Language change

Bar graph study about changing meanings of the word 'awesome' in the UK

The graph showed that over 80% of up to 18 year olds believed the word 'awesome' to mean 'great', and 15% believing it to mean 'impressive'

On the other hand, around 50% of over 60 year olds think it means 'terrible', and 40% think it means 'impressive'

The wider the age gap, the more different the views of what the word 'awesome' means

This represents amelioration

He identified grammar rules:

• the pronoun 'thou' should no longer be used
• there should be differentiation between 'will' (a promise / threat) and 'shall' (to foretell)
• there should be differentiation among 'who', 'which' or 'that'
• there should be regularisation between 'who' and 'whom'
• prepositions should be 'before the noun to which they are applied'
• the infinitive verb should not be split
• multiple negation and multiple comparison is illogical

1. Damp spoon syndrome ie. language change is due to laziness

'the only truly lazy speech is drunken speech where alcohol affects coordination, and English is not getting like drunken speech'

2. Crumbling castle view ie. language is crumbling and needs to be preserved

'The English language was gradually and lovingly assembled until it reached a point of maximum splendour at some unspecified time in the past. Yet no year can be found when language achieved some peak of perfection, like vintage wine'

3. Infectious disease assumption 

'the spread of curruption may surely be ascribed to mere infection, to the careless, unthinking assimilation of the floating germs which envelop us'

'social contact can trigger a change only if it already likely to happen' 

'anomalies tend to get smoothed out'

Categorises the attitudes people may have to language use:

1. as incorrect or correct

2. as pleasant or unpleasant

3. socially acceptable or unacceptable

4. morally acceptable or unacceptable

5. appropriate in context or inappropriate

6. useful or useless

Change generally takes place over time, but political correctness involves a conscious process - The 5th category 'morally acceptable' is relevant, but it is rarely clear-cut and context is everything. While it is thought of as positive to see a word as 'correct', it is largely associated with the negative, as there is no neutral way of seeing a term

1. the spread change begins slowly - only affecting a few words

2. the change feature takes off when the innovation has spread to a certain no. of words

3. the rate of change spreads quickly

4. the rate of change slows down and begins to stablise

The S curve model can also be applied to the overlapping change features Aitchison refers to which suggest that large-scale changes can be smaller, inter-related changes

eg. 'Reem', to 'Fleek', to 'On-point'

This model also illustrates the way that 'old' and 'new' forms coexist until old forms are eventually lost

1. Movement of people

individuals, groups and even whole communities move from one place to another, bringing with them their own vocabulary. Through contact, the new words are picked up by other speakers and the overall vocab grows.

2. Technological change

new inventions need new names, eg. the 'cloud' used to store data is not a cloud in the sky, 'tablet' has been repurposed to mean small computers. 

neologisms / coinage, eg. google, also undergo conversion 'to google it'

3. Youth culture

the 1950s led to a spike in terms associated with youth culture, eg. 'rockers' 'hippies' 'skinheads' 'gangstas' 'emos' 'goths' 'metalheads'