Language Change Points

Created by: Sess
Created on: 05-04-14 11:16

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Language Changes!
- Grammar
  - Capitalisation
    - Capitals were given to personal or abstract nouns or any noun that was important.
    - This died out in the late 18th century
  - Negation
    - Occurred after auxiliary verb, not before.
  - Syntax
    - Structure of sentences may vary from modern texts
  - Lowth
    - Stated that ending in a preposition was inappropriate for formal language
      - e.g. what did you ask for?
    - Stated that double negation was incorrect
      - e.g. I dont do nothing
    - A double superlative is poor grammar
      - e.g. the most unkindest cut of all
  - Auxiliary verbs
    - Tended to be more commonly used
  - Superlatives
    - E.g. properest were grammatically acceptable
  - Contractions
    - Contractions were used up till Jonathan Swift claimed they were improper. As a result they went out of fashion in the 18th century
      - Past participles were contracted to show that last syllable isnt pronouned
        e.g. Disturb'd
      - Proclitic contractions are less used in PDE
        e.g. 'twas
- Graphology
  - Appearance of letters
    - Nouns were capitalised in old texts
      - e.g. Present Day English
    - A special symbol was used for 's' that occured anyway but the end of the word
  - Typefaces
    - Up till the 20th century, serif typefaces were used
    - After the 20th century, sans-serif fonts became popular
  - Pictures
    - Are they printed??
    - Are they handwritten?
- Lexical Change
  - Coining
    - A new word is called a 'Neologism'
    - The scientific process (advancements in medicine, science, technology) can cause new words and phrases to be invented
  - Borrowing
    - English contains many borrowings or loan words
  - Affixiation
    - New prefixes and suffixes are added
      - Usually Latin or Greek. e.g. hyper (greek)
  - Compounding
    - A combination of two words to create one new word
      - e.g. thumb and print make thumbprint
  - Blending
    - Two words are actually merged together
      - e.g. satnav is a blend of satellite and navigation
  - Conversion
    - When an existing word changes class
      - e.g. text, to text
  - Shortening
    - Clipping
      - When you drop 1 or more syllables to create an abbreviation
        e.g. rents instead of parents
    - Initialism
      - Where the first letter of a word stands for the word itself
        e.g. OTT is over the top
    - Acronyms
      - Initial letters of words combine to create a completely new word
        e.g. WAGs formed from 'wives and girlfriends'
    - Back-Formation
      - A suffix has been removed to create a new term
        e.g. baby-sit from baby-sitter
  - Eponyms
    - Words derived from names of people
      - e,g, Braille, Sandwich
  - Proprietary names
    - The name given to a product by an organisation becomes the common name
      - e.g. hoover, tampax
- Influence of other countries
  - Latin
    - Fancy, scientific words tend to be latinate to sound more impressive
  - French
    - Responsible for silent 'b' in words such as debt
    - French words co-exist alongside english ones
      - e.g. pork/pig, beef/cow
  - Arabic
    - Our modern numeral system stems from Arabic, as well as a number of words
  - Norse/ Celtic
    - Norse words were usually to do with everyday outdoor objects
      - e,g, window/sky
    - Celtic wordds tended to be to do with family/ relationships
  - America's creation
    - American cultural is more widely influential than British culture
    - America has a number of lexims different to England
      - e.g. Gas/petrol, Fall/Autumn
- Semantic Change
  - Archaisms
    - Occur when their referrers are no longer used.
      - e.g. Telegram has fallen out of fashion due to tech advancement
  - Amelioration
    - Words develop a more positive meaning over time
      - e.g. nice used to mean foolish
  - Perjoration
    - Words develop a more negative meaning over time
      - e.g. Mistress used to mean teacher, now means girlfriend of a married man
  - Broadening
    - The definitions of words can expand to include more meanings than their original meaning
      - e.g. 'Gay' used to mean happy but has expanded to include homosexuality and is sometimes used as a derogatory word
  - Narrowing
    - A word can change to lose parts of its original meaning
      - e.g. meat used to mean food but now only refers to animal flesh.
  - Colloquialisms
    - Can give new meanings to established words e.g. 'safe' is slang for approval
  - Weakening
    - A word's meaning can have less of an impact over time
      - e.g. terrible used to mean something that inspires terror but now just means something bad
- Orthography
  - Phonological change
    - E at the end of each word used to be pronounced but now isnt
  - Technological change
    - Printing press encouraged standarisation of spelling as this enables mass printing
    - Letters may be dropped by printers/ texters to fit neatly in space provided
  - Standardisation
    - Occurred through publication of many dictionaries and grammar books
- General influences on language
  - Science and medicine
  - Classical languages (Latin, Greek)
  - Attitudes to class and social roles
  - Industrialization and new inventions
  - British Empire
  - Travel
  - Technology
  - Americanism
  - Globalisation
  - World Wars
  - Attitudes to gender, sexuality, ethnicity
  - Youth sociolects
- Pragmatics
  - Language is sensitive to attitudes etc.
    - What appears to be taboo, is this different now?
    - Sexual/ lavatorial language is less taboo
    - Blasphemy was the highest form of taboo in old texts
  - We have become more aware of 'political correctness'
    - More unmarked verisions of words have been created.

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Language Change Points

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