Language Change

Prescriptive vs Descriptive

P = belief that language should be prevented from change

D = belief that all language change is positive

Blending

Taking parts of two words and mixing (Brexit)

Clipping

Removing part of word (exam/examination)

Conversion

Word changes class (Google, from noun to verb Googling)

Borrowing

New words brought in from different languages (Blitz from German)

Neologisation

New invented word (Mx)

Amelioration

Word gains positive meaning

Bleaching

Word loses meaning or power (crap/wicked)

Derogation

Word gains a negative meaning

*Caxton

Brought printing press to England, made decisions on spellings and orthography, became fixed as a result

*Wycliffe and *Tyndale

W - translated Bible from Latin to English

T - Translated Bible more successfully

The Great Vowel Shift

Long vowel sounds moved from front of mouth to back

• Sounds became dipthongs

• Moose became mouse

*Johnson

Published 1755 dictionary

• 40k words and spellings

Lingua Franca

Language adopted as a common language between native speakers whose language is different

• can be explained through colonisation and the British Empire

Aitchison’s metaphors (descriptivist)

Damp spoon - Change is as a result of laziness

Crumbling castle - English was once something grand, now ruined

Infectious disease - Change spreads like a plague.

Hitchings

ALL prescriptive views are proxy arguments for something else

Halliday’s Functional theory

Language changes due to its’ users changing their needs

• With tech, as we need new words to describe something, we can invent them

Hockett - Random Fluctuation

Mistakes in language are made and become codified

• Fuck to duck through text

Substratum theory

Language changes primarily through contact with other countries

• not ALL changes

Lexical gaps theory

New words enter language when we need to express something but there is no word for it

• increased with new tech

Bailey and Trudgill - Wave Model

B - Change starts in geographical centre and ripples out, adopting change quicker if in centre

T - Disputed this, smaller villages will miss out on changes as they only spread to large cities

Chen’s S-Curve

1. Change is new

2. Change gained traction and few people using

3. Many people using change

4. Everyone who is going to adopt it is now using it

   • Will NEVER be the case as people will always resist change

Aitchison’s PIDC Model

Potential - Room for change

Implementation - Change takes place

Diffusion - Change spreads

Codification - Becomes recognised/added to dictionary

• ‘Brat’ was Collins Dictionary word of the year 2024

Crystal - Tide Metaphor

Language change is like a tide

• tide will wash things ashore, these things might stay for a long time and sometimes washed away again

• almost cyclical change

Sharon Goodman - Informalisation

Language becoming more and more informal

• First names for colleagues

• Terms of endearment for children like sweetheart

Leech - Colloquialisation

Increasing acceptability within language to use features with an informal discourse

• Hi at start of emails

Guy Deutscher - Three reasons for change (EEA)

Economy - people want to use as little energy as possible

• handbag = bag, omnibus = bus

Expressiveness - express themselves as powerful and extend range

• slang for good/bad/sexy/disgusting

Analogy - To fit linguistic patterns and find regularity

• Housen/house (goes against Aitchsison’s castle view)

Deutscher - Field and traffic jam analogy

Language change is unintentional, where small actions accumulate and create a noticeable pattern