English Language - Language Change Over Time
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- Created by: ellieknight1205
- Created on: 20-02-18 09:34
What are the 4 types of English and what dates were they apparent in?
Old English (449-1100), Middle English (1100-1500), Early Modern English (1500-17/1800), Late Modern English (17/1800-present day).
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What were the key events/publications in Middle English?
William Caxton bringing the printing press from Belgium to England (1476)
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What were the key events/publications during Early Modern English?
Shakespeare (late 1500s), King James Bible (1604), Johnathan Swift (1712), Dr Johnson's dictionary (1755), Robert Lowth (1762).
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What happened during both Middle English and Early Modern English?
The Great Vowel Shift (1400-1600)
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What were the key events/publications during Late Modern English?
Noah Webster (1828), Education Act (1870), Oxford dictionary (1928), Internet (1991).
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What type of lexis was being used in Old English?
French Language (10000 words).
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What type of lexis was being used during Middle English period?
French - Chaucer's work was 20-25% French.
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What type of lexis were they using in 1600s?
Influential of Europe as people travelled more, war terms, physics terms e.g. ravioli, vortex, anchor, formula, hydraulic.
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What type of words were they using in the 1700s?
American Independence in 1776, chemical words, rise of British Empire e.g. migrant, shampoo, sulphate.
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What type of words were they using in the 1800s?
Medicine based, science, beauty e.g. morphine, photograph, manicure.
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What types of words did they use in the 1900s?
Medical treatments, dance, compound words, entertainment e.g. aspirin, shimmy, dressage.
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What words did they use in the 2000s?
Taboo neologisms e.g. ***********, facepalm.
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What grammar did they use in the period of Old English?
Inflections at the end of words to give more info e.g. 'queen' would be spelt 'cwen' when it was the subject in a sentence.
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What grammar did they use in the period of Middle English?
Inflections died out and a fixed word pattern was established e.g. S-V-O. Modal auxiliaries were established and people continued to use double negatives.
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What grammar did they use during the period of Early Modern English?
Irregular verbs are found in archaic form e.g. digged/dug, Personal pronouns similar but with exceptions: singular: thou, thee, thine plural: ye/you, you, yours. Verb inflections too: 2nd person -est and 3rd person -eth.
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What grammar did they use during the period of Late Modern English?
Contractions were common (proclitic and endclitic), past participles were used, During 18th and 19th century value was placed on correct grammar which led to changed written style (long sentences, pompous lexis). Also, capitalisation, less double -s.
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What is compounding?
When 2 words are put together e.g. playground, football.
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What is blending?
When 2 words are mixed together e.g. brunch, hangry.
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What is acronymisation?
Putting the initials of a phrase together to make a word e.g. LOL.
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What is backformation?
E.g. neologism being television but applying rules to it to work out what the linking words would be e.g. televised.
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What is shortening/clipping?
When a word is cut to make it shorter e.g. banter to bants.
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What is conversion?
Changing a noun to a verb or a verb to a noun e.g. a hoover to to hoover.
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What is eponymy?
When something is named after the brand e.g. biro, hoover.
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What is amelioration?
When a word becomes more positive over time e.g. nice.
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What is pejoration?
When a word becomes more negative over time e.g. cunning
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What is narrowing?
When something acquires a more precise meaning over time e.g. girl, deer.
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What is broadening?
When a word means more than one thing (blanket term) e.g. car?
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What is semantic shift?
When the meaning of a word changes over time e.g. *******.
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What is neosemy?
New meaning of words over time.
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What is diachronic change?
Historical development of language?
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What is synchronic change?
Study of language at a set time period.
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What is political correctness?
The avoidance of forms of expression that are perceived to exclude groups of people.
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What is register drift?
When the way people talk changes.
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Why is the English Language so irregular?
Mix of languages e.g. French, Latin and Germanic, William Caxton, Great Vowel Shift, Webster's dictionary.
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When was the long S most popular?
1794
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When was the short S most common?
1801
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Why did it fall out of fashion?
??
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What did the simplified spelling movement do?
Founded in USA in 1906, in April they published a liat of 300 words. Roosevelt adopted this and ordered the government printing office to start using spellings. But, Dec 1906 the US congress passed a resolution and the old spellings were reintroduced
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What book did Robert Lowth write?
A short introduction to English grammar.
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What are his attitudes to English?
Prescriptivist grammarian.
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What were his key declarations?
Pronoun 'thou' shouldn't be used, should be difference between will and shall, never use spilt infinitive verb and multiple negation is illogical.
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What book did Johnathan Swift write?
A proposal for correcting, improving and ascertaining the English tongue.
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What are his attitudes to the English language?
Prescriptivist
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What were his key declarations?
There's vagueness in our language, unnecessary contractions, words 'invented by some pretty fellow', unnecessary complex polysyllabic words.
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When was Samuel Johnson's dictionary released?
1755
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What were his attitudes to the English language?
Went from being a prescriptivist to a descriptivist
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Why did this have such a big effect on orthography?
Because he gave language stability and realised he couldn't fix it so he changed purpose to just record language. Was a big achievement of one man and many definitions we still use today.
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What did Noah Webster release and when?
American dictionary of the English language in 1832
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What were his attitudes towards the English language?
??
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What was the key difference between the British and American English?
UK use -ise and USA use -ize.
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What are the key beliefs of a prescriptivist?
Creating rules that people should follow in order to use language properly, language should be spoken and written in a certain way and language change is language decay.
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Who are the key prescriptivists?
John Humphries, Lynne Truss, Johnathan Swift, Robert Lowth and partly Samuel Johnson.
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What are the strengths of prescriptivism?
We need a standard form in order to understand each other, allows teachers to assess children and children need to be exposed to it so they know how to code switch.
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What are the weaknesses of prescriptivism?
Interrupts natural language change, language change is happening no matter what, class based and focused around out of date rules.
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What are the key beliefs of a descriptivist?
They describe how language is used, believe that it can't be right or wrong, change is inevitable and they're interested in why it changes.
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Who are the key descriptivists?
David Crystal, Milroy and Milroy, Cameron, Aitchson and partly Samuel Johnson.
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What are the strengths of descriptivism?
Language change is inevitable, there are several forms of English and language is part of our identity (Crystal).
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What are the weaknesses of descriptivism?
Problematic as schools wouldn't know how to assess children, could get out of hand if no one regulates and we may not be able to understand each other.
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What are Aitchison's 3 metaphors for language change?
Damp spoon syndrome, crumbling castle and the infectious disease assumption.
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What is the damp soon syndrome metaphor?
Language changes because people are lazy like when people leave a damp spoon in the sugar bowl and they copy each other.
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What is the crumbling castle metaphor?
That the English language is like a beautiful castle that needs preserving.
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What is the infectious disease assumption?
That bad/poor language is caught like a disease from those around us.
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What did Donald MacKinnon look into?
The ways that people think about language and the categories they put it in.
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What are the categories?
Incorrect vs correct, pleasant vs ugly, socially acceptable vs unacceptable, morally acceptable vs unacceptable, appropriate in context and inappropriate and useful vs useless.
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What are the 5 language change theories?
Social bonding, natural law, James Milroy, Jean Aitchison's conflicting loyalties and Peter Trudgill.
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What is the social bonding theory?
Labov - differences in pronunciation signal social and cultural identity. We exaggerate pronunciation to fit in with a specific group.
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What is the natural law theory?
Language change is a natural process. Idealised form vs. low level deviation (spoken language). Changing how we speak to make it easier which then slowly changes how we write.
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What is the James Milroy theory?
There was never a golden age when people spoke properly that prescriptivists want to revert to.
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What is the Jean Aitchison's conflicting loyalties theory?
People change language according to who's around them. Can be conscious or not. Change because sometimes we get corrected and sometimes we don't so nobody knows fully how to speak.
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What is the Peter Trudgill theory?
Language change is inevitable and it's a result of social change. Neither good or bad. Only languages that don't change are dead.
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How many people worldwide speak English?
1.5 billion
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Why is English so widely spoken?
Because English is a lingua franca, because of the internet and because of the British Empire.
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What is pidgin?
Language that's developed so speakers of other languages can communicate, no native speakers and has a limited vocab.
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What's creole?
It's when pidgin develops into main language of communication. Has native speakers when people are raised speaking it and it has grammar rules.
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Who is Guy Deutscher?
Modern day prescriptivist.
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Who talks about Globish and what do they think about it?
Jean Paul Nerriere says that everyone should be able to communicate and he wants to help the French trade as he thinks it's unfair that English is the Lingua Franca.
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What does Spector say about the internet?
He says that if you want full use of the internet you should use English.
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What does Voronav say about the internet?
It's the 'ultimate act of intellectual colonialism'.
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What assumptions does Jennifer Jenkins make about English being the lingua franca?
1) Used by speakers of different languages to communicate. 2) It's an alternative to English as a foreign language rather than a replacement because English as a lingua franca is a necessity.
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What is Kachru's model?
Influential model for considering English as a global language.
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What is one disadvantage of Kachru's model?
It was prouced in 1992 so it may be outdated and not applicable anymore.
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What is the S-curve model and who was it developed by?
Chen 1968 - Describes progress of change. Any individual change will have it's origin in a fairly small group of users. Once it begins to catch on, growth is rapid and will reach plateau when everyone who would use it, is.
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What is the wave theory and who was it developed by?
Bailey 1973 - relates to spread of changes. Clear that change doesn't happen at once. The further someone is from change, the less likely they are to use it. 'Distance' from change may be geographical, temporal or social. Moves quickly then slows.
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What is the diffusion model and who was it developed by?
Aitchison - 1) potential stage 2) implementation stage 3) diffusion stage 4) codification.
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What is the random fluctuation model and who was it developed by?
Charles Hockett - Argues that words are weird and sometimes change just happens and it's random but the internet has contributed alot.
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What are the 5 stages of Schenider's dynamic model of English?
Foundation stage, exonormative stabilisation stage, nativisation stage, endonormative stabilisation, differentiation stage.
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What is the foundation stage?
Bought to a new territory which leads to bilingualism of the country. Starts with lexical borrowing and colonial expansion and trade e.g. 1066.
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What is the exonormative stabilisation stage?
An elite bilingualism spreads led by politically dominant country. England is established as the language of law, admin and education.
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What is the nativisation stage?
Bilingual speakers forge a new variety of English as ties with settlers country strengthen. As settlers establish inter-ethnic contact increases and a new English develops. Conservative speakers might resent this.
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What is the endonormative stabilisation stage?
After independence and inspired by the need for 'nation building' a new linguistic form is codified. All is accepted by society.
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What is the differentiation stage?
May follow with internal social group identities gaining importance and reflected in growth of dialects. Group specific varieties emerge leading to internal diversity.
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Other cards in this set
Card 2
Front
What were the key events/publications in Middle English?
Back
William Caxton bringing the printing press from Belgium to England (1476)
Card 3
Front
What were the key events/publications during Early Modern English?
Back
Card 4
Front
What happened during both Middle English and Early Modern English?
Back
Card 5
Front
What were the key events/publications during Late Modern English?
Back
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