Language Change: Why does it occur? Flashcards
What does Jean Aitchison propose in her book ‘Language Change: Progress or Decay?’ about the 3 ways of looking at Language Change?
Decay: Often a prescriptivist view. They see language as breaking down
Progress: Some
Descriptivists view. ‘They see language as natural as breathing’ and yes that is a quote that taken from David Crystal.
Neutral: Most Descriptivists sit within this view of language change: they see like to see what changes happening, evaluating.
What does she say are the two causes of Language Change?*
A natural and social change. *In terms of social change that can be both conscious and subconscious.
Which is a study that you can link with a conscious social change?
The New York Department Belfast study was a conscious language change. Middle-class store Macy’s were found to correct themselves to the post-vocalic ‘r’ which was the overt prestige form when asked again on a different question which prompted the response to pronounce the overt prestige form.
And a subconscious social change?
Martha Vineyard Study where it was found that upislanders had attained their own way of pronouncing diphthongs /au/ as in ‘go’ and ‘ei’ as in they’
Give an example of a Natural change?
Ease of articulation present in English language. An example is ‘silent’ vowels that are not pronounced when spoken. Such as ‘knight’ and ‘gnome’ which are both contain stop consonants ‘k’ and ‘g’ that are omitted when spoken.
Give an example of a Social change?
‘Prestige’ which is a social trigger with the idea of covert and overt prestige being present today in the way that certain letters, words are more pronounced than others to due social factors. Such as youth choosing not to conform to overt prestige forms of speaking as they do not want to conform with covert prestige forms. Or in gender there is covert prestige forms of how males conform the normative nouns such as ‘waiter’, ‘police officer’ or ‘actor’ but it becomes marked when you add morphemes such as ‘ess’ or ‘women’ to make it conform to the female gender.
What is a further example that shows natural change?
The following nouns ‘sandwich, handbag and handsworth which have subsequently heard being pronounced as ‘samwich, hambag & hamsworth’.
-Each of these nouns has a pair of the biblical consonants ‘d’ with alveolar constants ‘n’; the switch from pronouncing these to the biblial consonant ‘b’ or velar consonant ‘w’ is difficult and so, it is easier to replace the pair of consonants with another biblical ‘m’
What are further examples of ‘social triggers’?
Social Media & Peer pressure.
EXTRA! What is another example of a natural change?
‘Two’ from ‘twa’ in old English the vowels ‘a’ become ‘o’ and then ‘u’ at which the velar voiced consonant “w” was dropped. Similar examples are Twin and Twice. It is important to note down that whilst we may preserve the spelling, the articulation is different.
