language change over time

• Topic:

  • marriage, medicine, social class, religion, death, love, social services etc. how does this relate to the time period 

  Style:

  • informal register, formal register, narrative, question and answer discourse structure, expository, horartory, procedural, spellings etc. how does this reflect what is typical of the time

  Grammatical features

  • long compound complex sentences, how possession in marked, verb conjugations, auxilliary verbs etc. how does this reflect the time period
• Rags to riches story


  A theme that has always been relevant, heartwarming and adventurous, people what to belive in it for themselves, morals, hard work brings rewards, immidiate reason to root for the character
• Social status


  Social movement, belief that it is possible, reason to root for the character, creates a social heirarchy and therefore allows social commentary
• Multiculturalism


  Cultural differences, different languages, social commentary, real world experiences, cutural references, integration
• Death


  Emotive language (could also use dispassionate language), tenor, religious references, real world experiences, emotional experiences
• Health


  Subject specific lexis, references to pain and suffering, medicinal language, references to status and education
• Gender inequality


  Cultural references, cultural change, modifiers to emphasise disparity, social movements, religious references, the period of time, scientific assumptions
• Fiction


  • Engage the audience
  • Creation of the characters
  • Interaction between the characters
  • Time
  • Place
  • Occasion
  • Commonplace experiences
• Diary

  • Personal references
  • Idiosyncratic features
  • Proper nouns for familiar people and places
  • Time adverbials
  • Subject specific lexis
  • Cultural references
  • Purpose to reflect
• Advertising


  • Subject specific nouns
  • Adjectives to promote product
  • Lexical sets that clarify what the product will solve
  • Sense of branding
  • Establishing trust with reader through credible information
  • Contextual and cultural references
  • Out-dated concepts
  • References to competing products
• Speeches


  • Sense of speaker
  • References to personal experience
  • Written and spoken language features
  • Audience engagement
  • Rhetorical devices
  • Discourse markers to signal topic shifts
  • Purpose to persuade or entertain
• Travel writing


  • Relationship between writer and the place they visited
  • Purpose to inform, reflect, persuade and entertain
  • First person narrative
  • Concrete nouns to establish a sense of place
• Opinion texts


  • Communicate personal opinion
  • To influence
  • Attitude expressed
  • Elaboration
  • Subject specific lexis
  • Weighted language
  • Figurative
  • Personal experience
  • General reference
  • Subjective
• Obituaries


  • Pay tribute to someone who has died
  • To reflect
  • Attitude expressed
  • Cultural references
  • Religious references
  • Modifiers to build a picture of their lives
  • Notify others
  • 3rd person narrative
• News articles


  • To inform
  • Educate
  • Persuade others of a certain political perspective
  • 3rd person narrative
  • Discourse
  • Time
  • Place
  • Occasion
  • Metaphors
  • Humor
  • Puns
  • Proper nouns that refer to people and places
  • Modifiers that describe the credibility of sources
• Archaic spelling patterns to remember:

  • I/Y interchange - the abstract noun 'Dyet' etc. 
  • U/V interchange -  the preposition 'ouer' etc.
  • Appendaged 'e' - the evaluative adjective 'Poore' etc.
  • Single or double final consonants -  the abstract noun 'Busines' etc.
  • Contraction - the prepositional phrase 'of the clock' becoming 'o'clock'
• Archaic lexis


  The concrete noun 'nobles' is now obsolete
• Archaic lexis


  Cultural change
• Unpredictable appendaged 'e'


  The third person singular pronoun 'shee/she'
• Unpredictable appendaged 'e'


  Standardisation and Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary
• Alternative suffix spellings


  The abstract nouns 'preparacion/lamentation'
• Alternative suffix spellings


  Spelling inconsistencies, lack of standardisation, Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary
• Omission of final 'e'


  Past tense active verb 'mad/made'
• Omission of final 'e'


  Spelling inconsistencies, lack of standardisation, Samuel Johnson's 1755 dictionary
• • The absence of an apostrophe to mark possession - the noun phrase 'the Kinges Oncle' 
  • Obseletion of the 3rd person verb inflection - the third person present tense verb 'hath' (ALWAYS REMEMBER TO INCLUDE THE TENSE)
  • Reference to the absence of the dummy auxilliary verb 'do' - the first person past tense negative verb phrase 'I knew not' 
  • Inverted syntax - 'flew, the fish'
  • Flat or bare forms - the adverb 'kind' as opposed to 'kindly' in Present Day English 
  • Archaic forms - the second person personal pronoun 'thou' is now in restricted use. 
• • Use of object form of relative pronoun 'whom', that is not so commonly used in Present Day English
  • Frequent use of passive 'was writ'
  • Agent formed with the preposition 'of' rather than 'by'
  • Compound complex sentences with coordination and subordination
  • Omitted apostrophes in noun phrases 'the mans daughter'
  • Use of colon before a relative clause
  • Lack of speech punctuation used in direct speech
  • Random capitalisation
  • Inverted syntax
• Danish raids begin on England. They conquer the north and the east - Danish and Germanic influences on language


  797
• Norman Conquest on England. French becomes the language spoken by the elite and English is spoken only by the poor, English written records begin to collapse


  1066
• Baron's Revolt uses English to challenge French


  1258
• Death of Chaucer, influence of French on English seen in the Canterbury Tales. Most French changes were permanent


  1400
• Caxton introduces the printing press to England - Dutch influence on spelling, Wynkyn de Worde takes over his business, employs many Dutch people who knew how to use to use the press


  1470s
• After the reformation, English is seen as the 'superior' language - Cranmer's beautiful translation of the Second Common Book of Prayer (1552) increases the appreciation of English


  1500s
• John Hart rejects capital letters


  1569
• First theatre ('Theatre') opens in London by John Burgage


  1579
• Restoration of Charles II sparks interest in 'fixing' the language, a return to the proper way of English (Jean Aitchison Crumbling Castle Hypothesis)


  1660
• Johnathon Swift proposes the setting up of an Academy to fix English


  1712
• Samuel Johnson's Dictionary standardises spellings


  1755
• Lowths' Grammar standardises grammar


  1762
• Walker's Pronunciation Dictionary published which described standard pronunciation in detail


  1791
• Change in England


  • 1500s
  • 1600s
  • 1700s
  • 1800s
  • 1900s
  • 2000s