What is Diachronic language change?
Historical development of language and evolution
What is Synchronic language change?
The study of a language at a given point in time
What did AITCHISON come up with?
3 metaphors to describe peoples anxieties about language use
What were AITCHISONS three metaphors?
1- Damp Spoon Syndrome
2- Crumbling castle
3- Infectious disease
Damp spoon syndrome
- change caused by laziness and sloppiness
- difficult to find evidence
- the glottal stop ‘street’ as an example
Crumbling Castle
- sees English Language as a beautiful old castle that needs to be preserved
- no indication of when this golden age of language was reached
- presupposes a rigid system is better than flexible
- but flexible is necessary to cope with changing social circumstances
Infectious disease
- catch change from those around us
- social contact is a key driving force
- pick up change because they want to
- should not be seen as a force that we are powerless to resist
Donald Mackinnon
- correct or incorrect
- pleasant or ugly
- socially acceptable or unacceptable
- appropriate of inappropriate
What are the 6 ways of coining neologisms?
1- borrowing
2- compounding
3- blending
4- affixation
5- conversion
6- scientific progress
What is borrowing?
Taking words from languages and either anglicising them or keeping them as is
- Gateau, French - Bungalow, Hindi - Hygge, Danish
What is compounding?
Combining words together to form new words
thumb + print = thumbprint
- toothbrush, ice cream
What is blending?
Combination of clipping and compounding- words are shortened and joined together to form a new word
- smog, brunch, hangry, brexit, staycation
What is affixation?
Many words in the English Language have been created by adding Greek or Latin prefixes or suffixes to existing words
(Greek hyper)
- disinterest, regift, hyperactive, selfless
What is conversion?
A word shifts from one word class to another, usually a noun to a verb
- text, google, ofsted, network
What is scientific progress?
Advances in medicine, science and technology cause new words and phrases to be coined
- chemotherapy, malware, in-vito
What are the 4 methods of shortening?
1- clipping
2- acronym
3- initialism
4- back formation
What is clipping?
When the shortened form of the word becomes the norm
- celeb, deli, flu, gym
What is an acronym?
First letters are taken from words to create new terms
- you pronounce it as a single word
- NASA, NATO, AIDS
What is an initialism?
The first letters are taken from words to create a new term- each letter is pronounced separately
- BBC, CS, FBI, MP3
What is back formation?
A verb is created from an existing noun by removing a suffix
- sculpt, sculpture
- edit, editor
David Crystal?
linguistic economy
WAG acronym worked well in tabloid coverage
What is semantic bleaching?
When a word loses impact or meaning due to overuse
-awesome, amazing, crazy
LAKOFF- empty adjectives
