Grammatical Change Flashcards
(14 cards)
18th Century
- Formal style with complex sentences, multiple subordination + embedded clauses.
Influences: - Standardisation
- Hierarchical + formal society with emphasis on conventions + rules
- Writing valued as separate from speech
19th Century
- Grammatical formality still evident, although sentences less complex than in the 18th century.
Influences: - Continuing standardisation
- Changes in class attitudes
- Beginnings of universal education
- Dialectal voices represented in literature (for example, Dickens)
20th / 21st Century
- Simpler syntax + coordination, including minor + simple sentences, more popular in media / advertising. Non-standard spelling + punctuation used in text / email form.
Influences: - Worldwide + American English
- Technology
- Social levelling + equality
- Oral language / forms affecting writing styles
- Growing informality
- Growth of entertainment and leisure industries
Literary Texts Of 18th, 19th, + 20th Centuries
- Sentences longer, with embedded clauses + phrases, but these have become simpler.
- Using more subordinate clauses, influenced by Latin, became a fashionable way to make discourse more elaborate + display one’s learning.
- Style continued into late Modern English, but perhaps has been reversed now with many writers adopting a simpler style.
Modern Day Speech Practices + Boundaries Between Modes
- Adverbs are being replaced by adjectives (e.g ‘you’ve done great!’)
- Prepositions - bored of / down to / talk with
- Irregular verbs are still altering (e.g. ‘I’ve wrote it down for you.’)
- Pronouns - ‘whom’ is disappearing as the object pronoun, being replaced by ‘who’.
Nominalisation
Use of verb, adjective or adverb as head of noun phrase.
Two types found in English:
- Derivational suffix: used to create nouns. (E.g. the verb ‘concentrate’ becomes a noun using the suffix‘ -ation’)
- Zero derivation: some verbs + adjectives can be used without derivational suffix.
Active voice
Creates a more subjective register.
- Facilitates bias + description rather than analysis of the scientific concept.
Passive Voice
- Adoption of passive voice rather than active voice in presenting written scientific enquiry.
- Distinct change from the 17th to 21st century.
Passive voice can be used to create a more objective register: - Agent can be absent
- Bias + emotion not always evident
Devon English + Present Tense
Use of third person ‘-s’ on all forms.
- ‘I eats’, ‘You eats’ etc.
Harris (1993)
Irregular verb system underwent change since the Old English period.
- 18th c. simplified further in both literary + vernacular English.
- Recently: reversal of regularization of verbs took place in Standard English, not in non-Standard English
- S.E. currently uses more irregular verbs than many dialects
Trudgill (2002)
- Language change influenced by low status dialects.
- E.g. simplification of irregular verbs + their influence on Standard English.
- In some areas, past participle of the verb ‘to do’ is used in place of the past tense in spoken English: ‘I done that’
- Possible that this might emerge as a standard form if the future if the majority of users adopt this form.
Labov (1994)
Language changes in two distinct ways.
- Recognises the change that originates unconsciously from low social groups.
- Also identifies the role of conscious change imposed by socially powerful groups.
Cheshire + Milroy (1993)
Non-standard forms of English were not codified or standardised into a norm, they underwent different processes of language change that
resulted in more regular forms.
- E.g. negative form ‘weren’t’ is regularized for all subjects in the Outer Banks area of North Carolina, USA.
Tagilamonte et al.
Changing use of ‘must’
* ‘Must’ as term of obligation declining, while other meanings such as drawing conclusions used frequently.
* Obligation: “you must clean your room”
* Conclusions: “you must be exhausted”
* Early as 15th c. role of ‘must’ challenged by ‘have to’, currently replaced by ‘got to’
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