English- Change

• Swearing


  Swearing has had semantic weakening over time

  -1936: first person said "@rse" on live radio

  -1972: the Oxford Dictionary includes "Fck" and "Cnt" for the first time

  1999- Channel 4 had used all swear words in entertainment programmes
• Verbs over time


  the past tense of verbs has changed a lot- irregular verbs have changed particularly.

  (i.e. "spake" is now "spoke")
• Adjectives over time


  some changes in comparative and superlative adjectives can be seen (some though are errors).

  (i.e. "properest" means the most proper, now we would say "the most proper")
• Nouns over time


  -until 18th century, nouns were capitalised

  - there was less use of the definite article (i.e. "Russian" isntead of "the Russian")
• Syntax over time


  -since 1700s, sentences have become shorter and less complicated

  -sentences contain far fewer subordinate clauses now.
• Contractions over time


  -common in early 18th century

  -18th century writers thought that they were inelegant

  -uncommon in 19th century

  - second half of 20th century; contractions came back into fashio in informal settings.
• Double Negatives over time


  -Robert Lowth used mathematical logic to argue that double negatives were not acceptable

  - therefore, 18th century writers did not use them

  - today, double negatives are debated but used more in spontaneous spoken speech.
• Changes in Word Function


  nouns become verbs

  (i.e. "text", "email" and "google" were nouns)

  
  

  adjectives become adverbs

  (i.e. "I'm good" rather than "I'm well")
• Newspaper Layout 1909


  -Line spacing is very dense

  -text is small

  -no photos or illustrations

  -all black and white
• Newspaper Layout 2009


  -text is less dense

  -range of colour

  -non-standard typogrophy

  -information about what is inside of the paper
• Magazine Layout 1700


  -decorative illustrations

  -title

  -dense print

  -black and white
• Magazine Layout 2009


  -glossy photographs

  -different font types

  -colours
• The Great Vowel Shift- long vowels were established from short vowels; only in spoken language and took many years
• Features of Early Modern English

  Shakespeare coined around 1700 new words

  European Renaissance- a huge number of Latin, French and Greek words entered English; words were needed for new concepts like "psychology"

  World Exploration- brought new words from African, Asian and New World languages
• Influences of Latin

  Latinate- words originally from Latin, e.g. colossal, dignified, emotion

  Prefixes and Suffixes- many come from Latin origins, e.g. anti-, post-, -ic, -ate
• Modern Developments

  • English is now a world language of communication
  • Electronic Media, like mobile phones and the internet, have radically changed communication
  • a more colloquial and casual style of language reflects major social changes
  • Estuary English has become widespread in the UK
  • American English is becoming the default
• Examples of the Influence of Other Languages

  Anglo-Saxon; water, sad, dead

  Norman French; change, morose, deceased

  Latin; aquifer, transform, depressed, moribund

  Greek; hydraulic, metamorphose, catatonic