Halliday’s functional theory
Coining
“language changes and adapts to the needs of its users”
- new words needs to be created in order to change with advancements in technology/culture
e.g. the large hadron collider
likewise, words become obsolete
e.g. ‘ballister’
Halliday’s functional theory
Semantic change
- using existing words, but with semantic change
e.g. mouse, virus, crash, bug are all reference to computers
Halliday’s functional theory
Graphology
- electronic communication has led to increased innovation in graphology
- used to convey short, demotic, ephemeral, phatic messages associated with speech
- they have developed away of signaling intonation and paralinguistic content that speech often relied on
Halliday’s functional theory
Change in Knowledge, understanding and ideas
- ‘carbicide’ was developed in the 2000s to mean the act of eating too many carbohydrate-rich foods, showing an increased understanding in dietetics
- similarly, nouns such as ‘cronut’ and verbs like ‘flexischooling’ have also used the act of combining to create new words
Criticisms of functional theory
- can’t explain why verb endings have changed, Old English used to have various verb inflections such as ‘est’ and ‘eth’ which we no longer use
- there has also been lexical change which has happened not due to necessity, such as the transition from ‘hound’ to ‘dog’
Sapir-Whorf Reflectionism
- argues that a person’s language reflects, and is determined by, their way of thinking
- so, a person who uses racial slurs is inherently racist
Sapir-Whorf Determinism
- the idea that, if people can be persuaded to use more socially acceptable language, this will gradually dictate their way of thinking
- as this determines a new way of thinking, it acts as the basis of political correctness
Steven Pinker’s criticism of Sapir-Whorf
- Steven Pinker argues that thought is independent of language entirely
- Human beings do not think in any ‘natural language’ (a language in which we communicate/converse in) but instead in a ‘meta-language’ called ‘mentalese’
Steven Pinker’s Euphemism Treadmill
- the use of existing words, such as ‘coloured’ in a negative context eventually pejorates them, until they become socially unacceptable
- this can cause prejudice against people who aren’t necessarily bigoted, but just unaware of language change
Donald Mackinnon
- claimed that language change is caused by users’ attitudes to language such as whether a variation is:
- socially acceptable or unacceptable
- morally acceptable or unacceptable
- useful or useless
Movement of people
Grammar and Syntax
- Old English used to be a highly inflected language
- after the Norman invasion, a lot of the verb endings became obsolete, as conquered languages often simplify due to the reduction of second-language speakers
- English used to be a synthetic language, using endings to show function rather than order (analytic language)
“Cwen slaith mann” - man killed woman
“Cwene slaith mann” - woman killed man
Movement of people
Phonology
- The Great Vowel Shift (1400-1600)
- perhaps due to population shift in England, as a consequence of the black death
- ‘ʃi:p’ became ‘ʃeɪp’
John Wells
Movement of people
Contemporary Phonological change
Estuary English
use of the glottal stop /?/ in ‘water’ and photograph
- John Wells attributed this to increased social and geographical mobility in Britain
MUE
British variety
‘a:sk’ becomes ‘a:ks’ (metathesis)
Movement of people
Labov’s substratum theory
- small groups of immigrants effecting the overall language
- / ): / cawfee
- Jewish New Yorkers, recently arriving in America pronounces coffee distinctively, that distinctive variety became associated with NY people and spread
Criticisms of Labov’s substratum theory
- can’t explain the loss of verb endings ‘es’ / ‘eth’
- can’t explain the lesser vowel shift
Lave and Wegner
Communities of Practice
- groups who share in activity
- GG > Good Game
- ‘noob’ > Newbie
- they mark ‘in group’ status
- usually tend to keep the language into themselves, rarely enters he mainstream
Labov Change from Above
- change that’s imposed by an authority
e.g. crimes associated with ethnic or religious language, for example, increases the sentence
e.g. Academie Francaise (Governing body > set the rules ‘the weekend’ is most commonly used but they propose ‘fin de semain’)
Hockett’s Random fluctuation and Transmission
- the world changes randomly and sporadically, therefore language has to change with it
e.g. on older phones, ‘cool’ would automatically correct to ‘book’, so for a while ‘book’ semantically broadened to mean cool - a group will decide they like that language innovation, and use it, it then transmits through culture
Criticisms of Random Fluctuation theory
- language doesn’t change randomly
e.g. ‘I will snap you’ > ‘I snapped you’ - new verbs tend to be weak with a past tense ‘ed’
Halliday’s Lexical gap Theory
- words are created to ‘fill a gap’ where words do not currently exist
- lexical gaps can be used as a way of predicting possible directions language may go in the future
- lexical gaps can be identified by using other languages
e.g. German - Kummerspeck ‘grief bacon’
Goodman and Fairclough
Informalisation
- Sharon Goodman claimed we are living in a time of increased informalization, language that was traditionally reserved for personal relationships is now used in wider social contexts
-Norman Fairclough said that spoke language has now risen in status and prestige as a more informal written language has risen in usage
e.g. Lady Chatterley’s lover was banned in the 1930s for a swear word
‘Four weddings and a funeral’, a mainstream film used this word 38x in one scene
Aitchinson
Metaphors
articles about language change have one of three discourses:
- ‘damp spoon’ changes due to the laziness of speakers
- ‘crumbling castle’ - there was once a time where english was perfect and this needs to be preserved
- ‘infectious disease’ - proposes that language is ‘contagious’ and we pick it up from new people, e.g. migrants
Guy Deutscher
proposes three reasons for language change:
Economy - some things are simply more efficient e.g. ‘dunno’
Expressiveness - to place emphasis e.g. ‘by all means’ instead of just yes
Analogy - irregularities in grammar overtime become more regular, e.g. 14th century ‘eyen’ was replaced by eyes
Dan Jurafsky
Semantic Bleaching
humans tend to naturally exaggerate so over time words lose their original, more intense meaning
‘wonderful’ - inspiring awe
‘terrible’ - something truly horriffic
