Modelling change
Aitchison (2013)
You can categorise prescriptivist views in three ways:
* Crumbling castle view – English was once a perfect structure which is now ruined.
* Damp spoon syndrome – Changes to language are a result of laziness and disrespect.
* Infectious disease assumption – change spreads like a plague and should be avoided.
Modelling change
Haugen (1966)
Came up with a four-stage process to standardisation:
- Selection – Language is selected, usually prestigious.
- Codification – Reduction of internal variability, establishment of norms
- Elaboration – language is developed for a variety of purposes.
- Implementation – The standard language is given currency by making texts in it.
Modelling change
Donald Mackinnon (1996)
Came up with 6 ways that people can view language.
Very black and white.
* Correct or incorrect
* Pleasant or ugly
* Socially acceptable or socially unacceptable
* Morally acceptable or morally unacceptable
* Appropriate in context or inappropriate in context.
* Useful or useless.
Modelling change
Halliday’s functional theory
- Language changes to meet the needs of the speaker.
- For example, when there is lots of technological change, lots of new terms are coined as the speakers need them.
Modelling change
Substratum theory
Language changes primarily through contact with other countries.
Modelling change
Bailey’s wave model
- A change starts in geographical centre and ripples out geographically.
- The closer you are to the centre, the quicker you will adopt to the change.
Modelling change
Trughill - criticises Bailey’s wave model
Challenges the ‘wave model’, arguing that often smaller villages and towns get missed out of these changes as they spread from city to city.
Modelling change
Chen
The ‘s-curve’ model
This model looks at how changes move from inception to mass usage.
- the change is new and only in use amongst certain social groups.
- the change has gained some traction and there are a few people using it now.
- many people are now using the change.
- everyone who is going to adopt the change is using it.
An example of this would be ‘brexit’. Initially only experts were using the term, then the media started using it, this then caused mass public usage, and eventually all of the UK is using it and it has multiple purposes and is used in multiple different ways.
Modelling change
Aitchison - PIDC
Language change is a process of PIDC:
* Potential: there is room for a change
* Implementation: the change takes place
* Diffusion: the change spreads
* Codification: the change becomes recognised. For example, being added to the dictionary.
Modelling change
Crystal’s tide metaphor
Language change is like the tide washing things onto a beach. The tide will sometimes wash things ashore - sometimes these things stay for a long time and sometimes they will be washed away again. This is just like changes made to language.
Language change
Language Change - Key terms
(6)
- Prescriptivism – belief that language should be prevented from changing.
- Descriptivism – belief that all language varieties are positive.
- Archaic – old and out-dated
- Codification – a change becomes officially recognised.
- Strong verbs – verbs which change when changing tense – swim to swam.
- Weak verbs – verbs which take an inflection when changing tense – walk to walked.
Language change
George Orwell
“Our existing spelling system is preposterous and must be a torment to foreign students. This is a pity, because English is well fitted to be the universal second language if there ever is such a thing.”
* Suggests that the English language is faulty due to variation in orthography
Language change
Examples of inconsistencies in spelling
- “school” and “schedule” – spelt the same but pronounced differently.
- “dawn” being spelt differently to “horn”.
- ‘fish’ could be spelt like ‘ghoti’ – taking the ‘gh’ from ‘enough’, the ‘o’ from ‘women’ and the ‘ti’ from ‘potion’
Language change
Examples of attempts to ‘fix’ language
(6)
- 1476 – Caxton’s printing press
- 1755 – Johnson’s dictionary
- 1832 – Noah Webster’s spelling reforms in America
- 1908 – The English Spelling Society
- 1928 – Oxford English Dictionary
- 1988 – National Curriculum
Language change
Spelling inconsistencies
(4)
- Caxton’s desired to regularise spelling, believing if he was to produce texts, he could establish a spelling system. However, his printing press was missing certain sounds – ‘th’, and ‘gh’ which explains the spelling of certain words today.
- Spelling reformists split into two camps those who thought we should invent new letters to reflect the different sounds and those who thought we should simplify.
- Noah Webster’s spelling reforms in America
- The English Spelling Society – 1908 – wanted to produce a simplified spelling system to address inconsistencies and make English easier to learn.
Language change
The great vowel shift.
1450 - 1700
A gradual process in which the production of vowels was raised so that the position of the tongue moved closer to the roof of the mouth.
* E.g “blod” in middle English turned to “blood” and later spelt “blud”, reflecting the move to a longer vowel.
Language change
The inkhorn controversy
1500s
Concern was raised over the high numbers of lexis (inkhorn terms) which were being imported from Latin and Greek.
Language change
The Industrial Revolution
(2)
- The rise in industry caused mass migration and so new regional accents began to develop.
- For example, the Liverpudlian accent stems from Irish migration.
Language change
The British Empire
Started colonising and acquiring new words from places they visited.
Technological change
Technological change key terms
(5)
- Abbreviations. E.g ‘cuz’
- Initialisms. E.g ‘lmao’
- Acronyms. E.g ‘lol’
- Emojis
- Non-standard punctuation. E.g ‘no way!!!’
Technological change
Changes
(2) + (2)
Abbreviations
* Became more common in text and slipped into verbal dialogue.
* Old SMS had character limits leading to abbreviations
Radio
* Development of the radio to transmit and broadcast ideas.
* Development of RP (received pronounced), BBC accent, and new vocab in sports commentary, news reading, weather forecasting.
Technological change
Tagliamonte (2012)
- Investigated the use of laughter in 15 to 20 yrs messages.
- Frequency of ‘lol’ decreased as the subject got older.
- Frequency of ‘hehe’ decreased, but use of ‘haha’ displaced ‘lol’ as the adolescence got older showing age graded variation.
Technological change
Ling (2015)
Investigated differences between men’s and women’s texts
Women:
* Longer
* More complex
* More likely to include salutations
* More emotional context
* More emojis and abbreviations.
Men:
* Limited to one sentence / word / thought
* Practical
* Non-standard forms of English
Technological change
David Crystal
(2)
- Argues that language is still very similar after technological development.
- Only 10% has changed.
