Language Change

Question 1

What is language change?

Answer 1

• refers to the evolution and transformation of a language over time, affecting its vocabulary, grammar, pronunciation, and usage.

Question 2

What are the main types of language change?

Answer 2

1. Lexical change (vocabulary)
2. Semantic change (meaning)
3. Grammatical change (structure)
4. Phonological change (sound)

Question 3

What is lexical change?

Answer 3

• involves the addition, loss, or alteration of words in a language, such as the introduction of new words (neologisms) or the obsolescence of others.

Question 4

What is semantic change?

Answer 4

• refers to the shift in meanings of words, which can include broadening, narrowing, amelioration, or pejoration of meanings.

Question 5

What is grammatical change?

Answer 5

• involves alterations in the structure and rules governing sentence formation, such as shifts in word order or the development of new grammatical constructions.

Question 6

What is phonological change?

Answer 6

• refers to changes in the sounds of a language, which can include shifts in pronunciation, the loss of certain phonemes, or the introduction of new ones.

Question 7

What is a neologism?

Answer 7

• a neologism is a newly coined word or expression that may arise from cultural changes, technological advancements, or social influences.

Question 8

Give an example of a semantic shift.

Answer 8

• the word “sick” has shifted from meaning “ill” to being used informally to mean “cool” or “awesome.”

Question 9

What is the Great Vowel Shift?

Answer 9

• it was a major change in the pronunciation of the English language that took place between the 15th and 18th centuries, affecting long vowels.

Question 10

What role does social context play in language change?

Answer 10

• influences language change through factors like social mobility, technology, education, and contact with other languages and cultures.

Question 11

Examples of how the role of social context plays in language change:

Answer 11

1. Technological Advancements
   Example: The rise of the internet and social media has introduced new vocabulary (e.g., “tweet,” “hashtag”) and altered communication styles (e.g., abbreviations like “lol” or “brb”).
2. Migration and Multilingualism
   Example: In cities with high immigration rates, languages often borrow words from one another. For instance, English has incorporated many words from languages like Spanish (e.g., “fiesta,” “taco”) and Hindi (e.g., “pajamas,” “shampoo”).
3. Cultural Changes
   Example: Changing social norms regarding gender and identity have led to the evolution of terms and pronouns, such as the increased use of “they” as a singular pronoun to refer to non-binary individuals.
4. Education and Literacy
   Example: As literacy rates increase and education systems expand, standard forms of language often emerge. This can lead to the stabilisation of grammar and vocabulary in written forms.
5. Globalisation
   Example: Increased global communication has resulted in the spread of English as a lingua franca, leading to the development of World Englishes that incorporate local languages and dialects (e.g., Singlish in Singapore).
6. Social Media and Pop Culture
   Example: Language used in popular culture, such as slang from music, movies, or viral trends, can rapidly influence everyday language. Terms like “lit” or “fam” have gained popularity through platforms like TikTok and Instagram.
7. Political Changes
   Example: Political movements and revolutions can impact language. For instance, during the French Revolution, the government promoted the use of French over regional dialects to unify the nation.
8. Economic Factors
   Example: Economic conditions can influence language change, such as the adoption of business jargon or the prevalence of English terms in international trade and commerce.
9. Youth Culture
   Example: The language of younger generations often drives change, as they create new slang and expressions that can spread through social networks and popular media.
10. Contact with Other Languages
    Example: When speakers of different languages interact, they may blend elements from each language, leading to pidgins and creoles. For instance, Tok Pisin in Papua New Guinea has roots in English but incorporates local languages.

Question 12

Attitudes towards language change:
1. Prescriptivism

Answer 12

1. • want language to remain the same and refrain from change

Question 13

2. Descriptivism:

Answer 13

• accept language change is inevitable and accepts change

Question 14

3. David Crystal’s tide metaphor

Answer 14

• results in a more creative and expressive form of language
• Crystal describes language changing as being like the tide – new things get washed up on shore and the tide takes other things away.
• Sometimes things make it onto the beach permanently, others only momentarily.
• In addition, there are never two tides exactly the same – some tides will only impact certain parts of the beach.
• The metaphor explains that all change is different, lasts differing amounts of time and affects different groups of people.

Question 15

Descriptivists on Prescriptivist attitudes:
1. Declinism, Sticklerism and Pedantry:
Robert Lane Greene (2012)

Answer 15

• declinism: the idea that over time, language use is getting worse, deteriorating
• sticklerism: obsession with sticking to the rules
• pedantry: excessive concern with minor details

Question 16

2. Complaint Tradition = Blame for the
   Decline:
   Leslely Milroy (1989)

Answer 16

• immigrants, sectors of the media, the w/c

Question 17

3. Jean Aitchson (1996) Crumbling Castle,
   Damp Spoon, ‘Infectious Disease’

Answer 17

1. Preservation/maintenance language
   is like a castle that must be preserved,
   however our lang has never reached a
   pinnacle state
2. Language changes because people are
   lazy e.g dropping of ‘g’, like leaving a
   damp spoon in the sugar bowl which is
   distasteful= one type of view is inferior to
   another
   
   • Aitchson responds ‘the only true
     lazy speech is a drunken speech that
     affects co-ordination’
3. Aitchson suggests that the idea that
   changes are ‘caught’ and ‘spread’ is
   technically correct, but is no disease, some
   may change their language to engage
   better with a social group.
   - people spread and pick up poor language
   like a disease/virus

Question 18

4. The Unfolding of Language (2005): Guy Deutscher
   = Ease of articulation!!!

Answer 18

• Deutscher details 3 positive motives for language change:

1. Economy: “refers to the tendency to save effort” e.g “innit”and “bruv” = lang is getting more efficient not less sloppy and careless
2. Expressiveness : resists semantic bleaching
   - “consistent battle against cliche, stale language and language emptied of meaning.”

• e.g, “good” begins to lack effectiveness, so people resort to metaphors such as, “brilliant” and “awesome”

3. Analogy: “the mind craving for order, the instinctive need for speakers to find regularity in language.”

Question 19

Lexical and Semantic Change within Borrowings: key terms

Answer 19

• PDE (Present day English)
• Register: variety of lang used in a specific context, can be spoken or written
  Linguistic prestige = covert = non-standard varieties of language and overt (prestige = correctness and accents that relate to elites)
• speech community
• code-switching
• hybrid language
• contact linguistics = study of how languages influence each other when speakers of diff languages meet

Question 20

lexical change: neologism
1. Borrowing

Answer 20

• words from other languages
• Loans taken from foreign countries.
  e.g Judge: French . Opera: Latin

Question 21

lexical change: neologism
2. Affixation

Answer 21

• adding prefix or suffix to an existing word
• e.g ‘racism’ and ‘sexism’

Question 22

lexical change: neologism
3. Compounding

Answer 22

• two words are combined in their entirety to make a new word
• e.g ‘lap-top’ and ‘happy-hour’

Question 23

lexical change: neologism
4. Blending

Answer 23

• two word parts are moulded together to form a new word, by adding the start of one word and the end of another
• e.g ‘smog’: smoke and fog.

Question 24

lexical change: neologism
5. Conversion

Answer 24

• changing of word classes
• e.g ‘text’ , noun , verb ‘to text’
• noun to verb

Question 25

lexical change: neologism
6. Semantic Shift

Answer 25

• overtime a word taking on additional meanings
• e.g ‘gay’ in 1900’s meant carefree/joyous

Question 26

Words formed by shortening:
1. Shortening or abbreviations:

Answer 26

1. Clipping: part of a word
   e.g omnibus to ‘bus’

Question 27

Words formed by shortening:
2. Acronym

Answer 27

• taking initial letters of words and making them into a combination of pronounceable as a new word
• e.g NASA

Question 28

Words formed by shortening:
3. Initialism

Answer 28

• words abbreviated to initial letter
• e.g BBC

Question 29

Semantic Change examples:
1. Broadening or generalisation

Answer 29

• meaning of a word broadens so as it retains old meaning but takes on new meanings as well
• e.g ‘mouse’ was an animal, now computer equipment as well

Question 30

Semantic Change examples:
2. Narrowing or specialisation

Answer 30

• it is the opposite of broadening
• applies when a word becomes more specific in it’s meaning, but again can retain the original meaning as well
• e.g ‘meat’ meant all food, now the flesh of animals

Question 31

Semantic Change examples:
3. Amelioration

Answer 31

• word has taken on a more pleasurable or positive meaning than originally held
• e.g ‘nice’ used to mean foolish, now pleasant

Question 32

Semantic Change examples:
4. Pejoration

Answer 32

• opposite to amelioration
• words original meaning becomes less favourable
• e.g ‘awful’ was ‘worth of awe’ , now ‘exceedingly bad’

Question 33

Semantic Change examples:
5. Metaphor

Answer 33

• words take on new meanings
• e.g ‘cow’ , b* female, and ‘catty’ female

Question 34

Semantic Change examples:
6. Idioms

Answer 34

• formed from existing words
• but assume new meaning often as fixed framed forms
• e.g over the moon

Question 35

Semantic Change examples:
7. Euphemism

Answer 35

• polite way of describing something unpleasant, embarassing or socially undesirable
• e.g passed away

Question 36

Semantic Change examples:
8. Semantic Shift

Answer 36

• refers to a complete change in a word’s meaning over time
• e.g “girl” used to mean a young person, now only used for females

Question 37

Semantic Change examples:
9. Semantic Bleaching

Answer 37

• occurs when a word loses some of it’s strong meaning
• e.g “awesome” used to inspire awe or fear, now used casually to describe anything good

Question 38

Key terms:

Answer 38

1. orthography
2. etymology
3. neologism
4. linguistic reflectionism: language that reflects the needs, views, and opinions of society
5. Linguist Determinism: reflects users needs, social attitudes change
6. calques: a word or phrase that is borrowed from another language (but also translated) by literal word-for-word translation

Question 39

The Functional Theory of Language:
Halliday

Answer 39

• suggests that language always changes and adapts to the needs of it’s users
• Lexical gaps – there is a gap in the lexicon for something which needs describing.
  For example, ‘laptop’.
• Function shifts – where a word exists, but we need a different word class.
• For example, ‘Google’ as:
  A noun (‘I found it on Google’).
  A verb (‘I’ll Google it’).
  An adjective (‘A Google search’).

Question 40

Prefixes and Suffixes:

Answer 40

• dia- “through” or “across”
• syn- “with” or “together”
• chronic- “continuing” or “occuring repeatedly for a long time”

Question 41

Diachronic Variation:

Answer 41

• study of how and why a language changes overtime

Question 42

Synchronic Variation:

Answer 42

• study of different varieties of a language at one moment in time

Question 43

Internal Change:

Answer 43

• simply describes what’s happening to the internal structure of language

Question 44

External Change:

Answer 44

• a factor to do with external language change, social forces
• e.g Norman invasion 1066