language change theories/theorists

• Bailey's wave model


  works on the basis of a drop of water hitting the surface of a lake - it creates ripples. The closer you are to the drop of water the stronger the ripple. Those closest to the location of the change occuring are more likely to pick up the change
• Peter Trudgill (criticises wave model)

  Believes that changes comes from big cities, is passed to big towns, and then to smaller towns, missing out country dwellings. Uses Yorkshire as an example, where archaic 'thee' and 'thou' are still used
• chen's 's-curve' model


  point 1: the change is made and there is some uptake (usually spread through a social group)

  point 2: more people use it, but it is still limited to a geographical region or group

  point 3: many more people know it
• Jean Aitchison - PIDC model


  potential - gap or potential to change

  implementation - change occurs

  diffusion - change spreads

  codification - change is made official
• halliday's functional theory


  language change is a result of the needs and requirements its users

  lexical gaps - gap in the lexicon for something which needs describing

  function shifts - a word exists but we need a different word class (eg: 'google' is a noun, verb and adjective
• Hockett's 'random fluctuation theory'

  when someone makes an error, these can be standardised and recognised as somewhat synonymus
• substratum theory


  explains how changes can be made as a result of interactions with other languages and variations of English. (British English saw increase in 'like' as an intensifier as a result of American English use of it on TV shows like 'FRIENDS')
• aitchison's prescriptivist models


  damp spoon syndrome - leaving a damp spoon in the sugar. People are becoming lazy and disrespectful of language

  infectious disease - the idea that changes are like germs which spread and infect the language

  crumbling castle - the idea that English was at a 'golden age' and is now in a state of disrepair
• Types of lexical change

  • Blending
  • Clipping
  • Compounding
  • Conversion
  • Derivation
  • Back formation
  • Reduplication
  • Neologising
  • Borrowing
  • Acronymising
  • Initialising
  • Eponyming
• Blending


  2 existing words are fused to make a new one (e.g. smog)
• Clipping


  Part of a word is removed, but meaning is the same (e.g. sync)
• Compounding


  2 existing words are stuck together to form a new word (e.g. blackbird)
• Conversion


  Word class of an existing word is changed (e.g. noun of 'text' to verb 'text')
• Derivation


  Adding bound morpheme to change class (e.g. adding 'ing' onto noun 'text' to make the verb 'texting')
• Back formation


  Removal of a morpheme to change class (e.g. verb 'enthuse' comes from noun 'enthusiasm')
• Reduplication


  Repetition of words which are the same or similar (e.g. nitty-gritty)
• Neologising


  Creating a new word (e.g. yeet)
• Borrowing


  Words taken from another language (e.g. infant from French)
• Acronymising


  Forming a word and is formed of the initials it is describing (e.g. NASA, NATO, SCUBA)
• Initialising


  Words that are said as individual letters (e.g. BBC)
• Eponyming


  Forming a word based on a person's name (e.g. hoover from the brand Hoover)
• types of semantic change

  neosemy: word gains a new meaning

  pejoration: word gains a negative meaning

  narrowing: word gains a more specific meaning

  amelioration: word gains a more positive meaning

  weaking/bleaching: word loses original power

  broadening: word gains a less specific and more general meaning
• the great vowel shift - 15th to 18th centuries
• Gutenberg - creator of the printing press
• Cawdrey - wrote the first dictionary to provide definitions and terms
• Murray

  We should not use split infinitives. It should be 'to walk proudly', not 'to proudly walk'
• Pinker - Euphemism treadmill


  As a euphemism stops being used, a new one arrives to replace it, leading to a constant cycle
• lexical gap theory


  States that new words enter our language where there is a space for it when we need to express something. For example, when the wireless internet was made, there was a gap for naming it