Unit 7 - Language Change Flashcards
Early modern English
Used between 1500 and 1800
Mark by relatively sudden distinct change in pronunciation + European lexis + Latin and Greek lexis
Graphology
The study of writing forms such as the alphabet
Writing systems of the language, visual elements on the page
Grammar
The rules for organising meaning in the language – syntax
Relate to the rules for the appropriate use of a language – word order, meaning
Orthography
Part of a language concerned with letters in spelling
Phonology
Pronunciation and sound patterns which affect understanding of words
Pragmatics
Study of the ways in which language is used in a social context – how the context in which words and phrases are use affect their meanings
Morphology
Lexis
Structure of words with their meaning
The vocabulary of a language
Semantics
The study of the meaning of words
Syntax
The order of the words in a sentence
Old English
Language of Anglo-Saxon settlers
Used until 1100
Modern English lexis is closely derived from old English, however, old English form is drastically different to new English
Middle English
Spoken and written language which emerged after the Norman invasion
Dated from 1100 to 1500
Early modern English
1500 to 1800
Contains the great vowel shift
Great vowel shift
A series of changes, which lasted approximately 200 years, affecting the pronunciation of English, and effecting the vowels used
~> 1400 - 1700
Late modern English
Used from 1800s to present day
Change was initiated by scientific/social development, in order to establish rules of a language
Example of social/industrial development: colonialism; industrial revolution
Industrial revolution
Takes place during the 18th and 19th centuries
Affected areas such as fashion, food, leisure, medicine, chemistry, psychology.
Creating words such as locomotive; Cereal; rugby; ambulance; halogen
British English
Colonialism
This is the variety of English spoken by people in Britain
When a country claims ownership and takes control of another land, usually accompanied by an intention to gain wealth from the product of that country
Colonialism was use to help spread English
Archaic
Belongs to the past
Examples can be: thou; thee; hast; ye
Obsolete
No longer in use; after the meaning is no longer understood
Lexis
All the words in a language
Derivation
Forming a new word from an existing word, often by adding a prefix or suffix
Example: happy ~> happiness
Coinage
Creation of a new word which people start to use
Neologism
Is a newly invented word
Eponym 
A word which takes the name of its inventor or discoverer
Prefix
Suffix
Root/stem
A group of latest added to the beginning of a word to make a new word
A group of letters added to the end of a word to make a new word
The part of a word which cannot be changed and which can be added to for a change in meaning– these add ones would be prefixes and suffixes
Conversion
Creating a new word, a new word class, from an existing one or a completely new word class
Example: green – represents the colour green; green – in Horseriding represents a young untrained horse
Telescoping
Contraction of the word/phrase
Example: biologically degradable ~> biodegradable
Compounding
Forming a new word from two or more units
Blending
Forming a new world by joining the beginning of one word to the end of another
Example: smoke and fog ~> smog
clipping
Shortening of longer words
Example: mathematics ~> math
Coalescence
The phonological process whereby to sound merge into one
Example: WH pronounced as W
Back formation
Formation of a simpler word from an existing one that appears to be derived from it
This is a form of clipping
Example: enthusiasm ~> enthuse
Reduplication
Sounds are repeated with identical or only very slight change – characteristic of infant speech
Example: quack quack
Borrowing
Introduction of specific words/construction, Oh morphological elements from one language to another
This has enrich the English Lexus by incorporating words from languages of invaders and settlers
Example: Latin = Pictura; flamma; schola
Greek = Cosmos
French = weekend; bouquet
Neuter
Inflection
In language terms, neither male nor female
Any form of change/form which distinguishes grammatical forms of the same lexical unit
Example: boy ~> boys
Etymology
Study of the historical relations between a word and earlier forms of forms from which developed
Amelioration
A more positive connotation over time
Pejoration 
 When a word takes on a more negative connotation over time
Broadening
What is the meaning of the word becomes broader/inclusive genitalia meaning
Narrowing
Meaning of the word becomes Nara/exclusive minutes earlier meaning
Prescriptivism
The view that language should have structure of rules that must be obeyed in speech and writing
Descriptivism
The view that no use of language is incorrect, the variation should be acknowledged and recorded rather than corrected
Computer mediated discourse
The specialist form of language between online users
Transmission – cultural transmission theory
The learning and passing on of information between people in a group
Estuary English – random fluctuation theory
A 20th-century English accent, often used by younger people. Originated in areas around the Thames river in London. First recognised by a distinct active in the 1980s. Formed by a Mixture of Received Pronunciation
Proto language
A common ancestor of modern languages
Example: Latin to English
Relates to wave model/tree model of language change
Language family
Group of languages that are related in structure/evolved from a common Proto language
Example: French; Portuguese; Romanian
Relates to wave model/tree model of language change 
Pidgin
Creole
A simplified mix of languages, used to communicate between people who do not share the same language
A natural language, spoken by native speakers, which has developed from a mixture of languages
Relates to wave model/tree model of language change
Hypothesis
Statement of what the researchers trying to investigate from carrying out a study
Bibliography
List of all books and other sources used in the research
Field of study
A specific area within a broader topic from which an investigation can develop
Null hypothesis
Is a hypothesis which says that there is no statistical difference between two variables or conditions – a researcher aims to disprove the null hypothesis
Corpus
A large and structured set of texts, usually stored electronically
Corpus data
The information stored in a corpus comprising of read new text/transcriptions of spoken language
Acronym
A word formed from the initial letters of two or more successive words
Diachrony
The study of the changes in a language over time
Corpus linguistics
Is the study of language and how it changes over a long period of time, based on the analysis of large collections of different text types
Sample
A third of data/responses collected from a percentage of the whole population selected by a defined procedure
Random sample
Where everyone who is a member of the population being investigated has an equal chance of being selected for the sample
Respondent
The person replying
Open question
Closed question
Where the respondent is free to put any answer
Where the respondent chooses from options given
Pilot survey
A set of questions devised and distributed to a small population to test the questionnaires questions, and the planned analysis procedure before the main survey
Plagiarism
Passing of someone else’s work as your own without any acknowledgement
Research ethics
Principles which car do universally agreed acceptable behaviour to be followed in carrying out research investigations
Synchronic linguistics
The study of language of a particular time usually a present
word sketch
A page summary of word information derived from the corpus
Lemma
Base or stem word
Collocation
Relation in a corpus whereby two lexical items frequently appear together
Mutual information score
A measure of how frequently do lexical items collate in a corpus, compared to how often they would be expected to do so
Concordancer
A software program which analyses patterns from the corpus
n-gram
In a sequence of items from a sample of text which can be different in length according to the phrase being studied
n-gram graph
Is a line graph based on data from a particular corpus, which displays change in frequency of use for particular words or phrases over a given time period
