Language change & Attitudes Flashcards by Kira Makarenko

Substratum theory is

When languages come into contact they influence each other

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Old English

450-1066AD

Britain invaded by Angles, Jutes, Saxons and Frisians (Anglo-Saxons)

Brought Germanic language- Englisc
Vikings invaded

Latin less popular

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Middle English

1066-1476

Norman French invasion (William the Conqueror) in 1066

Ruling classes spoke French

Others spoke English/Celtic

Lexical expansion from borrowings

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Early modern English

1476- 1700

Caxton’s printing press in 1476

Shakespeare 15/16

Tudor/Stuart

Bible in English

Inkhorn debate

Scientific breakthroughs

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Contemporary English

2000-present

Influenced by technology and media

Immigration has led to a more multi-cultural
society

Celebrity culture does not value educational standard

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Modern/ Late Modern English

1700-2000

The Industrial Revolution

Jane Austen

Charles Dickens

Improved trade, transport and travel

Rapidly improving literacy

Dictionaries and grammarians

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Etymology is

Study of the origin and evolution of words

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Reasons for language chnage

Fashion

Globalisation (travel), immigration, invasion

New inventions

Obsolete inventions drop out- archaic words

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John Humprys

Prescriptivist

Technology is ruining English directly

English is decaying, we have passed the “golden age”- I h8 txt msgs article

“Pillaging our punctuation, savaging our sentences, raping our vocabulary”

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Sapir- Whorf hypothesis

Person’s perception of the world can be influenced and determined by the way they speak

Example:

Construction of gender- many languages are “gendered”, creating word associations that pertain to roles of men and women in society

Perception of time- how tenses are structured may dictate how people perceive the concept of time (Ukrainian: 3; English: 12)

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Obsolete is

No longer produced

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Orwell

Prescriptivist

Language can shape the way we speak (Sapir-Whorf hypothesis)

(Newspeak, 1984 novel). Thus we must keep it clean from jargon and vague expressions

“Politics and the English language”

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Coinage is

New invention

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Lynn Truss

Prescriptivist

Eats (,) Shoots and Leaves

“Grammar Nazi”

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Divergent is

Different

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Jean Aitchison Web of Worries

Damp spoon: we have become lazy with language

“the only truly lazy speech is drunken speech, and English is not getting like drunken speech”

Infectious disease: changes are like germs which spread like infections through language

Crumbling castle: English had a golden age/ perfect state that has been ruined

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David Crystal

Descriptivist

Tide metaphor: language is like a tide, throwing out and taking in lexis or grammatical structures. Some permanently, some momentarily

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Creole is

stable natural language developed from a mixture of different languages.

A complete language, used in a community and acquired by children as their native language.

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Pidgin is

A simplified form of creole, developed as a means of communication between 2+ groups

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Lindsay Johns

Liberal prescriptivist

Language is power, and by using non-standart English, young people are in danger of not being highly regarded when applying for university or a job

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Inkhorn controversy

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16-17th century debate

Neologizers like Thomas Elyott : promoted the use of borrowings from Greek and Latin in order to make English language more diverse and allow deep philosophical, scientific discussions

Criticisms:
Purists John Cheke and Thomas Wilson opposed it as it would alienate ordinary people

Random fluctuations theory

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Charles Hockett 1955

Language is a result of random events; is unstable- change is not always logical or necessary

Martha’s Vineyard

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1) William Labov 1963

2)Massachusetts, New England (isolated from American mainland). Beautiful nature- popular with rich visitors

3) Young local men started copying old fisherman to sound less like mainland tourists (Covert prestige)

4) Most islanders used vernacular vowels (despite having higher education)

5) Men used covert prestige more than women- pack identity; preservation of the heritage

6) Small group of fisherman began to exaggerate a tendency existing in their speech subconsciously to establish themselves as independent and superior

7) Accent/ Dialect levelling

8) In England- Scouse and Mank. Young people seek to define themselves as a group outside their gender and class- MLE is getting more exaggerated. Working class is uses accent to rebel

Labov (Martha’s Vineyard) 7 key evaluative points

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1) People are acting out of identity

2) Covert-prestige

3)Exaggeration= pride i heritage

4) Sense of belonging is crucial

5)Language is an obvious sign of difference an separation

6) Rebellion against class oppression reflects in sociolect

Henry Faifel- Social Identity Theory

1) 3 stages: Categorisation, Identification, Comparison 2) Identities are fluid and language can establish them 3) Maslow's hierarchy of needs: basic needs influence sense of identity 4) Connection in the group leads to validation

Paul Kershwill

Work on MLE and Dialect levelling Shows how social mobility and multicultural communities can shape new sociolects (Best to use with Cheshire)

Jenny Cheshire

Reading (1982) playground study. Teenagers’ use of non-standard grammar linked to peer group values and toughness. Language as a marker of group loyalty.

Sue Fox

MLE research. Young people from diverse ethnic backgrounds converging on shared linguistic features.

Peter Trudgill- descriptivist

Norwich study Lower class are more likely to use non-standart forms (he go) Language use moves along a spectrum, with higher social classes closer to "prestige varieties," - more correct or standard. (women use more overt prestige) Women tend to overestimate their use of standart forms when asked

Milroy (Lesley & James Milroy)

Belfast studies. Social networks theory: dense, tight-knit networks maintain non-standard features. Weaker networks → more standard forms.

Penelope Eckert

Jocks and Burnouts study. Teen language linked more to social practices than traditional class. Introduced Communities of Practice.

David Crystal wardrobe metaphor

Language is like a wardrobe- where language can be chosen or adapted based on the occasion. Language is a tool for presentation and can be changed to suit different social contexts Language is a unique form of self-expression, that is flexible and adaptive, not uniform

Substratum theory is

language is influenced by other languages it comes into contact with

Neologism is

Newly coined word/ expression

Compounding is

Putting two words together to create a new word eg. ‘laptop’, ‘headache’

Blending is

Taking elements of two or more other words and putting them together to create a new word eg ‘bromance’, ‘jeggings’

Acronym is

initials that can be pronounced as a single word eg. ‘scuba’, ‘laser’, ‘lol’

Initialism is

Pronounced as separate letters eg. ‘FYI’, ‘BBC’

Abbreviation types

Clipping - removing the front, end or middle of a word eg. ‘fridge’, ‘pram’ Adding prefixes eg. ‘unfriend’ Adding suffixes eg. ‘hipsterism’, ‘storify’ Adding infixes eg. ‘Hoo-bloody-ray’

Conversion is

Stealing from another word class With Facebook came the verb ‘to friend’ With mobile phones came the verb ‘to text’

Functional Theory is

Language changes according to the needs of its users

Random fluctuation Theory

Language changes as a result of ‘random’ events Language is unstable and susceptible to change Change is not always logical or necessary

Amelioration is

a word/phrase acquires a more positive meaning or connotations eg. ‘sick’

Pejoration is

Word/phrase develops more negative connotations eg. ‘silly’ (originally ‘blessed’, now ‘stupid’)

Broadening is

Word acquires more meanings or a wider meaning eg. ‘gay’, ‘hoover’

Narrowing is

word becoming more specific in meaning eg. ‘meat’ used to mean all food

Change from below vs above

Below- from the general public (slang) Above- enforced by authority

Phonological change

Should have’ begins to be pronounced as ‘should’ve’, due to the increasing speed of talk People mishear ‘should’ve’ as ‘should of’ This has now become a grammatical change in Contemporary English

Lesley Milroy

Social network theory, Descriptivist Correlation between linguistic variation and a speaker’s integration in a social network. Closed vs Open networks

Open networks cause

Dialect levelling

James Milroy

Descriptivist, Sociolinguistic theory Language always changes with social groups- it is impossible to standardise

Language change & Attitudes Flashcards

(51 cards)