English Lang-Change-Processes

change in language/language devices

Borrowing

The process by which words or phrases are taken from one language and incorporated into another, often enriching the vocabulary of the borrowing language.

Loanwords

Words adopted from one language into another

Semantic Narrowing

is the process by which a word's meaning becomes more specific over time, often limiting its original broader meaning.

semantic broadening

is the process by which a word's meaning becomes more general over time, expanding beyond its original specific meaning.

pejoration

is the process by which a word develops negative connotations or meanings over time, often reflecting a shift in cultural attitudes.

Amelioration

is the process by which a word develops positive connotations or meanings over time, often reflecting a shift in cultural attitudes.

derivation

is the process of forming new words by adding prefixes or suffixes to existing words, thereby creating a word with a new meaning.

coinage

is the process of creating entirely new words, often for new inventions, concepts, or phenomena.

neologisms

are newly coined words

acronyms

formed from the initial letters of a phrase, often used for convenience or brevity.

compounding

is the linguistic process of combining two or more existing words to create a new word with a specific meaning, such as "toothbrush" or "notebook."

blending

is a linguistic process that combines parts of two or more words to create a new word, such as "brunch" (breakfast + lunch) or "smog" (smoke + fog).

clipping

is a linguistic process that shortens a word by removing one or more syllables, such as "ad" from "advertisement" or "lab" from "laboratory."

eponym

name of something or someone credited with inventing or discovering it e.g. Nobel peace prize.

antonym

word with the opposite meaning e.g. ‘good’ ‘bad’

backformation

formation of word derived from another derived word e.g. ‘babysit’ from ‘babysitter’.

archaism

word that has been lost in use/isn’t used any more

hypernym

a categorical word e.g. ‘colour’ for ‘blue’.

hyponym

a word in a category e.g. ‘blue’ in ‘colour’.

intensifier

a word used to emphasise something e.g. ‘very’.

jargon

words or phrases known mainly by a certain type or group of people e.g. ‘it cost an arm and a leg’.

orthography

the spelling and letters system of a language.

telescoping

a little like blending, to join two words or parts of words e.g. ‘biodegradable’ from ‘biologically degradable’.

adjunct

the less important part of a sentence e.g. ‘on the table’ from ‘i put the glass down on the table’.

head word

the main word in a phrase e.g. ‘cat’ in ‘the fluffy cat’.

subjunctive

to express a wish, hypothetical speech, request or a demand. e.g. ‘i wish i lived near a beach’.

backchanneling

to use a small amount of physical or verbal acknowledgement that one is listening to someone’s view/speech e.g. nodding or saying ‘i know right?’ or ‘really?’.

genderlect

type of language that is related to one’s gender e.g. a woman will be more likely to say ‘oh my gosh’ than a man.

idiolect

an individual’s unique manner of using language.

lemma

the dictionary form of a group of words, a root word if you like e.g. ‘book’ for ‘booking’, ‘bookshop’, ‘bookworm’, ‘bookish’ etc.

lingua franca

a form of communication/language that can be used for a large variety of cultures internationally as they all have knowledge of it e.g. English is a the term for many countries, as it is a commonly known language.

patois

a term for a language that is not official and does not have a high status e.g. punjabi would be considered one, as it is not counted as an official language.

perlocutionary act

something that causes an effect to the audience in a speech or argument e.g. using repetition to emphasise a point.

sociolect

a type of dialect associated with a certain type of social group.