Language Change Terminology

Question 1

What is orthography?

Answer 1

The method of spelling/correct spelling.

Question 2

What is an ampersand?

Answer 2

the symbol ‘&’, which is more prominent in the past

Question 3

What is non-standard capitalisation?

Answer 3

Where capital letters are allocated mid-sentence to words other than proper nouns. This could be for emphasis or arbitrarily.

Question 4

What is archaism/archaic language?

Answer 4

A word which has fallen out of common usage or is old fashioned.

Question 5

What is a semantic shift?

Answer 5

The shift in a word’s meaning over time, e.g. ‘sick’ now meaning something which is cool, rather than someone being unwell

Question 6

What is globalised vocabulary?

Answer 6

An influx of new words and phrases due to the advent of mass-media and international travel

Question 7

Overt prestige

Answer 7

Refers to the status speakers get from using the most official and standard form of a language.

Question 8

Covert prestige

Answer 8

Refers to the status of speakers who choose not to adopt a standard dialect get from a particular group within soceity

Question 9

Obsolete

Answer 9

No longer having any use

Question 10

Influential power

Answer 10

Power used to influence or persuade others

Question 11

Instrumental power

Answer 11

Power used to maintain and enforce authority

Question 12

Prescriptivism

Answer 12

An attitude to language use that makes judgements about what is right and wrong and holds language up to an ideal standard that should be maintained

Question 13

Descriptivism

Answer 13

An attitude to language use that seeks to describe without making value judgements

Question 14

What is a neologism?

Answer 14

A newly coined word

Question 15

What is a lone word?

Answer 15

Words borrowed from another language

Question 16

What is compounding?

Answer 16

LAP + TOP = LAPTOP

Question 17

What is blending?

Answer 17

SMoke + fOG = SMOG

Question 18

What is abbreviating?

Answer 18

TELEPHONE = PHONE

Question 19

What is backformation/clipping?

Answer 19

E.g. televise from television

Question 20

What is affixation?

Answer 20

Adding a suffix or prefix.

E.g. UN + FRIENDLY = UNFRIENDLY

Question 21

What is broadening?

Answer 21

A word is extended.

E.g. A butcher = seller of goats

NOW means a seller of meat

Question 22

What does narrowing mean?

Answer 22

Words become narrow.

E.g. A doctor = Once meant a teacher or a learned man

Question 23

What is amelioration?

Answer 23

Where a word meaning becomes more positive

Question 24

What does pejoration mean?

Answer 24

Where a words meaning becomes negative

Question 25

What is semantic shift?

Answer 25

Where a words meaning has completely shifted

Question 26

Synthetic Personalisation

Answer 26

Synthetic personalisation is the process of addressing mass audiences as though they were individuals through inclusive language usage. Proposed by Fairclough

Question 27

Fonts

Answer 27

FONTS – DIFFERENT FONTS CAN BE USED TO PORTRAY DIFFERENT TONES AND MEANINGS, E.G.

Question 28

Layouts

Answer 28

Layouts – Layouts can make a page busy, easy to follow, formal or informal and often reflect the context in which they would be found.

Question 29

Colours

Answer 29

Different colours connote different moods and feelings, for example red suggests violence and blue suggests calm and serenity.

Question 30

Images

Answer 30

Photos, graphs and diagrams provide additional information to the written text and also grab the reader’s attention.

Question 31

Long 's'

Answer 31

Loss of the ſ - it was initially at the beginning of a word and then to the middle but the short s was used at the end of the word. It was left over from Old English and continued into Late Modern English.

Question 32

Why was the long 's' removed?

Answer 32

Printing practices as Francoise Ambroise Didot in Paris, who in 1781, initiated the cutting of the letters known as the ‘modern face’. The ſ could have been confused with the grapheme ‘f’. The examples were followed from printers’ influences. One of the influences was John Bell who was given credit for the removal of the long s.

Question 33

Commas and fullstops

Answer 33

Commas are used more often to link extended clauses and full stops were replaced by commas.

Question 34

Coinage

Answer 34

Creation of new words