of language that were traditionally reserved for close personal relationships are now used in many more social contexts

Question 13

What is an example of informalisation?

Answer 13

Addressing one’s teacher or boss by their first name

Question 14

What did Sharon Goodman claim?

Answer 14

Sharon Goodman claimed that we are living in a time of increased informalisation. Language forms that were traditionally reserved for close personal relationships are now used in wider social contexts

Question 15

What did Norman Fairclough say?

Answer 15

Norman Fairclough said that spoken language has risen in status and prestige as a more informal written mode has also risen in usage

Question 16

Characteristics of Informalisation

Answer 16

• Shortened terms of address
• Contractions of negatives and auxiliary verbs
• The use of active rather than passive sentence constructions
• Colloquial language and slang

Question 17

What is Lexical Gap Theory?

Answer 17

Lexical Gap Theory is where words are created to “fill a gap” where a word does not currently exist. Lexical gaps can be viewed as a way of viewing possible directions that language change may take in the future. This is different from functional theory as the gaps do not reflect an external change or innovation. They are pre-existing.

Question 18

Criticisms of Lexical Gap Theory

Answer 18

• This theory only explains lexical change
• Some lexical gaps remain unfilled

Question 19

Examples of Lexical Gap Theory

Answer 19

Sitzpinkler - A man who pees while sat down
Slampadato - Being addicted to the infrared glow of tanning salons
Backpfeifengesicht - a face badly in need of a fist

Question 20

What is Guy Deutscher?

Answer 20

A Radical Prescriptivist

Question 21

What did Guy Deutscher say the three reasons for language change were?

Answer 21

• Economy
• Expressiveness
• Analogy

Question 22

Economy

Answer 22

The tendency to save effort & time and is behind the short-cuts speakers often take in pronunciation

Question 23

Expressiveness

Answer 23

Speakers try to avoid predictable language and cliches

Question 24

Analogy

Answer 24

We apply the rules of one word to other words by analogy, to make language more regular

Question 25

MofP - Grammar and Syntax

Answer 25

• Population movement is believed to have caused a significant change in English grammar and syntax
• In Old English, grammatical functions was determined largely by word endings. Now function is determined by syntax
• this change meant that English had fewer word endings and that English syntax was much more rigidly SV(OCA) in order
• this change seems to have been triggered by contact between Old English and Norman French after the Norman conquest

Question 26

Communities of Practice

Answer 26

Groups of people who share a concern or a passion for something often use language innovatively as a marker of group identity. Examples of these groups include computer gamers, music-based subcultures and football supporters

Question 27

Example of shared language within acommunity of practice

Answer 27

Computer gamers
- Noob -> N00B - new person
- GG -> good game
- F’s in the chat -> respect
These help a person to establish themselves as a gamer

Question 28

Change from above

Answer 28

?

Question 29

The Great Vowel Shift

Answer 29

Between 1400 and 1600, English underwent The Great Vowel Shift. A theory is that due to the Bubonic Plague taking out many people, people spread out more to get jobs, bringing about accent moving due to internal migration.

Question 30

Contemporary Phonological Change

Answer 30

The spread of Estuary English such as the use of the glottal stop /?/ in words such as ‘photograph’ and ‘water’ in accents and the speech of middle class speakers who would not have previously have used it is often attributed to increased social and geographical mobility in Britain.
Changes associated with Multicultural Urban English such as the shift of the vowel in ‘price’ from /al/ to /a:/ or the consonants in ‘ask’ from /a:sk/ to /a:ks/ is attributed to the migration of speakers from many different language backgrounds to British cities.

Question 31

Pinker’s Euphemism Treadmill

Answer 31

Pinker claimed that words are not in charge of thoughts, rather that thoughts are in change of words.
If we give a concept a new name, and the name becomes coloured by concept: the concept does not become changed by the name. This means that the new ‘correct’ word pejorates and a word must be found.
A harmful side effect of changing terms is that people who are older or distant from university, media and government spheres find themselves seen as bigots for innocently using old-fashioned words such as “oriental” or “crippled”

Question 32

Dan Jurafsky - Semantic Bleaching

Answer 32

• Semantic bleaching is the process whereby words lose their intensity of meaning due to over usage
• For example, ‘horrible’ used to mean ‘inspiring horror’ but now is often used as a synonym for ‘bad’
• A ‘horrible meal’ could just be a bad one