Language Change Flashcards
Neologism/ coinage
The deliberate creation of a new word. Not a common process of word formation e.g. hobbit
Borrowing / loan words
Borrowing words /concepts from other languages. Words are either anglicised (no longer recognise them as loan words) or they may retain their original spelling or phonology
E.g. bungalow (Hindi), landscape (Dutch), futon (Japanese)
Compounding
Words are combined together to form new words. These can be open, hyphenated or solid
E.g. user-friendly, handheld
Clipping
Words are shortened and the shortened form becomes the norm
E.g. pram, rizz (charisma), phone, deli
Blending
A combination of clipping and compounding. Words are abbreviated and joined together to form a new word
E.g. brunch, newscast
Acronym
First letter are taken from a series of words to create a new term and pronounced as a word
E..g NASA
Initialism
The first letter from a series of words form a new term but each letter is pronounced
E.g. OMG, CD
Affixation
One or more free morphemes are combined with one or more bound morphemes
E.g. disinterest, regift
Functional shift
A word shifts from one word class to another usually from a noun to a verb (denominalisation)
E.g. ghost, text, network, google
Eponym
Names of a person or company are used to define particular objects. Often they are the inventors or distributors of the objects
E.g. silhouette, boycott
Back formation
A verb is created from an existing noun by removing a suffix
E.g. locate, insert
Amelioration
Words gain a more positive meaning over time
E.g. pretty used to mean sly
Pejoration
A word takes on a more negative meaning over time
E.g. idiot used to mean private citizen
Broadening
A word acquires other meanings in addition to the original
E.g. place used to only mean a broad street
Narrowing
A word becomes more specific in its meaning
E.g. meat used to mean any type of food
Weakening
A word becomes less specific in its meaning
E.g. soon used to mean immediately
Semantic reclamation
The process where words which are considered negative and are reclaimed by the particular group towards which they are used in a derogatory way so they lose the negative power associated with them
E.g. the n-word and bitch and queer
Metonymy
The use of an attribute or feature is used to denote the whole thing it is being referred to
E.g. 10 Downing Street refers to the whole UK government
Inflections
Indicate a words grammatical relationship or category
E.g. in Spanish “vivo” means I live but “vives” means you live
Old English made use of BLANK through the use of BLANK at the end of words
Inflections, Morphemes
E.g. “cyning” for king” as the subject and “cyninges for the object
Present day English retains only a few BLANK in the form of some plural endings
Inflections
E.g. ox and oxen, tooth and teeth, goose and geese
Old English syntax vs late modern English syntax
Late Modern English = subject-verb-object e.g. “Miss M drank the Diet Coke “
Old English =subject-object-verb e.g.” Miss M the Diet Coke drank”
How did early and late modern English deviate from old and Middle English grammatically?
- reduction in use of article “the”
- greater frequency in modal and auxiliary verbs within a sentence to indicate the interrogative mood or to demonstrate modality
- sentence grew into simple, compound and complex
- adjectives moved before the noun instead of being separate
- less overall variation
- changed syntax
- preposition choices varied e..g “in London” rather than “at London”
- more contractions
Polygenesis theory
Languages developed all over the world at roughly the same time. Accounts for all the different languages.
Monogenesis theory
Languages all originated in one place and split away from each other as speakers migrated away.
E.g. one caveman spoke and it spread
Support for monogenesis theory
- many words seems to be similar across many languages e.g. French = “tu”, english= “thou”, Hittite= “tuk”
- Native American and Aleut languages are closely related to Basque (ancient language still spoke in Spain)- potential of a common root
How does language change over time
- social attitudes/views
- scientific findings
- music ans pop culture
- transportation
- colonialism
- trade
- time (diachronic vs synchronic)
- migration and travel
- technology and social media
- war
- education
The tree model
- developed by neogrammarians in 1860-1880
- allows us to establish relatedness between languages that evolved from a common proto-language
- popularised by Schleicher (1853)
Proto-language
A hypothetical lost parent language from which actual languages are derived
Tree model relies on three assumptions…
- sound change is regular (whenever sound change occurs, it occurs everywhere in the language and admits no exceptions)
- language change occurs by the diversification of language alone
- any proto-language had a single form only
The first wave model - Schmidt (1872)
- language change spreads in waves outward from central points of initial changes in a series of concentric circles
- the evolution of each individual language into its modern form is the product of the spontaneous appearance of new dialectal features in a given area
- incorporates the borrowing and blending of words and the spread of children with modified dialects to other areas
- diachronic change (over time)
The modern wave model - Bailey (1973)
- a new language spreads from its region of origin, affecting a gradually expanding cluster of dialects
- the further away from a change someone is, the less affected by it they will be e.g words adapted/adopted by multicultural youth in London is unlikely to affect white middle class speakers in Edinburgh as they are removed from the epicentre both culturally, socially and geographically
Criticisms of modern wave model
- being geographically far from epicentre of language change is less important nowadays due to increased transportation and technological change (social media and CMC)
- Trudgill (1974) = opposes- innovations spread from cities ro large towns to smaller towns, leaping over countryside. Not necessarily closest geographically e.g. “h-dropping” spread from London to Norwich to east anglia, skipping Norfolk countryside
The S Curve - Chen (1972)
- spread of language begins slowly, then change feature takes off, rate of change spreads quickly then the rate slows and starts to stabilise
- however, social media allows for such rapid change, but not long lasting e.g. “very demure, very mindful”
Substratum theory
- refers to how different language interact with each other when they come into contact with each other via migration, trade, social media etc
- e.g. American filler “like” used by English, English “dry January” used by French
Donald Mackinnon (1996) attitude to langauge change
When people argue they about language they use one of these:
- language use as correct or incorrect
- language use as pleasant or ugly
- language examples as socially acceptable or unacceptable
- morally acceptable or unacceptable
- appropriate or inappropriate in their contact
Contemporary prescriptivists
- Lunne Truss = zero tolerance to punctuation
- Humphrey’s = English is becoming “obese” with too many words and we need to “safeguard language “
- price Charles = Americans make words that shouldn’t be and are ruining langauge
Jean Aitchison - language change metaphors to describe prescriptivist viewpoints of others
- the damp spoon -new forms arise from sheer laziness
- crumbling castle = language is eroding and there is no preservation of older forms. English is a stately home that should be preserved
- infectious disease= we can “catch” careless or bad language usage from those around us
Jean Aitchison (1991) - 3 ways to view language change
- decay (prescriptivism)
- progress (some descriptivists support this)
- inevitability (non judgemental)
David crystal attitude to language change
- all living languages change
- language change is inevitable
- language is like the tide, cannot stop it so should be embraced
Milroy and Milroy (1980s) attitude to language change
- language discrimination is the last socially acceptable form of discrimination
- lang change is inevitable. And shouldnt be fought against
- people are discriminated against is they don’t follow arbitrary (random) rules that were century centuries ago (Johnson)
Deborah Cameron (1955) attitude to language change
- prescriptivism shouldn’t be discounted as just people being fussy
- prescriptivism shows that people realise that language is an important social tool and care about how it is used
- the fear about language change often symbolises fear about social problems
- people focus on language change as they want to make sense of bigger problems in society e..g race, nationalism
Emma Humphries - attitude to language change
- is a descriptivist but believes prescriptivism is needed sometimes
-We should resist pinning prescriptivists as baddies especially when we are talking about minority language and language preservation - Irish language needs more prescriptivism. Too many ways to say the same thing.
- Prescriptivism or a “standard” is a base for people learning English as a second language. Helps learning and teaching language
- We live in a culture where the standard language is the most opportunities in terms of jobs. Helping your children to speak this standard is not neccarisly a bad thing
Haliday (1994) - Functional Theory
- language is functional
- change according to needs
- new Lee message can be gained through new discoveriess, technological innovations , societal changes etc
- language is influenced by context
Hockett (1958) - random events
- langauge is learned through cultural transmission
- language changes due to individual random errors and random events
- langauge is fluid
- acquired through interaction with more experienced users so not always learned perfectly
E.g. predictive texting fuck” to “duck”
Phillipson (1998) - colonisation
When places are colonised, high prestige language replaced the low prestige language
- languages are made up of layers called strata
- sometimes replacing a language (superstate) is still influenced by the original language (substrate)
E.g. English conquered Jamaica, America, Singapore etc
Labov (1963) cultural contexts
- e.g. after the Norman invasion, English peasants would use upward convergence to speak to French lords which lead to the great vowel shift so we.now have longer vowel sounds
- languages are driven by cultural contexts e.g. to gain prestige
- this can be conscious or unconscious
E.g. overt prestige in formal situations, covert prestige when talking to someone outside social class/friends
Trudgill (1974) - geography
- Contact between different languages and dialects has led to language change
- many languages developed in one place first then spread then changed. From this, languages can be grouped into families
Metcalf (2016)
If an expression or word is widely used, it is widely useful
John McWhorther Ted Talk
- older people have been complaining about the youths corrupting language for years, not a new thing
E.g. a 1917 school teacher complains the “freshmen can’t spell or punctuate” - technology is merely a scapegoat
- language will always be evolving and prescriptivists will always be complaining
