English Language Change

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  • Language Change
    • Contemporary English 1990-
      • Growing influence of popular culture and technology
        • Rapid emergence and loss of neologisms
          • 'Conveyor belt'
      • Increasing informality
      • Why are these processes at work?
        • Individuality and Identity
        • Membership of a group
        • Emphasis and Emotion
        • Quicker communication
        • Trends and fashion
        • Humour and Playfulness
    • Modern English 1800 - 1990
      • National provision of education
        • RP taught as standard pronunciation
          • Spread of standard variety of English
        • Education for all, compulsory up to age of 12
          • Lessened class gap
        • Improved literacy rates
      • The history of the Oxford English Dictionary
        • Growing descriptive attitude to record new words
        • During rapid expansion of English Language
          • Increased influx of language from around the world
            • Through colonialism, trade and travel
          • Existing words change meaning, through broadening or narrowing
          • Words lost meaning or became rarer (noted by OED)
        • First installment in 1884
          • Only logged up to letter A
          • Aim: log every word since 11th Century
          • Noted pronunciation, spelling, usage, multiple meanings, etymology and shift in meanings
      • Journalism and Broadcasting
        • 18th Century - First newspaper
        • Industrial Revolution - mass print production
        • Beginning of 19th Century - nationwide newspapers
          • Implemented standard English and accelerated linguistic change
        • Early 20th Century - Public broadcasting (TV and Radio)
          • RP ('BBC accent') considered to be proper way to speak, lack of represented regional variety
            • Descriptivist linguistics began to recognise the validity of English varieties, that none are 'corrupt'
      • Cultural dominance of English as a World Language
      • Rise and fall of prescriptive grammarians
    • Early Modern English 1450 - 1750
      • 1476 - Caxton's Printing Press
        • Spreads standardised English
          • There was still variation from SE in each text (due to individual printer's lack of education)
        • Reproduction and circulation of texts for the masses
          • Spread literacy
          • Ordinary people can now look at texts
        • Emulated South East language (most socially and economically regarded)
        • Texts in English (rather than French or Latin)
        • Prescriptivism began
      • Context
        • Improving transport and trade around country
        • Low levels of literacy for poor
        • No formal schooling for the poor
      • The Grammarians (wrote prescriptivist texts)
        • John Hart (1551) - The Opening of the Unreasonable Writing of Our Inglish Toung
        • Bullokar - 'A Brief Grammar of English'
        • Imposed their view of 'correctness' on others
          • Feared the destruction of English's latinate structure
          • Grammarians' latinate rules
            • Multiple negation
            • Functions of 'do'
            • Preposition stranding
            • Split infinitives
            • Periphrases
              • Untitled
      • Lexical Expansion
        • Shakespeare
        • Readings from King James' Bible
      • Inkhorn Controversy (16th and 17th Cent)
        • Writers (e.g. Marlowe) brought Latin and Greek words into English Language
        • Linguistic purists (e.g. John Cheke and Thomas Wilson) hated inclusion of foreign words
        • English considered to be too large and awkward already
      • Dictionaries, a prescriptivist form
        • Writer’s values in inclusion of certain semantics, orthography, grammatical form and phonology
        • Robert Cawdrey’s A Table Alphabetical was the first dictionary published solely in English in 1604
        • Johnson's Dictionary of the English Language in 1755
      • Great Vowel Shift (1350-1500)
        • Peculiarities of English spelling, with regards to value of long vowels
    • Influence on Language Change
      • Historical Events
        • War
        • Disease
        • Industrial change
        • Political change
        • Natural and manmade disasters
      • Generational Transfer
        • Families transmit and shape our language
        • Intercultural marriage gives wider varieties
      • Social Factors
        • Social Class
        • Gender
        • Sexuality
        • Ethnicity
        • Occupation
      • Technological Advancement
      • Education and Politics

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