Feature article on attitudes to language change

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  • Feature article on attitudes towards Language change
    • David Crystal
      • All living languages change because of the people that use them, the only languages that don't change are dead ones
      • Crystal is a descriptivist
    • External factors of language change
      • Migration (the movement of people)
        • Expansion of the British empire
      • War/ invasion
        • Norman invasion
        • Anglo Saxons
      • Politics
      • Science and Technology
        • New inventions call for new words
      • Trade/ working practices
    • Influence of other countries
      • 70% of English Language is made up of borrowed words
      • Legal lexis (made up of French and Latin words)
      • Examples: Pyjamas (Indian) and Parliament and court (French)
    • Influence of the emerging youth culture
      • Difference youth subcultures
      • Increased use of abbreviations
      • Slang
    • Functional Theory
      • Language changes to suit the needs of its users
    • Random Fluctuation Theory
      • Suggests that language change is less logic
        • can happen by accident (e.g. through a typo - pwned)
    • Technology
      • CMC (computer mediated communication)
      • Acronyms and Initialism have been brought about by language change
        • Through the invention of the mobile phone and text messaging
    • Keith Chen's  S Curve model
      • New word  increases in use
        • before rapidly taking off
    • Wave model
      • Shows the spread of language change
      • New word starts off in the middle and gradually begins to spread
      • Rippling effect (Ripples in a pond)
    • Grammatical change
      • Inflections are no longer needed to determine the meaning of certain words
        • as a result, they have fallen out of use
    • Jean Aitchinson's metaphors
      • Not an expression of her own views
        • Reflect negative attitudes towards change
      • Crumbling castle
        • Suggests that language was once perfect at one point or another
      • Infectious disease
        • suggests that change has corrupted/ polluted the English language
      • Damp Spoon
    • Phonological changes
      • The Great Vowel Shift
      • Increased use of Uptalk (interrogative statement) and Vocal fry (sounding huskier)
    • Neologisms
      • Blends (jeggings)
      • Compounds (cyber-bullying)
      • Coinages
    • Semantic change
      • Amelioration (develops a more positive meaning)
      • Narrowing (Not used generally)
      • Pejoration (develops a more negative meaning)
      • Broadening (Broader meaning)
    • Language reform
      • Political correctness
      • Standardisation (East midlands accent)
      • Codification
        • Samual Johnson's Dictionary 1755
    • Institutions of language
      • The Plain English Campaign
      • L'academie francaise

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