Language Change/Technology Theorists

Question 1

Halliday (Descriptivist)

Answer 1

• Functional Theory

- Langhage changes and adapts to fit the needs of its users

Question 2

Shakespeare (Descriptivist)

Answer 2

• Frequently used/documented neologisms

- Experimented with language and is appreciated today for this

Question 3

Stephen Fry (Descriptivist)

Answer 3

• People prioritise criticising language use over finding the pleasure it in
• “sound sex”

Question 4

Theory of Lexical Gaps

Answer 4

-Changes are needed to fill the gaps and ‘complete’ language

Question 5

Samuel Johnson (Prescriptivist)

Answer 5

• A Dictionary of the English Language

- “tongues, like governments, have a natural tendency to degeneration”

Question 6

Joel Golby (Prescriptivist)

Answer 6

-Wrote an article on his hatred for portmanteau words

Question 7

Aitchison’s Metaphors

Answer 7

• Crumbling castle
• infectious disease
• damp spoon syndrome

Question 8

Thomas Wilson (Prescriptivist)

Answer 8

• “strange ynkehorne termes”
• People through the words brought during the renaissance would corrupt the English language
• They thought they were elaborate, overly rhetorical and sometimes pompous

Question 9

Johnathan Swift (Prescriptivist)

Answer 9

• A Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue
• Disliked polysyllabic words, neologisms etc

Question 10

Noah Webster (Prescriptivist)

Answer 10

-In 1832 he established a model for American English

Question 11

Robert Lowth (Prescriptivist)

Answer 11

• Short Introduction to Grammar
• Followed Latin and logic
• Wanted rules like no split infinitives, prepositions before nouns etc

Question 12

Lindly Murray (Prescriptivist)

Answer 12

• English Grammar

- Heavily reliant on Lowth

Question 13

John Humphreys (Prescriptivist)

Answer 13

• Wrote article on dictionaries removing hyphenated words because they take too long to type
• “pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary”

Question 14

Norman Fairclough (Descriptivist)

Answer 14

• Theory of Informality
• language has seen a restructuring of the boundaries between public and private orders or discourse
• and a shifting of the boundaries between speech and writing
• leading to a more colloquial style of language use

Question 15

George Pettie (Descriptivist)

Answer 15

• stressed the need for inkhorn terms

- it would be hard to speak because “our mouths would be full of ink

Question 16

John Honey (Prescriptivist)

Answer 16

• The standards of English are falling

- Believes that grammar should be taught and that standard English should be maintained

Question 17

Aristotle (Prescriptivist)

Answer 17

• about writing: a new invention at the time

- “a dangerous invention which will interfere with human thinking and memory”

Question 18

William Caxton (New Technology)

Answer 18

• 1476
• popularised the printing press
• encouraged standardisation

Question 19

Alexander Graham Bell (New Technology)

Answer 19

• 1876

- invented the telephone

Question 20

Guglielmo Marconi (New Technology)

Answer 20

• 1901

- developed first wireless telegraph and broadcasted the first transatlantic radio signal

Question 21

Tim Berners-Lee (New Technology)

Answer 21

• 1989

- invented World Wide Web

Question 22

Guy Deutscher (Descriptivism)

Answer 22

• theory of economy

- we are constantly finding ways to streamline language and make it easier to understand (abbreviations, slang, etc)

Question 23

Sapir-Whorf Hypothesis

Answer 23

• linguistic determinism
• the idea that language determines thought
• this is an outdated theory
• people incorrectly use Orwell’s ‘newspeak’ to support this

Question 24

Technological Determinism

Answer 24

-the idea that the information and communications we encounter online is changing the way we use language in all aspects of life

Question 25

Linguistic reflectionism

Answer 25

• opposite of linguistic determinism

- the idea that thoughts are reflected through language

Question 26

Thurlow

Answer 26

-2003

• there are sociolinguistic maxims:
  - >need for speed and brevity
  - >the need to express non verbal and prosodic features missing in written texts

Question 27

Goffman

Answer 27

• 1981
• communication can be split into two types of constraints
• system constraints-> nature of any technology used
• ritual constraints-> conventions of the language community in question

Question 28

Crystal

Answer 28

• 2011

- talks about CMC in terms of accordances and constraints