Theorists

Question 1

Jean Aitchison

Answer 1

she suggests that change can be divided into two categories: external sociolinguistic factors and internal psycholinguistic factors.

Question 2

External Sociolinguistic factors

Answer 2

social factors outside the language system.

Question 3

Internal psycholinguistic factors

Answer 3

linguistic and psychological factors which reside in the structure of the language and the minds of the speakers.

Question 4

Tony Bex

Answer 4

Genres indictate what is regarded as important in society. Genres change over time because society does. There can be three changes:
- the way a text is created/presented
- new sub-genres
- new discourse communities develop that are not represented within existing genres

Question 5

Goodman

Answer 5

notes that we are living in a time of increased informalisation. This is the process where language forms that were traditionally reserved for close personal relationships are now used in wider social contexts.
Some would argue that increased informalisation in a range of contexts breaks down barriers between ‘them’ and ‘us’ whereas others would argue that the barrier still remains but we are more likely to be manipulated if they appear not to be.

Question 6

Halliday’s functional theory (1975-1985)

Answer 6

this theory suggests that language changes according to the needs of its users. This mainly applies to lexical changes - when words become archaic because we no longer need them.

Question 7

Labov 1963: Martha’s Vineyard Study

Answer 7

suggests that we subconsciously change our language to identify with one group rather than another (overt and covert prestige)

Question 8

Regularization

Answer 8

the linguistic phenomenon observed language change through the replacement of irregular forms in morphology or syntax with regular ones. For example the replacement of the Middle English plural form for ‘cow’ was ‘kine’ but is now ‘cows’

Question 9

Newberry and Ahern

Answer 9

discovered that some irregular forms are becoming more common recently, possibly due to their similarity to other irregular forms suggesting that language change may be driven by chance more often than previously thought.

Question 10

linguistic features of informalisation

there are seven

Answer 10

• shortened terms of address
• contractions of negatives
• auxiliary verbs
• the use of active rather than passive sentence constructions
• colloquial language and slang.
• adoption of regional accents
• increased amounts of self-disclosure of private feelings in public contexts.