Language Change

Language Change

1. Causes of language change

   • Sociolinguistic reasons
     • class systems and their changing nature
     • Politics and power systems
       • Invasions
     • Conflict and wars
     • social trends and fashions
     • New technologies
     • Access to education
   • Globalisation
     • The world is getting smaller so we have access to more language and other languages are influenced by us
     • Borrowings
     • Pidgins and creoles
     • Cultural infusion - language has expanded hugely due to cultural 'rubbing of shoulders'

2. Studying language change

   • Approaches
     • Descriptive approach
       • commenting on language rather than making a judgement; language develops gradually and inevitably - deals with appropriateness rather than 'correctness'
       • More modern approach
     • Prescriptive approach
       • Making judgements about language; saying what language definitiely 'is' rather than what it might be. Say that language is decaying.
       • Crumbling Castle theory etc.
   • Attitudes
     • Crumbling castle - lang. was once a beautiful castle to but has been left to fall into disrepair.
     • Language web - lang. is intertwined and inter-connected.
     • Cuckoo's nest - theory of lexical change, that multiple words exist but that a dominant word kicks the others out of the nest
     • damp spoon - laziness causes language deterioration
     • language tree - that language is like a tree with branches of variation, a trunk of similarity etc.
   • Study
     • Diachronic - over time - how language changes over time
     • Synchronic - a snapshot of language variation at any point in time.
   • Etymology and lexiography
     • Origins and word roots
     • Dictionary writing and definitions