A02 Language Change

A02 Language Change

1. A02 Language Acquisition

   • Halliday
     • Personal
       • Expressing feelings and opinions e.g. 'me like...'
     • Interactional
       • Contact and forming relationships e.g. 'I see you...'
     • Instrumental
       • Expressing needs e.g. 'I want...'
     • Regulatory
       • Telling others what to do e.g. 'go get...'
     • Imaginative
       • Stories, jokes and imagining environments.
     • Representational
       • Conveying facts and information. 
     • Heuristic
       • Environment e.g. 'what does duck say?'
   • Aitchison
     • Labelling
       • Stage 1: Links between the sounds of words and objects
     • Packaging
       • Stage 2: Understand that a word has a range of meanings. Over and under extension.
     • Network Building
       • Stage 3: Connections between words.
   • Piaget
     • Sensorimotor
       • 0-2 years a child experiences physical through senses and begins to classify things Object Permenance: Concept that things exist when out of sight. 
     • Concrete Operational
       • 7-11 years. Child thinks logically about concrete events.
     • Formal Operational
       • 11+ Abstract reasoning skills develop.
     • Pre-Operational
       • 2-7 years. Language and motor skills developed. Still egocentric- all focused on the child.
   • Bellugi Pronoun development
     • 1. Own name
     • 2. Recognises I/me and when they are used.
     • 3. Can use them according to subject or object position in sentence.
   • Vygotsky
     • ZPD- Zone of Proximal Development
       • A child has to be in a certain zone to acquire language.
     • MKO- More Knowledgeable Other
       • A person to teach and guide the child.
   • Lenneberg
     • The human brain is designed to acquire language in a certain time period, and once passed development is not possible (first five years).
   • Bruner
     • Language is developed depending on the quality and quantity of interaction.
     • Children initially use language to get what they want.
     • LASS: Language Acquisition Support System
   • Skinner
     • Children learn to speak by immitating their parents and being rewarded or punished depending on accuracy.
   • Nature vs. Nurture
     • Nature/nativist: Language is innate
     • Nurture/empiricist: Language is learnt.
     • Interactionist: Influence from both nativist and empiricist
   • Chomsky
     • LAD: Language Acquisition Device
       • Chomsky believed that all language is innate as it is all learnt in a similar way. 

2. Guy Deutscher

   • Language does not change due to contact with others.
   • No person or thing changes language
   • All modifiers of language are unintentional
   • Changes are due to laziness, expressive and analogy.

3. Peter Turgill Norwich Survey

   • '-ing' decreased as class did
   • Almost 100% middle class used standard '-ing' compared to non-standard '-in' used by 95% of lower class
   • '-ing' increased as formality does.
   • Females use the standard '-ing' more than males

4. Jean Aitchison

   • Crumbling Castle
     • Ignoring 'proper' English means language has decayed. Assumes language was once 'perfect'
   • Cuckoo's Nest
     • One particular usage becomes dominant.
   • Language Web
     • All factors are linked.
   • Infectious Disease
     • We catch 'bad language' and spread it.
   • Damp Spoon
     • Laziness spreads causing change

5. Jenny Cheshire

   • Females more status concious and more likely to conform to rules.
   • Females more likely to use standard English and Overt Prestige
   • Males gain popularity using covert prestige

6. Goodman

   • Language has undergone informalisation

7. Howard Giles

   • When people interact they adjust their speech to acomodate others
   • Divergence: Speaker changes language to distance from the other
   • Convergence: Speaker changes language to fit others.

8. Sapir Whorf Hypothesis

   • Language determines thought and linguistic categories.
   • Language dictates the way we think and how we conceptualise the world.
   • Language affects the way a speaker views the world.

9. Prescriptivist vs descriptivist

   • Prescriptivist: Judgements about language change.
   • Descriptivist: Describes the process of change.