Language change Flashcards
What is diachronic change?
Variations in English over a historical time span
What is synchronic change?
Variations in English use at a particular moment in time
What did Saussure mean by the signifier and signified?
The signifier is the word itself and the signified is the meaning and associations drawn from it.
Give 3 reasons language changes over time
People travel to, move to, trade or invade other countries
People invent new things that they need words to describe them
People change attitudes because of changes in society or influences of others
What are proprietary names?
Brand names named after a product
What are eponyms?
Brands named after a person
What is Sapir Whorf’s theory?
The language we speak influences our perception of the world. e.g. using positive language to speak of minority groups leads to positive perception of such groups.
What is politically correct language?
Avoidance of language considered to be discriminatory or offensive to certain groups.
Give an example of gender political correctness
Gender neutral job titles e.g. firefighters
What are affordances and constraints?
Technology allows you or doesn’t allow you to do something.
What is technological determinism?
A reductionist theory that presumes that a society’s technology drives the development of its social structure and cultural values.
What is Jakob Nielson’s theory on language and technology?
Scanning for specialist lexis and ‘F’ pattern theory.
What is one affordance of technology?
Texts are more synchronous and instantaneous
What is Crystal’s theory?
Text speak as a term for acronyms, numbers instead of letters etc.
What is Miller’s theory?
Structure of a website can be used to convey subtle information
What is Gestalt theory of perception?
Putting things together can convey a meaning different to the meaning conveyed alone.
What is prescriptivism?
A highly selective view that decides one variety of language has more value than another and everyone should keep to this standard. Prescriptivism largely began in the 18th century .
What is descriptivism?
Describes how language is used. Language is constantly changing and we shouldn’t judge others for using language in a non standard way.
What was Norman Tebbitt’s view on language change?
If you allow standards to slip where good English is no better than bad English it will cause people to have no standards at all and once this happens there’s no imperative to stay out of crime.
What three things did Jean Aitchinson say about language change?
Damp spoon syndrome
Crumbling castle view
Infectious disease assumption
What is damp spoon syndrome?
Sloppiness and laziness causes language change
What is crumbling castle view?
English is a beautiful old building which needs to preserved- supposes a time when language reached a peak of perfection.
What is infectious disease assumption?
Language catches change like a disease and we pick up changes to adapt to those around us and perhaps to fit in with certain groups.
How does Donald Mackinnon categorise attitudes towards language use?
Correct, incorrect; pleasant, ugly; socially acceptable, socially unacceptable; morally acceptable or morally unacceptable; appropriate or inappropriate contextually
What three ways allow language to change lexically?
- We borrow words from other languages
- We adapt existing words (morphology)
- We make new ones (neologisms)
How has the english language borrowed words?
Germanic and Scandinavian words from invasions of Anglo Saxons and Vikings.
French words from the Norman invasion of 1066.
Educated readers and religious sources brought latinate words.
Colonising, trading and globalisation.
What do synonyms allow?
They allow us to speak using different words depending on the context. For example latinate words are often used to impress and germanic in more informal situations.
What is overt prestige?
The status gained from using the most official, standard form of a language. RP and Standard English.
What is covert prestige?
The status gained by not adopting a standard dialect.
What are the 4 key linguistic areas that standardisation occurs in?
Lexis and semantics (dictionaries,) grammar (syntactical rules in grammar books,) spelling and graphology
What are the 4 stages of standardisation?
Selection
Acceptance
Elaboration
Codification
What is selection?
Choosing one variety of language to elevate to the status of the standard
What is acceptance?
Promotion, spread, establishment and enforcement of the standard by institutions, schools and authorities. Other varieties become stigmatised as the standard is accepted as the best form.
What is elaboration?
The standard must be able to discharge a variety of functions including abstract intellectual functions and so the standard is developed to allow “maximal variation in function and minimal variation in form.”
What is codification?
The rules governing the standard have to be formulated and documented.
What year was Johnson’s dictionary of the English language published?
1755
What year was Robert Lowth’s short introduction to the English language published?
1762
What is a paradigm in terms of 18th century standardisation?
Classical languages seen as ideal models for English. Latin was widely viewed as the language of refinement. Jonathan Swift in 1721 wrote a ‘proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the English tongue.’
How did the romance movement in the 18th century encourage standardisation?
Latin was used by the upper class and germanic languages by the lower class.
Briefly describe how standardisation occurred in the 19th century
A drive towards a literate society, integration of grammar rules into other areas of society, class gap lessened, democratic standardisation and newspapers established 1816
What are 19th century texts characterized by?
Long, compound and complex sentences with multiple subordinations
Why were long sentences used in 19th century texts?
Audience, education was a privilege not a right and overt prestige was being exercised
What is an archaism?
The use of a form of speech of writing that is no longer current
What is a literary archaism?
Seek to evoke the style of older speech and writings
What is a lexical archaism?
The use of words no longer in common use
Give 3 ways archaisms are kept in use
By ritual and literary use
By science, technology, historical study
By emotional attachment of words
What is back formation?
The removal of an affix from an existing word
How are suffixes used in the process of lexical change?
The addition of a bound morpheme to the end of a root word
How are prefixes used in the process of lexical change?
The addition of a bound morpheme to the beginning of a root word
How is a compound used as a process of lexical change?
The combining of separate words to create a new word, sometimes hyphenated
How is a blend part of a process of lexical change?
Two words fusing to make a new one e.g. Skort
How is conversion part of lexical change?
A word changes its class without adding a suffix
What three ways can you abbreviate a word?
Acronyms
Initialism
Clipping
What is an acronym?
A lexical used word made up from the initial letter of a phrase, sounded as a word
What is initialism?
A word made from initial letters with each letter being pronounced
What is clipping?
A new word produced by shortening an existing word
What is semantic drift?
The process of changes in meaning of words over time
Why does semantic drift happen?
Old meanings are forgotten, advances in technology, slang is developed
What ways can lexical change occur?
Back formation, suffixes, prefixes, compounds, blends, conversions
In what ways can semantic change occur?
Amellioration, pejoration, weakening, narrowing, broadening
What is amellioration?
A word adopts a more positive meaning and thereby gains status
What is pejoration?
A word adopts a more negative meaning and loses status
What is weakening?
A word loses strength of its original meaning
What is narrowing?
A word becomes more specific in meaning
What is broadening?
A word keeps its original meaning but acquires others
What three ways does metaphorical change happen?
Metaphor, euphemism, idiom
What is a metaphorical change?
A word acquires new meanings because it’s used metaphorically
What is a euphemism?
A way of describing something unpleasant in a more pleasant manner
What is an idiom?
An expression that can’t be understood literally
Give some examples of grammatical change
Adverbs, irregular verb forms, tense usage, comparatives, lack of determiners, lack of prepositions, adding prepositions, use of auxiliary verbs, use of contracted forms, different negation formation
What is external change?
Outside influence such as invasions, immigration or the media
What is internal change?
Language change as a result of a need for simplicity and ease of articulation e.g. Losing -eth suffix
What is assimilation?
Where the pronunciation of a phoneme is affected by an adjacent phoneme
What is omission?
Sounds disappear from words (often involved clipping the final consonant)
Why has speech style changed?
Ease of articulation (vowel shift ee to i)
Changes in society (less regional variation)
Media induced informalisation
Social prestige of correct speech
Who said speech style change is a natural tendency in all languages?
Jean Aitchinson
What is Howard Giles’ accommodation theory?
Speakers adjust their speech by convergence to be similar or by divergence to be different
What is Estuary English, presented by Rosewarne?
Conforms to standard English grammatically and lexically but differs in phonology
What is Fairclough’s conversationalism theory?
Conversationalism is the shifting of boundaries between written and spoken discourse and a raised prestige for spoken forms.
What three views did Freeborn present?
Incorrectness view- all variations are incorrect compared to standard English and RP
Ugliness view- some accents don’t sound nice- stereotyping
Impreciseness view- some accents are thought to be lazy and sloppy e.g. Glottal stop
What is eye dialect?
A way of spelling words to suggest a regional or social way of talking
What is the idea of language efficiency?
“Economy of effort” sounds change to save effort for the speaker e.g. By omission or to save the listener effort e.g. By making sounds more distinct
