Language Change and Technology

Question 1

When we have new technology, we need new words

Answer 1

creation of verbs from nouns

Question 2

Texting and social media have created new modes of communication - written speech

Answer 2

McWhorter on texting
Online language is interactive

Question 3

Technology allows for globalisation and therefore the spread of englishes other than british english

Answer 3

especially US english

Question 4

Technology gives people an insight into dialects we wouldn’t otherwise read or hear, and aallows people to express their identities in writting

Answer 4

scots english on twitter

Question 5

Technology increases the speed at which language changes can spread

Answer 5

New communication always increases the pace of change
Changes spread more quickly

Question 6

‘Are emojis a language’ - Gawne and McCulloch

Answer 6

Emoji use in tweets
language or gender
language can be broken down into smaller pieces, order makes a difference to meaning, context independent, standards of form
emojis are like gesture, not like language - useful paralinguistic feature to show tone and emphasis

Question 7

TikTok Voice

Answer 7

vocal fry and uptalk
Strelluf - “the changes we hear by women are probably the future of english”
Ilbury - TikTok voice “holds up the conversational floor”
flatter and less engaging
uncertainty and lack of authority
Taylor Et Al - people rated female speakers with vocal fry as less attractive and intelligent than female speakers without it
Anderson - vocal fry hurts womens career prospects
Cameron - just prejudice, nothing to do with content, nothing wrong with young womens voices