Language change
From Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time. All languages are continually changing. At any given moment the English language, for example, has a huge variety within itself, and this variety is known as synchronic variation. From these different forms comes the effect on language over time known as diachronic change. Two linguistic disciplines concern themselves with studying language change: historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Historical linguists examine how a language was spoken in the past and seek to determine how present languages derive from it and are related to one another. Sociolinguists are interested in the origins of language changes and want to explain how society and changes in society influence language.
Contents |
[edit] Causes of language change
1. Economy: Speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient as possible: they try to exert the least effort in communicating with language (abbreviations, simple grammar structures in spoken language).
2. Analogy
[edit] Types of language change
All languages are constantly changing. The causes are many and varied.
[edit] Lexical changes
The constant influx of new words in the English language would make it an obvious choice of investigation into language change, although it is difficult to define precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English. Throughout its history English has not only borrowed words extravagantly from other languages but has re-combined and recycled them to create new meanings.
Dictionary writers try to keep track of the change in language by recording the appearance in the language of new words, or new usages for old words.
[edit] Phonetic and phonological changes
The sociolinguist William Labov famously recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively short period in the American resort of Martha’s Vineyard and showed how this was the result of social tensions and processes. Even in the relatively short time that broadcast media have been available, we can observe the difference between the ‘marked’ pronunciation of the newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the more neutral, ‘unmarked’ pronunciation of today. The greater acceptance and fashionability of regional accents in the media may also reflect a more democratic, less formal society.
Small-scale phonological changes are difficult to map and record, especially as the technology of sound recording only goes back a hundred years or so. So the only evidence we have of how language has changed over the centuries is written evidence of what human languages have sounded like.
[edit] Spelling changes
The modern obsession with spelling is a fairly recent trend. Differences in spelling are very often the most immediately obvious thing about a text from a previous century. In the pre-print era, when literacy was much less common, there was no fixed system and in the handwritten manuscripts that survive, words are spelt according to regional pronunciation and personal preference.
The development of the printing press, however, presented printers with dilemmas: texts from the fifteenth through to the seventeenth centuries show many internal inconsistencies, with the same word often being spelled differently within the same text. Famously, Shakespeare spelled his own name in many different ways. Additionally, they were tempted to choose from the various spellings based on typographical criterion, e.g. to get uniform line lengths when assembling type pieces on a composing stick. It being easier to make one of the lines of type longer than to make the other lines shorter, word lengths tended to standardize on the longer spellings.
Unfortunately modern spellings were not the result of a single consistent system; rather, they show evidence of previous pronunciations derived from the many foreign language influences. For example, the silent "gh" in words such as "night" would have represented a pronunciation similar to that found in the Scottish "loch". Other examples that were previously pronounced include the 'k' in 'knee' and 'knight' and the 'ch' in 'chicken' and 'cheese' was once pronounced 'k' also.
You could say that spelling is stuck in the 15th Century, when William Caxton chose the London (Wessex) variety of English for his first print in 1476. He had to discriminate against many duplicate words used in other kingdoms of England (such as West Midlands, Northumberland and Mercia). For example, the Northern word 'eyren' was unintelligible with the Southern equivalent, 'egges' (modern 'eggs'). Of course, you know which was chosen by the fact that 'eyren' is not used in Modern English.
[edit] Semantic changes
The appearance of a new word is only the beginning of its existence. Once it becomes part of the language the meanings and applications it has for speakers can shift dramatically. Therefore, when reading a text from the past, you may think you recognize a word but may actually misunderstand the sense it conveyed when it was written. For example, 'villain' once meant a peasant, or farmhand, but now means a criminal individual. This has undergone pejoration, which means that a negative meaning has come to be attached to this word. Conversely, other words have undergone amelioration, where a positive meaning comes to be understood. If we consider the slang word 'wicked' (generally meaning 'evil'), it now means in a colloquial context, 'brilliant'.
Other semantic change includes narrowing and broadening. Narrowing a word semantically limits its alternative meanings. For example the word 'girl' once meant 'a young child' and 'hound' (spelt 'hund') meant 'all canines', and now of course it means a particular type. Examples of words that have been broadened semantically include 'dog' (which once meant a particular breed) and 'gay' which now means 'homosexual' as well as, albeit in an unfashionable, archaic way, 'brightly decorated' or 'joyful'.
[edit] Sociolinguistics and language change
The sociolinguist Jennifer Coates describes that linguistic change occurs in the context of linguistic heterogeneity. She explains that “[l]inguistic change can be said to have taken place when a new linguistic form, used by some sub-group within a speech community, is adopted by other members of that community and accepted as the norm.” (Coates, 1992: 169)
Language change has been induced by a number of factors over the centuries. In modern times language change is for example being brought about by technology. The internet and mobile technology have drastically altered language with the use of instant messaging and texting from mobile phones.
[edit] References
- Wardhaugh, R. (1986), An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford/ New York.
- Coates, J. (1992), Women, Men and Language: Second Edition, Essex.
[edit] See also
[edit] External links
- Sounds Familiar? Visit the British Library website to listen to changing accents and dialects from across the UK
