Why language changes

Question 1

Movement of people

Answer 1

(sub theory, wave model)

Moving from one place to another, bringing with them their own vocabulary- contact with other speakers= overall vocab grows

Question 2

Expressiveness and creativity

Answer 2

(ling reflectionism, funct theory)

Deutscher: some changes in language are for reasons of expressiveness- attempts to achieve greater effect for their utterances ‘no’ is too weak so its ‘not at all’

Question 3

Politics

Answer 3

(random fluctuation)

Political campaigns influence language- 1970 ‘Watergate’ to denote the scandal of Nixon’s men breaking into a building complex. suffix-gate has become a libfix (suffixes liberated from original context applied to new situations e.g. Brexit)

Question 4

Technological Change

Answer 4

(funct theory)

New inventions need new names e.g. laptop, older words might be recycled (maybe more than once) to have new meanings e.g. ‘cloud’ to store data, ‘tablet’ as stone the commandments were on, the a pill you swallow, now a digital tablet

Question 5

War

Answer 5

(random fluctuation)

Intense periods of word creation, WW1 gave us ‘shell shock’, ‘kamikaze’, ‘tank’

Question 6

Religion

Answer 6

Changing attitudes- blasphemy taken very serious in the past but not as much now

HOWEVER is it changing back?