Reasons for social change

Question 1

1. Feminism/women’s liberation

Answer 1

• semantic reclamation/functional shift
• amelioration of words used to degrade women
• slut, bitch,
• second wave feminism (1960s-70s) drew attention on gender bias in language
• current debate in schools across UK to ban gendered language

Question 2

2. sexual revolution

Answer 2

• semantic shift of word ‘gay’
• ‘gay’ also undertaken semantic deterioration, picking up a pejorative denotation
• LGBT term coined 1990s, one of the first established identifications for the community

recent news:

• current outrage over censorship of LGBTQ content in TV show ‘friends’ among Chinese viewers = values of western culture priorities by government power/control = push for change
• Feb 17th 2022: LGBTQ advocates fight ‘don’t say gay’ bill at Thursday committee hearing

Question 3

3. technology

Answer 3

• new terns coined e.g. clipped word electronic with concrete noun ‘mail’ compounded to form email, same with internet = international and network
  (more in miss al Hafidh article file)

Question 4

4. Environmental awareness

Answer 4

• compounding of abstract nouns of 1960s: climate-change, global-warming

Question 5

5. youth culture

Answer 5

• slang neologisms e.g. selfie

- exam boards considering tackling ‘irrelevant features’ for disadvantaged students

Question 6

6. immigration

Answer 6

• MLE
• AAVE
• Punjabi English
• Singlish = making variations of its own from American/western culture e.g. currently popular American word game ‘wordle’ has a spin off Singapore word game ‘word-leh’

Question 7

7. political correction

Answer 7

• acronym POC for people of colour, first coined 1700s but in 70s re-introduced by civil rights activists, used in solidarity among non-whites
• brainstorm coined 1880s denoted an epileptic person having a severe nervous attack, underwent semantic shift and amelioration to mean a person generating ideas