Language Change

Question 1

Important events

(when)

Answer 1

14th century onwards: standardisation
1362: English replaces French in law
1476: Caxton’s printing press
1982: 1st complete OED

Question 2

Samuel Johnson

Answer 2

1755: ‘A Dictionairy of the English Language’ published

Question 3

Robert Lowth

Answer 3

1762: ‘A Short Introduction to English Language’

Question 4

Deutscher

Answer 4

Economy (destruction) , Expressiveness (creation) and Analogy (regularisation)

Question 5

Howard Giles

Answer 5

1970s: accommodation theory, covergence and divergence

Question 6

Simon Kirby

Answer 6

Alien Fruit Experiment, patterns

Question 7

John Agard

Answer 7

code-switching, written=Caribbean, spoke=SBE, convergence

Question 8

Examples of anti-languages

Answer 8

Backslang, Pig Latin, Polari

Question 9

Cheshire, Fox, Kerswill and Torgersen

Answer 9

2011: MLE, non-Anglo social networks and ‘brokers’

Question 10

Cheshire

Answer 10

2020: Paris lacks an ethnolect equivalent to MLE in London, cultural differences

Question 11

Aitchison

Answer 11

Crumbling Castle Metaphor (falling apart), Damp Spoon Metaphot (poor manners), Infectious Disease Metaphor (unpleasant features spreading)

Question 12

Examples of Creoles

Answer 12

Pidgin as a native tongue, Nicaraguan sign language, Singlish, Manglish

Question 13

Steven Pinker

Answer 13

Euphemism Treadmill: words for low-status groups altered to improve attitudes

Question 14

Fairclough

Answer 14

Informalisation (of langauge and society)

Question 15

William Labov

Answer 15

1962: NYC department stores, most hypercorrection in middle-class store
1963: Martha’s Vineyard, young men moving dialect closer to that of fishermen

Question 16

Chen

Answer 16

1968-72: S-curve model of change, slow-rapid-slow

Question 17

Bailey

Answer 17

1973: Wave model- begins somewhere and then gradually spreads

Question 18

Paul Postal

Answer 18

1968: Random Fluctuation of Change Idea

Question 19

Ivan Aasen

Answer 19

Nynorsk (more Norweigan than Danish-influenced Bokmal), 15% kids are taught it

Question 20

Malcom Petyt

Answer 20

1985: h-dropping, Bradford, correlation with lower class

Question 21

Ilbury

Answer 21

2020: “sassy queens”, tweets from 10, gay, English men, who were using African American vernacular

Question 22

Stuart-Smith, Pryce, Timmins and Gunter

Answer 22

2013: Glaswegians watching Eastenders, l-vocalisation and th-fronting