Language Change Flashcards

Question

The Inkhorn Controversy

Answer 1

16th and 17th centuries, there was a growing pride in english. a return to english following many years of French rule led to an increased sense of national pride Renaissance writers began to expand the vocabulary, borrowing from Greek and Latin. Inkhornisms were viewed by many with scorn and were seen as unnecessary and useless to anyone without knowledge of classical literature. The inkhorn, which would contain a writer’s ink, was associated with this, as new, much longer, latinate or greek words would waste ink, unlike shorter anglo-saxon words. Thomas Wilson: ‘the Arte of Rhetorique’1553, referred to ‘straunge ynkehorne termes’ (those borrowed from other languages). The Inkhorn was seen as a vessel of self importance. Purist.

Answer 2

‘Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining the English Tongue’ (1712). An appeal to the English government to establish an ‘Academy’ that will fix the vocabulary, spelling and grammar of English, fixing the changes that had occurred over the last hundred years (the changes contested in the inkhorn debate). It was to be modelled after the ‘Academie Francaise’, a top-down authority which regulated the French language. disliked: -vagueness, ‘poverty of conservation’ -shortened terms, ‘mob’d and disturb’d’ -unnecessary polysyllabic words obscuring meaning -‘modish’ words, ‘bully’ Failed to fix the language, an example of change from above Most language change is from below

Answer 3

Assimilation: when one sound replaces another, e.g. handbag-hambag Omission: when a sound is left out, e.g. “George banged the drum hard as he marched through the town”, the bound past tense suffix morpheme -ed is likely to be omitted in colloquial speech

Answer 4

Chen 1972 users pick up a language change at a gradual rate before it accelerates and spreads into wider usage before slowing down again and stabilising. Aitchison refers to this as lexical diffusion, the gradual spread of a change. old and new terms may coexist until old forms eventually are lost. e.g. thinkst thou and dost thou think both appear in shakespeare’s work no change is 100% effective because people resist change, this is called 'lack of uptake' -e.g. political correctness and older generations

Answer 5

teenagers are now in school until a later age, creating a new social group and thus youth culture teenagers are the most creative language users, seen as innovators in language use gender neutral language (Mx and they) have become accepted by institutions

Answer 6

loss of thee and thou to leave just you is an example of increased politeness other languages have retained both formal and informal pronouns Deborah Cameron coined ‘verbal hygiene’ when referring to how the language is being cleaned up by PC actor now usually refers to both male and female performers while actress is becoming redundant

Answer 7

new inventions from the industrial revolution meant a need for new words and phrases same with science migration to cities saw increased language contact colonialism borrowed words from abroad English was imposed upon foreign natives so that it could be used for control

Answer 8

widely believed that ease of articulation is the most important factor in language change Assimilation is when adjacent sounds are pronounced in a different way to make them easier to say. Omission is when sounds are omitted from words, making them easier to say and making speech more fluent and efficient language undergoes neatening over time so that anomalies and inconsistencies are smoothed out. for example, now most plurals end in s while some used to end otherwise, for example, shooen for shoes. same with irregular verbs, for example, snuck is becoming sneaked

Answer 9

new words needed to refer to the hardware we use we have increased the use of acronyms and initialisms languages and dialects reach each other through television, film and social media

Answer 10

many words came from other languages 8-11th centuries invasions from Scandinavia (skirt, cog, skip) and France (accompany, department, tax) 16-17th centuries writers borrowed from Latin (temperature, benefit, sub, trans) and Greek (catastrophe, pneumonia, auto, pan) 18-19th centuries colonialism, Malaysia (amok) and India (shampoo) 20th century immigration and world wars, China (wok), and post war affluence lead to an increase in travel

Answer 11

Halilday: a language adapts to the needs of its users words disappear over time and become archaisms cassette has been replaced by CD which will likely cease use due to the increased use of streaming this can work in two ways: -lexical gaps: there is a gap in the lexicon for something which needs describing (e.g. a laptop) -functional shifts: a word exists but needs an equivalent of another word class (e.g. google)

Answer 12

change through contact with other languages many through trade and invasion historically but has recently been caused by social networking and immigration adopting elements of a language may result in imperfections and these may then be passed on

Answer 13

Charles Hockett 1958 random mistakes and events cause change the misspelling of owned to become pwned has become used often in online gaming events such as lockdown have effected our language

Answer 14

when a word that could exist doesn’t, may be that it does in other languages gaps are filled by borrowing or coining e.g. hygge is Danish and refers to a feeling of cosy contentment

Answer 15

Bailey 1973 Geographical distance has an impact on language change spread- change weakens the further from the epicentre you are. can be compared to an earthquake

Answer 16

refers to the differences in the English language that emerge as it i used in various contexts across the world. Scholars of World Englishes identify the varieties of English used in different sociolinguistic contexts, analysing their history, background, function and influence.

Answer 17

• ‘Englishes’ first used recently to refer to adaptations of the language • when new varieties of english come about, it is first due to lexical change • South African English has 10,000 words which appear in no other varieties of English, many of these are borrowed from other local languages

Answer 18

• American occupation in 1898 after Spanish-American war • a 3 year long Philippine American war followed • USA invaded for commercial opportunities in Asia, concerns over Filipino ability to self-rule and to prevent other powers from gaining control • Pinoy is rhotic, the letter r is always pronounced,certain polysyllabic words have a distinctive stress pattern • loss of singular inflection of verbs (the home rest(s) on the hill), usually transitive verbs often used intransitively • some words are shared with America English while others are unique to Philipipne English • some words are used in different contexts (open the light)

Answer 19

* english became a globally dominant language because of colonialism * native speakers: English 300 million, Spanish 400 million, Mandarin 800 million *English is the dominant language in 75 countries * native english isn’t as widespread as most world Englishes , there are far fewer native British English speakers than there are speakers of other forms of English * English is the language of science, business and air traffic control -status of English in other countries

Answer 20

• L1: English as a first language, occurs where there has been extensive settlement of speakers of English as a first language, e.g. Ireland. indigenous languages of existing native people are marginalised and these countries become largely monlolingual • L2: English as a second language occurs in countries where there has been substantial trade with L1 speakers, has more speakers than L1, e.g. Kenya • EFL: English as a Foreign Language, this has happened in countries that wish to trade withEnglish speaking countries , the language has no official status and individuals decide to learn for their own purposes, e.g. Brazil • ELF: English as a Lingua Franca, this happens when speakers of a variety of different languages need a common language in which to communicate for trade

Answer 21

• a language used for communication between speakers of different native languages • may be necessary when: • a regional example would be french in Africa • the philipines has a national lingua franca • name was that of a Mediterranean language which was used as a lingua franca

Answer 22

Pidgins are born out of the need for people to communicate without speaking a common language. A creole is a language that has evolved from contact between a European language (e.g., French, English, or Portuguese) and a local language (or a variety of local languages).

Answer 23

• used by speakers of different languages allowing them to communicate with each other • as alternative to EFL rather than a replacement for it • ELF may include words and phrases from local varieties of english as well as standard english • code-switching and accommodating new aspects of language are seen as useful. ELF depends on specific communication rather than just being an ‘all purpose english’ • ELF tends to be used for description for the purpose of codification

Answer 24

Expanding circle: - English is used to communicate with speakers of other languages for business, politics, education etc. It is norm-dependent, as it is used for practical purposes rather than for cultural integration Outer circle: English used as L2, e.g. India, Singapore, Ghana, Nigeria. These are norm developing as they develop their own norms Inner circle: English used as L1, these are norm providing and are the varieties by which the others are measured This was made before the internet and doesn’t address diversity within circles or the grey areas between them

Answer 25

• dropping third person present tense s • confusion with who and which • omission of definite and indefinite articles or inserting them where they are not really used • use of ‘isn’t it’ or no?’ in tag questions • inserting redundant prepositions • overusing verbs of high semantic generality (do, make, have) • overdoing explicitness how long time instead of how long

Answer 26

Sobkowiak 2005: describes an ELF approach to pronunciation as one that will ‘bring the ideal [RP] down into the gutter with no checkpoint along the way” Prodromou 2006: ELF is a ‘broken weapon’ and its speakers are “stuttering on the world stage”

Answer 27

Roy Harris 2007: “I couldn’t care less what kind of English Korean Airlines inflict on their passengers” Robert Philipson 1992: the spread of English as a global language disadvantages other languages, causing them to lose prestige or die out

Answer 28

Some regard ELF as common sense, with a streamlining of English to create a comprehensible accessible and usable form of a global communication, while others have reacted against the challenge to what may have ben seen as the authority of the British and American standards.

Answer 29

a word gains a new meaning

Answer 30

-Trudgill * language change doesn’t spread as a continuous wave * change comes from big cities, is passed to big towns and then to smaller towns, largely missing out the country * refers to case study of Yorkshire, where the archaic ‘thee’ and ‘thou’ are still in use -Drummond: *features of MLE have reached Manchester

Answer 31

documents the timeline of how language changes * potential- there is the gap or potential for change * implementation- the change occurs * diffusion- the change spreads * codification- the change is made official (added to the dictionary for example)

Answer 32

Theorised about the ways in which new words can make it into our language. Changes can be sorted into innovations (changing something which exists) and inventions (creating something entirely new)

Answer 33

the repetition of words which are the same or very similar e.g. nitty gritty