Theorists and Notable influences Flashcards
When was Johnson’s dictionary created?
1755
When did standardisation occur?
1755, standardised orthography and definitions
Who was Samuel Johnson?
A prescriptivist who created the first dictionary
What were neologisms from the 18th century? What influenced them?
Sandwich, vaccination and mob
Science, Latin and Greek, Attitudes to class
Influences on language and causes of change
- Globalisation
- Science
- Technology
- Attitudes towards women
- Attitudes towards sexuality
- Attitudes towards race
- Attitudes towards class
- Political correctness
- Travel
- Cultural attitudes
When was the printing press introduced to England?
1476
What are features of pre-standardised writing?
- Long S, remained from Old English
- Terminal E, added onto the end of words unnecessarily
- Multi-Clausal sentences
- Overuse of commas and not enough full stops
- Non-standard capitalisation of proper nouns
How did the printing press influence orthography?
- Long S phased out as it was easier to just print one type of S (the short S)
- Terminal E dropped so that more words could fit on a line
Who coined synthetic personalisation, what is it?
Norman Fairclough, advertisers using direct address to create a personal relationship with an audience
What are features of Early and Late Modern English layout?
- Early often hand written or printed using a press
- Italics to stress words
- Dense paragraphs
- Late uses a variety of fonts
- More often that not printed using word-processor
- Combined with photos
- Emoticons/Emojis
What is prescriptivism?
The attitude that language standards should be maintained and preserved. eg. Don’t like slang
What is descriptivism?
The attitude that language should develop and change over time; doesn’t make value judgements
What were Jean Aitchison’s 3 metaphors? What did they describe?
- the decay of the English language
1. Damp-Spoon Syndrome; Laziness, vulgar and bad taste
2. Crumbling castle view; Language like a castle that must be preserved. A rigid system is not always better
3. Infectious disease assumption; bad English like a disease, spreads.
What is the substratum theory?
That language changes come through language contact, eg. invasion and trade
What is overt and covert prestige?
Overt: status that is generally recognized as “better” or more positively valued in the larger community eg. Received pronunciation
Covert: that acquired by those speakers desiring to belong; to be considered a member of a certain community
