English📖 > Variation Over Time🕰 > Flashcards

Variation Over Time🕰 Flashcards

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1
Q

When will the texts be from in the exam?🕰

A

1550 - present day

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2
Q

What is a good phrase to use in order to be tentative?🕰

A

As a modern reader…

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3
Q

When is the Early Modern English period?🕰

A

1550 - 1800

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4
Q

When is the late modern English period?🕰

A

1800 - present

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5
Q

What is it important to mention in the GAP?🕰

A

The time period - is it early or late modern English period?

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6
Q

What group of people helped create standardisation?🕰

A

Lexicographers and grammarians

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7
Q

What is a broad way of mentioning two different morphological features? (AO4)🕰

A

The morphology differs across the texts

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8
Q

What is standardisation?🕰

A
  • A process where the language became codified and uniformed
  • Effects were most prominent in the 18th century
  • Can mention whether the text is pre standardisation or post standardisation (or undergoing standardisation)
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9
Q

In early modern English times, what was the inflectional morpheme used instead of our modern day morpheme s? (Morphology)🕰

A

Th

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10
Q

What do we refer to the th and s morphemes as linguistically? (Morphology)🕰

A

Third person singular morphemes

  • Written as “s” and pronounced as /s/: gets, laughs, helps, thinks
  • Written as “s” and pronounced as /z/: brings, plays, seems, tells
  • Written as “s” and pronounced as /ɪz/: changes, increases, closes
  • Written as “es” and pronounced as /z/: studies, tries, vetoes
  • Written as “es” and pronounced as /ɪz/: focuses, pushes, reaches
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11
Q

‘Write’ as ‘writ’, ‘wrate’ and ‘wrote’ is an example of what? (Morphology)🕰

A

A variety of past tense forms

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12
Q

What can you say about different sentences? (Syntax)🕰

A

The syntax differs across the texts

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13
Q

In early modern English times, what syntactic feature did we se a lot of? (Syntax)🕰

A

Complex sentences and polysyndeton

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14
Q

Why did we se lots of complex sentences and polysyndeton in early modern English times? (Syntax)🕰

A

Longer sentences carried greater prestige

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15
Q

How can complex sentences and polysyndeton link to Grices Maxims? (Syntax) (AO2)🕰

A

As a modern reader we often value clarity over prestige; this means modern texts often adhere to the maxim of manner and quality

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16
Q

What did researcher Romaine say? (Syntax) (AO2)🕰

A

The discourse of the texts during the early modern English period were built on Latinate prestige forms, where lengthy and complex sentences were used

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17
Q

What can we say about the pronoun form ‘ye’? (Grammar)🕰

A
  • In early modern English, we saw the use of ‘you’ and ‘ye’ as pronoun forms
  • Ye is now archaic
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18
Q

What does archaic lexis mean? (Lexis)🕰

A

Old language, e.g. thou, thee and whence

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19
Q

What does obsolete lexis mean? (Lexis)🕰

A

Language/meanings that have died/no longer exist

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20
Q

What can be said about double negatives? (Grammar)🕰

A
  • Evident during the early modern English times
  • Only became a stigma in the 17th/18th centuries
  • Old English used many double negatives, so this remained in the language as a standard form
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21
Q

What do we mean by changing attitudes? (Pragmatics)🕰

A

How views and ideas change across time

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22
Q

What pragmatic feature can link with presupposition and semantic field? (Pragmatics)🕰

A

Changing attitudes

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23
Q

What is a good point to discuss if you notice a change in beliefs over time and how language changes as a result of this? (Pragmatics)🕰

A

Changing attitudes

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24
Q

If texts are linked by theme, what language feature could be a good linguistic feature to discuss? (Pragmatics)🕰

A

Changing attitudes

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25
How will the texts be linked?🕰
Genre or theme
26
Example of changing attitudes (Pragmatics)🕰
* 2 texts about theatres * Theatres were often frowned upon in the 16th century * Today, we see them much more positively
27
How can you broadly discuss lexis features? (Lexis)🕰
The lexis/prestige (etc) has changed across the texts
28
Explain the use of polysyllabic lexis (Lexis)🕰
Early modern English often made use of latinate lexis as this was seen as the language of prestige
29
What are features of latinate lexis? (Lexis)🕰
* Polysyllabic | * Lengthy
30
Explain the use of religious lexis (Lexis)🕰
The language often had many religious allusions as the majority of Britain was Christian during this time period
31
How can you approach unknown words? (Lexis)🕰
* Deduce them * Tentatively suggest etymology * Possibly apply semantic change (especially if definition is given)
32
What are the processes of semantic change? (Lexis)🕰
* Amelioration * Pejoration * Generalisation * Specialisation
33
Give an example of amelioration (Lexis)🕰
Dizzy •Used to mean stupid •Now means to have a whirling sensation
34
Give an example of pejoration? (Lexis)🕰
Spinster •Used to mean a female spinner of thread •Now negatively used for unmarried women
35
Give an example of generalisation (Lexis)🕰
Dog •Used to be a specific breed •Now applied to all breeds
36
Give an example of specialisation (Lexis)🕰
Deer •Used to mean all animals •Now used for a certain type of animal
37
Give examples of interchangeable graphemes (Orthography)🕰
* and v, e.g. deuil for devil * for j, e.g. periury for perjury * y for /i:/, e.g. gylty for guilty and tyme for time
38
What is the terminal e? (Orthography)🕰
e on the ends of words that are no longer present today, e.g. wee for we and sicke for sick
39
How is the terminal e often an accent indicator? (Orthography/phonology)🕰
Pronounced using the schwa on some words
40
When was the printing press established and by whom? (Context)🕰
15th century by William Caxton
41
What can we say about the printing press? (Context)🕰
* It was technological feature | * It contributed to standardisation as it created uniformity
42
What may we see in the 16th century? (Context)🕰
Variations of spelling and grammar rules
43
What do we mean by the term standardised?🕰
Creating a uniformed language
44
When was the first dictionary created and by whom? (Context)🕰
18th century by Samuel Johnson
45
When was the Renaissance? (Context)🕰
* Happened from the 14th century | * Reached height during the 15th and 16th centuries
46
What effect did the Renaissance have? (Context)🕰
* It enriched the English language * Borrowed many words from Latin, French and Greek * Also borrowed from classical mythology
47
How can type of semantic drift vary?🕰
* Old meanings can be forgotten * Context such as technology and wars, can impact a word’s meaning and production * Current slang can alter a word, e.g. a particular social group can take ownership of an existing word and change its meaning, e.g. ‘wicked’
48
Clipping (Lexis)🕰
•Apheresis: first part of a word is clipped -e.g. phone for telephone •Apocope: second part of the word is clipped -e.g. exam for examination
49
Derivation and Affixation (Lexis)🕰
* About building word’s through morphemes * Suffixing, e.g. happy -> happiness * Prefixing, e.g. happy -> unhappy
50
Example of derivation and affixation analysis🕰
The derivation of the abstract noun ‘happiness’ is made up of the root adjective ‘happy’ with the suffix ‘ness’
51
Blending/portmanteau (Lexis)🕰
* Fusing two words together to make a new one | * E.g. Oxford and Cambridge = Oxbridge
52
Compounds (Lexis)🕰
* Process of combining two words to create a coinage * Mainly involves noun + noun, e.g. football * Expect to see other variants, e.g. adjective + noun (blackboard) and preposition + verb (undercut) * New compounds often have hyphens - compounds may not last
53
Borrowing/loan words (Lexis)🕰
•Words we have taken from other languages, e.g. karaoke is a Japanese word •Many words are often food related, e.g. korma, sushi and feta -infer if given a recipe - suggest a possible country
54
Eponym🕰
* Name of a person after whom something is named * British monarchs are examples of this term because they are used throughout the English language for time periods, fashions, etc. * E.g. Victorian
55
Proprietary names (Lexis)🕰
* Associating a product with a brand name * A type of broadening associated with brands * E.g. calling all glue pritt-stick
56
The long /s/ (Orthography)🕰
* Demonstrates a change in orthography | * Now obsolete in the English language and was probably lost after the process of standardisation - printing press
57
How to apply the subjunctive mood to language change🕰
* Subjunctive seems to be dying out of the language * Expect to see its form in older texts to add greater formality, e.g. if the sauce be too thick * However contemporary English often chooses not to use it, e.g. I wish I WAS able to attend instead of I wish I WERE able to attend
58
Grammarian examples🕰
* Jonathon Swift * Samuel Johnson * Robert Lowth * Lindley Murray
59
What did we use the oblique stroke for?🕰
Replaced with the comma during the 16th century - may see texts using it as a comma
60
Use of apostrophes in the 19th century🕰
* Applied to possession * Missing letters/vowels in words when not pronounced, e.g. work’d * Applied to loan words such as banana’s * Last punctuation marker added to the language
61
Contractions🕰
* Varied * Proclitic contractions such as tis were common * In the 18th century there was a gradual shift to enclitic contractions such as it’s
62
Punctuation in today’s language🕰
•Texting, punctuation may be used to mark prosodic features -capitalisation may also produce this effect •Sometimes apostrophes are omitted in contractions particularly within the textese medium •Often limited capitalisation
63
How can texting show synchronic change🕰
Now have further technological advances such as autocorrect and apps like grammarly
64
Prescriptive grammar🕰
Prescribes rules governing what people should/shouldn’t say
65
Descriptive grammar🕰
Describes the rules that govern what people do or say
67
Samuel Johnson🕰
Made the dictionary in 1755
68
The doctrine of correctness🕰
•In the 18th century, rules began to be formulated, efforts began to be made to ‘fix’ the language -to determine what was right and what was wrong •We refer to this process of standardisation as the doctrine of correctness
70
Jonathon Swift🕰
* Proposed an authoritarian plan to improve, correct and ascertain the English tongue * There were several other grammarians of this time that held a very prescriptive approach like Swift * Links to Labov’s changes from above
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