Language Change

Neologism - a new word

Why new words are formed:

• Internet and technology
• Slang/colloquialisms because of modernistic expression
• Compounds/blends
• Inventors of new words (e.g. Shakespeare)
• Imperialisation/invasion and the borrowing of words from other cultures
• Derivations from ancient languages
• Adoption of words with associated prestige
• Acronyms

Loan Word - a word that has been adopted from another language (e.g. cafe from the french)



Affixation - the addition of bound morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) to an exitsting word (e.g. sudden + ly = suddenly)

Acronym - a word formed from inital parts (letters, syllables) (e.g. NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration)

Initalism - a group of initals used to form a word, with the letters pronouced seperately (e.g. BBC British Broadcasting Company)

Clipping - forming words by dropping one or more syllables from a polysyllabic word (e.g. influenza flu)

Eponyms - name of something after whom something is named (e.g. a sandwhich is named after Lord Sandwhich)

Proprietry Names - something named after a brand (e.g. vacuum cleaner made by hoover, now called hoover)

Compound - two words put together to form a new word in its entirety (e.g. girl + friend = girlfriend)

Blending - two words mixed together to make a new word (e.g. smoke + fog = smog)

Archaisms - words that are obsolete and no longer used by general population

Broadening - a word's meaning becomes more general but retains some of its original meaning (e.g. rubbish = rubble but also now means anything worthless)

Narrowing - a word's meaning becomes more specific (e.g. starve 16th century - to die of hunger, modern - to be really hunrgy)

Amelioration - a word acquires more favourable connonations or positive meaning (e.g. success used to mean simply a result but now means a good result)

Pejoration - a word acquires less favourable connotations or negative meaning (e.g. gaudy used to mean brilliant and cheerful but now means tasteless)

Weakening - words lose some of their original force or strength over time (e.g. swear words)

Metaphor - words often acquire new meaning because they begin to be used metaphorically - the representation of words change

Idiom - a group of words whose meaning cannot be interpreted from the meaning of the constituent words (e.g. 'cat out of the bag')

Eupehmism - a polite expression for for things too inappropriate to talk about directly (e.g. collateral damage - killing hundreds of people)

Political Correctness - some change has risen from this, when words and phrases with negative meaning have been changed (e.g. mentally handicapped changed to learning difficulties)

Spelling complexities:

• Homonyms - same spelling, same sound, different meaning (e.g. stalk (verb)/stalk (noun))
• Homophone - same sound, different spelling, different meaning (e.g. weight and wait)
• Vowel sounds spelt differently (e.g. 'a' and 'eigh' and 'ay')

The long 'S' - used at the end of a word/ before an apostrophe/ before or after the letter 'f' if not hyphenated

Omission - sounds disappear from words (e.g. 'football - fooball)

Assimilation - Pronounciation of one phoneme affected by an adjacent phoneme (e.g. don't you - donchu)

Val Speak - from California in 80s/90s, rising intonation and emphasisers such as 'like', 'totally' etc.- lack of confidence, filler when struggling in conversation

Martha's Vineyard - an island where it was found by William Labov that local fishermen deliberately diverged from tourists to distinguish themselves.

Estuary English - a form of speaking derived from the estuary of the Thames, used commonly modern to downplay privilege, standard english with a certain accent and features common to the South of England when spoken

Features that may have changed:

• Overall layout - focus on appealing areas, sacn for content we seek
• Font/typeface - printed press changes handwritten, expands with technology
• Bold/italics/underlining - emphasis, more common with technology
• Upper and Lower case letters
• Visual symbols - e.g. ;) or emoticons
• Individual letter may now be used as symbols - X , a kiss, adult, wrong answer
• Illustration - line drawing previous, now coloured images due to improved technology
• Colours in text - symbolism of feeling, emphasis etc.

• Adverbs have changed position (e.g. the ripest fruit first falls)
• We now use contractions (e.g. Will not it be a good plan? - Won't)
• Change in word order (syntax), particularly pronouns (e.g. Dreadful stories they were - the were dreadful stories)
• Now use auxillary verb 'do' (e.g. she wanted not to go - she didn't want to go)

Modern:

• Started to replace adverbs with adjectives (e.g. you've done great)
• Irregular verbs still changing (e.g. I've wrote it)
• Pronouns - 'whom' being replaced with 'who'

Prescriptivism - an attitude which makes judgements on what's right or wrong and holds language to an ideal, maintained standard (e.g. The Apostrophe Society)

Descripticism - an attitude which seeks to describe the change of language without judging

Jane Aitchinson's Three Metaphors:

• The Damp Spoon Syndrome - language changes because people are lazy and want the easiest, most concise language possible
• The Crumbling Castle View - Language is beautiful and should be preserved
• The Infectious Disease Assumption - 'bad' language is caught from others who use the same language