Language change theorists/theories Flashcards
What was Aitchisons theory surrounding how language change spreads?
- S-curve model and diffusion
What did Aitchison say surrounding the S-curve model and diffusion?
- It begins small and affects few words
- There’s fluctuation between new and old change on words
- The new form gradually overtakes the new one
- When change has spread to a certain number of words, change spreads a lot faster before slacking off
What did Aitchison say about change?
- It does not happen in isolated bursts
What did Denison say about S-curve models?
- Most S-curves remain incomplete/never reach full saturation
What is Substratum theory?
- Suggests that speakers learning a new language will learn it imperfectly and pass errors on to future generations
What is a superstrate?
- European languages
What is a substrate?
- Non-European languages
What happens to languages “below” the superstrate?
- They come into the superstrate and change it (i.e features from Japanese coming into English)
What is borrowing?
- When people borrow from other languages, but only vocabulary is really affected
What does it mean to incorporate vocab into the language? Provide an example
- It means naturalising the borrowed word to make it seem part of the lexicon
- i.e “restaurant” is French by spelling, but it is not said with a French accent
What was Charles Hockett’s theory?
- Random fluctuation and cultural transmission
What is random fluctuation/cultural transmission?
- How language spreads
What do errors mean with random fluctuation/cultural transmission?
- Errors are passed onto other users, sometimes through technology
- Errors have been adopted as acceptable features
What does Hockett argue surrounding change/chance?
- Change is not driven by random chance, because if it was then the language world would be in chaos
What did B.A Neddar say about language and expression?
- “language is a practical means of expressing meaning”
What did B.A Neddar say about language and beliefs?
“language is socially motivated to express our beliefs, cultures and communication needs”
What was Crystal’s beliefs about lang change?
- Neutral opinion
- Change was inevitable/unpredictable
What was Crystal’s metaphor surrounding lang change?
- comparison to “tides”
What was Halliday’s theory?
- Functional theory
What did Halliday’s theory say?
- Language changes because we need it to fit to our needs
What was Aitchison’s theory about metaphors?
- Spoke about people’s anxieties about language change
What were Aitchison’s 3 metaphor examples? Explain them
- Damp spoon syndrome = change is caused by sloppiness/laziness (i.e glottalstop)
- Crumbling castle = language needs to be preserved, but there is no clear “golden age” for language
- Infectious disease = “catch” change from others (i.e Americanisms), but picking up change is not a force we are powerless to resist
What do metaphors do to the audience?
- Manipulates how the audience sees language change
What are the 11 neologisms? (ACAICA COBBE)
- Affixing
- Compounding
- Acronyms
- Initialisms
- Conversion
- Abbreviations
- Coinage
- Obsolete words
- Back formation
- Blending
- Eponym
What is an initalism? Provide an example
- Individual words spoken
- BBC, HIV, CD
What is affixing? Provide an example
- Adding prefixes/suffixes
- i.e microwave, multimedia
What is compounding? Provide an example
- Two seperate words combining to make a new one
- e.g blackbird, skylight
What is an eponym? Provide an example
- A person/thing, real/fake which is named after something else
- e.g Adam’s apple, Achilles’ heel
What is blending? Provide an example
- Parts of words joining
- e.g stalker + fan = stan, motor + bicycle = motorbike
What is an acronym? Provide an example
- Words made into letters
- ASAP, LOL, OMG, LMK
What is conversion/functional shift
- Word class changes a word
- Google - Googled/to Google (noun to verb)
What is an abbreviation?
- Shortening of a word
- ad(vert) = advertisement
What is an obsolete word?
- No longer used/replaced for newer terms
- e.g “enow” became enough
What is coinage?
- A completely new term
What is back formation? Provide an example
- A noun is shortened to make a verb
- e.g edit = editor
What are the 8 features of semantic change? (PEMBWINA)
- Pejoration
- Euphemisms
- Metaphor
- Broadening
- Weakening
- Idioms
- Narrowing
- Amelioration
What is a metaphor? Provide an example
- Words acquiring new meanings
- e.g language is war
What is broadening? Provide an example
- When a word becomes more general
- e.g “dog” used to refer to only big dogs
What is narrowing? Provide an example
- Word becomes less general
- e.g “meat” used to be all food, but now just means animal food
What is amelioration? Provide an example
- Word becomes more pleasant
- e.g “pretty” used to mean shy/cunning
What is pejoration? Provide an example
- Word becomes less pleasant
- e.g “silly” meant happy/blissful
What is an example of an idiom?
- e.g “under the weather”
What is weakening? Provide an example
- Loses its force
- e.g “soon” used to mean “immediately”
What are euphemisms/political correctness?
- The usage of words changing over time
What did Miller and Swift create?
- The Handbook of Non-Sexist writing
What did Miller and Swift suggest? Provide an example
- Suggested ways to boost gender equality, trying to use more gender-neutral terms
- i.e using “them” when gender is unclear, replacing marked terms, etc
What is the 4-step process in the standardisation of language?
1- Selection
2- Codification
3- Elaboration
4- Implementation
What is selection? (standardisation) Provide an example
- Language and variety is selected, usually a prestigious one
- e.g Caxton chose to write in the London dialect
What is codification? (standardisation) Provide an example
- Establishment of norms of lexis, grammatical structures and spelling
- e.g reformation of spelling system, making lang regular
What is elaboration? (standardisation) Provide an example
- The selected language is developed for a variety of purposes
- e.g new words will follow these new rules
What is implementation? (standardisation) Provide an example
- New language must be given currency so people see the prestige in it
- e.g making it available in texts for it to be mass produced to the many
What did Harvey and Shalom explore?
- P.C language
What did Harvey and Shalom actually do?
- Observed words that ca be categorised into technical, euphemistic and dysphemistic words
What did Harvey and Shalom find?
- In the hierarchy of dysphemistic words, those higher provoked a stronger reaction in people
- e.g cigarette vs torch of freedom vs cancer stick
What did Fairclough say?
- P.C is not enough; society needs to change how we see minority groups and represent them more
What did Cameron propose?
- Verbal Hygiene theory
What did Cameron’s theory say?
- Suggests that PC language causes anxiety as it challenged majority power group’s assumptions
What did Cameron herself say?
“In the mouths of sexists, language can always be sexist”
What is the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis?
- Language determinism
- Looked at Native American tribe who did not have tense, argued that they did not have any perception of time, therefore language shapes thought
Why is the Sapir-Wharf hypothesis discredited now?
- Because only a single person was evaluated in the tribe
What is another key example in language determinism?
- If a word perjorates, it changes our thoughts about it
What was Pinker’s theory called?
- Euphemism treadmill
What does Pinker’s theory argue?
- Says that P.C terms will also perjorate and need to change over time
- Conflicts language reflectionism
What is language reflectionism?
- Thoughts reflect language choice
What are the 3 categories within political incorrectness?
1- Subtle (i.e policeman, mailman)
2- Offensive (i.e gay, bitch)
3- Blatant (i.e n-word, c-word)
What may be two views of a prescriptivist about PC language?
For - describes/prescribes “correct” language
Against - could be seen as language change
What is two needs of PC?
- Shows intellectual efforts to allow, encourage and reflect social progress
- Places down a theoretical foundation; language creates categories for thought, words create opportunities and boundaries for people
