Language Change

Question 1

Diachronic change

Answer 1

The historical development of language

Question 2

Synchronic Change

Answer 2

The study of language change at a particular moment in time

Question 3

Descriptivism

Answer 3

Where no judgment or negative attitude is imposed on language change, but an examination of language as it is and how it is used

Question 4

Prescriptivism

Answer 4

The notion that language should be fixed, prescribing to a set standard of rules for language usage, with any shift away from these rules or standards bein seen as incorrect

Question 5

How do we create new words

Answer 5

External Factors
Internal Factors
Create entirely new words

Question 6

Coinage

Answer 6

The deliberate creation of a new word. This is not a common process of word formation

Question 7

Borrowing/Loan words

Answer 7

Borrowing of words/concepts from other languages. Words are either anglicize or they retain their original spelling or phonology

Question 8

Compounding

Answer 8

Words are combined together to form new words. These can be open, hyphenated or solid

Question 9

Clipping

Answer 9

Words are shortened and the shortened form becomes the norm

Question 10

Blending

Answer 10

A combination of clipping and compounding

Question 11

Acronym

Answer 11

First letters are taken from a series of words to create a new term

Question 12

Initialism

Answer 12

The first letters from a series of words form a new term but each letter is pronounced

Question 13

Affixation

Answer 13

One of more free morphemes are combined with one or more bound morphemes

Question 14

Conversion or functional shift

Answer 14

A word shifts from one word class to another, usually from a noun to a verb

Question 15

Eponym

Answer 15

Names of a person or company are used to define particular objects. Often they are the inventors or distributors of the object

Question 16

Back formation

Answer 16

A verb is created from an existing noun by removing a suffix

Question 17

Samuel Johnson

Answer 17

Wrote the first dictionary in 1755

Question 18

Inkhorn terms

Answer 18

Foreign borrowing into English considered unnecessary or overly pretentious

Question 19

Jonathan Swift 1712

Answer 19

Proposal for Correcting, Improving and Ascertaining The English Tongue

Question 20

Swift main concerns

Answer 20

Vagueness in language; he was anxious about the ‘poverty of conversation.’

Shortened words

Unnecessary contractions

Unnecessary polysyllabic words

Words ‘invented by some pretty fellow’

Question 21

Change from above

Answer 21

Change that is usually initiated by those in a dominant social position of power and authority

Question 22

Change from below

Answer 22

Usually driven by the user of a language, developing or adapting language according to their own social need

Question 23

Neosemy

Answer 23

The process whereby a new meaning develops for an existing word

Question 24

Processes involved with Neosemy

Answer 24

Generalization/Broadening

Specializing/narrowing

Amelioration

Pejoration

Weakening/bleaching

Metaphor

Euphemism

Polysemy

Question 25

External factors

Answer 25

External pressures will affect how language is used, either social, cultural or technological

Question 26

Internal factors

Answer 26

Aspects of the language itself contribute to change