Language Change Flashcards
Theories and Theorist
Amelioration
semantic change of words to a more positive meaning e.g ‘pretty’ meant cunny and crafty
Prejoration
semantic change of a word to a negative, less respectable meaning e.g ‘silly’ meant happy or fortunate
Semantic Reclamation
a cultural process where a group reclaims words that were used in derogatory way e.g ‘queer’ is now a sexual identity instead of an insult
Functional Theory
•using language to perform a specific function
•language is always changing and adapts to the needs of it users
Guy Deutscher - Linguistic Evolution
1. Economy
•speakers make shortcuts to save effort usually in pronunciation e.g ‘innit’ instead of ‘isn’t it’
Guy Deutscher - Linguistic Evolution
2. Expressiveness
•words get bleached of their meaning and they begin to lack effectiveness so speakers look for a new word e.g awesome or incredible instead of ‘good’
Guy Deutscher - Linguistic Evolution
3. Analogy
•the idea that words evolve e.g plurals used to have an ‘-en’ ending e.g ‘housen’ and now they have an ‘-s’ ending e.g ‘houses’
Norman Tebbitt
•he was a former conservative MP
•he said there is a correlation between the ability to use ‘good English’. personal hygiene and a life of crime
•once you lose the standard there’s no imperative to stay out of crime
Jean Aitchison
•she suggests that language change is indicative of progress rather than a decline even though they are often viewed as ‘sloppy’ and ‘lazy’.
•she proposed the PIDC model of Language change
John Humphreys
•he argues our language is showing signs of obesity, which is the consequence of feeding on junk words.
Crumbling castle view
This suggests that language is an ornate building that once had a peak of perfection but is now falling apart
Infectious Disease Assumption
This suggests that language change are like germs which spread and infect the language ought to fight against such diseases.
John Sunderland
Texting is penmanship for illiterates
Bailey’s wave model
•He suggested that language change is like a drip of water hitting the surface of a lake - it spreads.
•The closest to the origin of the new language change is more likely to pick of the change. e.g, MLE spread quickly in London before getting to other states
Chen’s S-curve Theory
•He suggested that language change starts to occur at a slow pace and then increases speed as it becomes more common and accepted into language - creating an ‘S’ curve
•He also stated that language change can ever be fully effective because some people will resist the change
Jean Aitchison PIDC model
•Potential - there is a potential for language change
•Implementation - the change occurs
•Diffusion - the change spreads
•Codification - the change is made official
Bidialectism
The use of national standards and regional dialect.
David Crystal - Language Change ideas
He uses the term ‘asynchronous’ to describe groups wherepostings are placed on boards in chat-rooms and ‘synchronous’ to describe groups of people who chat in reallife.
•Texting wouldn’t result in adults who can write proper English, but it is, in a small way, language in evolution.
Random Fluctuation Theory
He says that when someone makes an error ‘random fluctuation’, these errors can be standardised and recognised as somewhat synonymous.
For example, iPhones famously autocorrect ‘fuck’ and ‘fucking’ to ‘duck’ and ‘ducking’, sparking social media attention and memes.
Tide metaphor
•proposed by David Crystal
•he proposed that language change is like a tide - new things get washed up on shore, and the tide takes other things away.
•sometimes, things make it onto the language permanently, others only momentarily.
Neosemy
when a word gains a new meaning.
Tom Chatfield - Grammar change
The word ‘friend’ itself comes almost directly from Old English verb ‘freond’, itself derived from the verb ‘freogan’
Jonathan Swift’s attitude to language change
“It is better a language should not be wholly perfect than that it should be perpetually changing”
• He suggests we need to fix language
Reflectionism
Language reflects the needs, views, and opinions of speaker e.g racist terms exist because there are racist attitudes
Determinism
Language determines that way we think and interact with the words, e.g, there are multiple words for ‘snow’ in Eskimos
