English in the 21st Century

Question 1

What is a medium?

Answer 1

The mode of communication

E.g. email, text message, voicenote

Question 2

What is the purpose (medium)?

Answer 2

Why that specific medium is used

Question 3

What are benefits?

Answer 3

Advantages of

Question 4

What are constraints?

Answer 4

Restrictions and limitations of

Question 5

What are loans?

Answer 5

Words borrowed from other languages

Jungle, Bungalow= Hindi, Cafe= French

Question 6

What are composites?

Types: Compounding, Affixation

Answer 6

Words made up from combinations of words or parts of other words

Question 7

Composites

What is blending?

Answer 7

Take parts from 2 words and combine together

Combination of shortening and compounds

E.g Brunch

Question 8

Composites

What is compounding?

Answer 8

Combine or add words together

E.g. postman

Question 9

Composites

What is affixation?

Answer 9

Use of prefixes and suffixes

E.g un-sympathetical-ly

Question 10

What are shifts?

Types: Narrowing, Amelioration, Prejoration, Widening

Answer 10

Shifts in meaning or a ‘functional shift’

Question 11

Shifts

What is narrowing?

Answer 11

Meaning of word includes fewer objects/ ideas

E.g. ‘weed’ used to mean any plant

Question 12

Shifts

What is widening?

Answer 12

Meaning of word broadens to include more objects/ ideas

E.g. ‘butcher’ once meant slaughter of a goat

Question 13

Shifts

What is pejoration?

Answer 13

Meaning of word is more negative than original

E.g. ‘wench’ used to mean girl

Question 14

Shifts

What is amelioration?

Answer 14

Meaning of word is more positive than original

E.g. ‘pretty’ used to mean cunning and crafty

Question 15

What are shortenings?

Types: Acronyms, Initialisms, Clippings

Answer 15

Parts of the word left out for brevity (economy)

Question 16

Shortenings

What are acronyms?

Answer 16

First letter of each word in phrase to make a new word

E.g. RAM spoken as ram

Question 17

Shortenings

What are initialisms?

Answer 17

Takes first letter of word in a phrase- sounded as each letter in sequence

E.g. BBC spoken as bee-bee-see

Question 18

Shortenings

What are clippings?

Answer 18

Words clipped down to shortened forms

E.g. television> telly

Question 19

What is a chat room?

Answer 19

Means of ‘real time’ communication either through video, voice or text

Question 20

What is Synchronous chat?

Answer 20

• Waits for server
• Immediate response
  E.g. Instagram, Snapchat, Facetime

Question 21

What is asynchronous chat?

Answer 21

• Does not wait for server
• One way communication
• Delayed response
  E.g. Tiktok, Email, Twitter

Question 22

What is netspeak?

Answer 22

A type of language that is unique from the internet- Grice’s maxims are relevant

Question 23

What is vowel omission?

Answer 23

Leaving out vowel sounds in text speak/ electronic communication

Question 24

What is homophonic representation?

Answer 24

The use of single letters/ numbers to represent word based on a similarity in sound

Question 25

What is an initialism?

Answer 25

An abbreviation that used the first letter of a group of words and is pronounced as individual letters

Question 26

What is an acronym?

Answer 26

Abbreviation- uses first letter of a group of words and is pronounced as a single word

Question 27

What’s a variant spelling?

Answer 27

Deliberately non- standard spelling for effect

Question 28

What is a reactive token?

Answer 28

A tag on textspeak that shows a reaction e.g. hahaha

Question 29

What is a pictogram/ logogram?

Answer 29

Making faces and symbols to show reaction e.g. :) <3

Question 30

What is an emoticon?

Answer 30

An emoji, shows reaction

Question 31

What are borrowings?

Answer 31

Loan words- many words were borrowed from Latin, Greek, French, Spanish, Italian, Portuguese

Question 32

What is coinage and neologisms?

Answer 32

The deliberate creation of a new word-

Question 33

What are abbreviations?

Answer 33

Shortened form of word or phrase

Question 34

What is morphological change?

Answer 34

The study of forms of words

Question 35

# Spread of Language Change What is the functional theory?

Answer 35

-language will always change and adapt to the needs of it's users -views language as part of social semiotics -language is a tool for social interactions, supports social functions

Question 36

# Spread of language change What is the substratum theory?

Answer 36

-focuses on different languages that come into contact with English through non-native speakers/ regional dialects | e.g. "like" from American TV to British dialects ## Footnote Immigration has brought words from native tongue into adopted one (conquerors, wars, invasions also effect language change)

Question 37

What is grammar made up of?

Answer 37

Syntax and Morphology

Question 38

Who is Robert Lowth and what rules did he put in place in terms of grammar?

Answer 38

Grammarian • Regularisation for ‘which’ and ‘who’ • No longer use ‘thou’ • Infinitive verb should not be split

Question 39

What is a predicative adjective?

Answer 39

Adjective comes after noun

Question 40

What is an object and a compliment?

Answer 40

Compliment adds further info, objects are featured in sentences