Language change

• prescriptivism - the belief that language change should be prevented
• descriptivism - the belief that language change and variations are positive
• archaic - old and outdated
• political correctness -avoiding language deemed offensive
• codification - when a change becomes officially recognised e.g selfie being added to the dictionary in 2013
• Lexical change?

  Conversions (a word changing class e.g message’)

  Clipping (shortening e.g exam)

  Eponymisation (using a name as a verb e.g to google)
• Semantic change?

  Reclamation (when a group of people reclaim a word )

  Neosemy (when a word has a whole new meaning e.g surf the internet)

  Metonymy (when a word becomes a metaphor e.g doghouse)
• The Dictionary - Samuel Johnson, first point of standardisation of the english language in 1755
• The Chancery Westminster in the 1430’s set standard spelling in official state documents e.g removing ‘hath’ and instead using ‘I’
• Shakespeare introduced over 400 words into the English language
• Samuel Johnson soughted to provide regulation however he said that trying to control language was like trying to ‘lash the wind’
• Academie Francais - a french organisation formed to prevent language change, preserve grammar and accept or reject additions to the language
• The British Empire also caused lexical language change, acquiring new wordsfrom places they visited e.g pyjamas
• Glutenberg - invented the printing press where people used ‘f’ instead of ‘s’ (the long s) in 1440 until late 18th century (when printers advanced)
• Orthographical change? - technological

  Abbreviations e.g cuz

  Numerical-phonetic substitution e.g wuu2, using a number instead of a word

  Initialisms e.g lmao (initials dont make a word)

  Acronyms e.g lol (initials make a word)

  Emojis, emoticons

  Non-standard punctuation e.g ‘no way!!!’
• Declinism - the belief that the English language is deteriorating and decline in quality
• Descriptivist technology theorists?

  Shortis - text language shows creativity, also creates an identity which isn’t real

  Crystal - text language is the next step in our language’s evolution

  McWhorter - text language allows sets to write how they speak, which is a miracle change

  Werry - text language includes mor letters to portray tone and paralinguistic features (has a purpose)

  Fairclough - computers mirror turn-taking, like in real life speech
• Prescriptivist technology theorists?

  Lee - the more intensive a reader, the smaller their vocabulary

  Cingle and Sundar - text language is linked to lacking understanding of basic grammar

  Carrington et al - text language is a from of linguistic compression
• Aitchison?

  Crumbling castle view - English used to be beautiful, now it is being ruined

  Damp spoon syndrome - changes to language are a result of laziness and disrespect

  Infectious disease - change spreads like a plague and shoul be avoiding and prevented
• Halliday’s functional theory - language changes when speakers need it to change e.g advancement in technology made us need new words e.g smartphone (similar to lexical gap theory)
• Substratum theory proposed that language changes primarily through contact with other countries, links with the British empire
• Bailey’s wave model - a change starts strongest in the centre, then ripples out, the closer you are to the centre, the quicker you will adopt the change e.g all young people having an iPhone and older generations may not have one.
• Aitchison PIDC - language change cores through these steps

  1. potential for new words
  2. implementation
  3. diffusion of change, spreads
  4. codification
• Crystal’s tide metaphor - language change is like the tide washing things up of the beach, somethings will disappear quickly, while other things will stay longer , also suggests how it is predictable but not controllable.