Theory: Language Change, Historical Change Theorists, Experiments and Studies

Question 1

General, Lexical: Lexical Invention

Answer 1

Using completely new words.

Question 2

General, Lexical, Lexical Invention: Borrowing/ Loan Words

Answer 2

New words are brought in from other languages. For example, ‘Blitz’ from German.

Question 3

General, Lexical, Lexical Invention: Eponymisation

Answer 3

Using someone’s name to form a word. For example, ‘to google’, after the search engine.

Question 4

General, Lexical, Lexical Invention: Neologisation

Answer 4

A completely new word is invented. For example, ‘Mx’ as a new pronoun.

Question 5

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation

Answer 5

Using words we already have to form new ones.

Question 6

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation

Answer 6

Using words we already have to form new ones.

Question 7

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Affixation

Answer 7

Adding a prefix to an existing word. For example,’Remainers’.

Question 8

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Blending

Answer 8

Taking parts of two existing words. For example, ‘Brexit’.

Question 9

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Clipping or Abbreviating

Answer 9

Removing part of a word. For example, ‘exam’ instead of ‘examination’.

Question 10

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Conversion

Answer 10

A word changes class. For example, ‘email’ – a change from a noun to a verb.

Question 11

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Compounding

Answer 11

Combing two existing words. For example, ’football’.

Question 12

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Reduplication

Answer 12

Combining two similar sounds. For example, ‘walkie-talkie’.

Question 13

General, Lexical, Lexical Innovation: Acronymisation and Initialisation

Answer 13

Taking the first letters in a phrase and forming a word. For example, ‘BBC’ and ‘laser’.

Question 14

General, Semantic: Almelioration

Answer 14

A word gains a more positive meaning, For example, ‘nice’ used to mean ignorant (from the Latin ‘nescire’ meaning ‘to not know’).

Question 15

General, Semantic: Bleaching

Answer 15

A word loses power, for example, ‘crap’.

Question 16

General, Semantic: Bleaching

Answer 16

A word loses power, for example, ‘crap’.

Question 17

General, Semantic: Derogation/ Pejoration

Answer 17

A word gets a worse meaning over time. For example, ‘cunning’ used to mean knowledgeable.

Question 18

General, Semantic: Expansion

Answer 18

A word’s definition expands to cover more. For example, ‘bird’ used to refer to more to just small birds.

Question 19

General, Semantic: Metaphor and Metonymy

Answer 19

A word/phrase become a metaphor or metonym and so its meaning changes. For example, ‘doghouse’.

Question 20

General, Semantic: Narrowing

Answer 20

A word loses some of its meaning. For example, ‘gay’ has lost it meaning of ‘happy’.

Question 21

General, Semantic: Neosemy

Answer 21

A word gains a completely new meaning. For example, ‘surf’ the waves – ‘surf’ the internet.

Question 22

Lexical, Anglos, Saxons and Jutes

Answer 22

When they invaded, the Anglos, Saxons and Jutes brought large amounts of their language within them and as such, imported lots of their language into Old English. Including:
- Words for family like ‘son’ and ‘daughter’.
- Verbs like ‘drink’ and ‘go’.
- Prepositions.

Question 23

Lexical and Grammatical, Vikings

Answer 23

The Vikings brought with them new words like ‘sky’, ‘skull’ and ‘anger’ (and a simplified grammatical system)

Question 24

Lexical, Normans

Answer 24

The invasion of the Normans and subsequent domination lead to a huge amount of (Norman) French terms into the language, vastly increasing the Middle English lexicon.

Question 25

Lexical, Shakespeare

Answer 25

Shakespeare introduced over 400 new words into English.

Question 26

Lexical, The British Empire

Answer 26

The British Empire started colonising and acquiring new words from places they visited.

Question 27

Lexical, Wycliffe

Answer 27

Translated the Bible from Latin to English.

Question 28

Lexical and Orthographical, The Chancery

Answer 28

Decided to make English changes to standardise the use of English. For example, by removing the use of ‘hath’ and deciding to use ‘I’.

Question 29

Orthographical, Traditionalist Campaigners

Answer 29

Wanted spelling to reflect the history of the language. This includes changing orthography to Latinate spellings. For example, adding the <h> in ‘rhyme’ to match ‘rhythm’.</h>

Question 30

Phonological, The Great Vowel Shift

Answer 30

Long vowel sounds moved from the front of the mouth to further back. Some sounds also became diphthongs. For example, ‘mouse’ was originally pronounced as ‘moose’.

Question 31

Lexical, Tyndale

Answer 31

Translated the Bible, but with slightly more success than Wycliffe.

Question 32

Lexical and Grammatical, King James I

Answer 32

Ordered a Bible in English which was heavily rhetorical, so could be read out and used archaic lexis and grammatical structures to make it sound older and wiser.

Question 33

Orthographical, Gutenberg

Answer 33

Invented the printing press.

Question 34

Orthographical, Caxton

Answer 34

Brought the printing press to England. Made decisions on which spellings to use - orthography became more fixed.

Question 35

Lexical, Renaissance Thinkers

Answer 35

The rebirth of Greek and Latin ideas led to importation of many Greek and Latinate lexis into English.

Question 36

Lexical, The Inkhorn Controversy

Answer 36

Concern was raised over the high numbers of lexis (Inkhorn terms) which were being imported from Latin and Greek.

Question 37

Lexical and Orthographical, Cawdrey

Answer 37

Wrote the first dictionary to provide terms and definitions. Aimed to try and fix orthography.

Question 38

Lexical and Orthographical, Johnson

Answer 38

Published a dictionary in 1755 containing 40,000 words and provides spellings. However, there is some controversy over the terms he chose not to include and his definitions are biased. He sought to provide ‘regulation’, though admits that trying to control language is like trying to ‘lash the wind’.

Question 39

Lexical, Swift

Answer 39

Thought that English needed to be corrected, improved and ascertained. He felt it was being destroyed. He disliked:
- Contractions.
- Long words.
- New words (neologisms).
- Borrowed words.
- Clipped words.
- Young people changing language.

Question 40

Lexical and Grammatical, Académie Francais

Answer 40

Worked to accept or reject additions into the French Language and to preserve grammar.

Question 41

Grammatical, Lowth

Answer 41

Wrote and influential grammar book for teaching in which he stated (among other things) that multiple negation wasn’t acceptable in English as two negatives in Maths makes a positive. Importantly, this was his own personal opinion, but has become codified.

Question 42

Grammatical, Murray

Answer 42

Believed that we shouldn’t use split infinitives. For example, it should be ‘to walk proudly’ rather than ‘to proudly walk’.

Question 43

Phonological, The Industrial Revolution

Answer 43

The rise in industry caused mass migration and so new regional accents began to develop. For example, the Liverpudlian accent stems from Irish migration.

Question 44

Phonological, The Industrial Revolution

Answer 44

The rise in industry caused mass migration and so new regional accents began to develop. For example, the Liverpudlian accent stems from Irish migration.