Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time. Phonetics (from the Greek φωνή ( phonê) "sound" or "voice" is the study of the physical sounds of human speech Morphology is the field of Linguistics that studies the internal structure of words Semantics is the study of meaning in communication The word derives from Greek σημαντικός ( semantikos) "significant" from In Linguistics, syntax (from Ancient Greek grc συν- syn-, "together" and grc τάξις táxis, "arrangement" is the 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. English is a West Germanic language originating in England and is the First language for most people in the United Kingdom, the United States Descriptive linguistics is the work of analyzing and describing how Language is spoken (or how it was spoken in the past by a group of people in a speech community From these different forms comes the effect on language over time known as diachronic change. Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change Two linguistic disciplines concern themselves with studying language change: historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Historical linguistics (also called diachronic linguistics) is the study of language change Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used 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.
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Causes of language change
1. Economy: Speakers tend to make their utterances as efficient and effective as possible to reach their communicative goals. Speaking involves therefore a planning of costs and benefits.
2. Analogy
3. Analogy is both the cognitive process of transferring Information from a particular subject (the analogue or source to another particular subject (the target and Language contact
4. Language contact occurs when speakers of distinct speech varieties interact The medium of communication
Types of language change
All languages are constantly changing. The causes are many and varied.
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, whilst losing some old words. English is a West Germanic language which originated from the Anglo-Frisian Dialects brought to Britain by Germanic settlers A loanword (or loan word) is a word directly taken into one Language from another with little or no translation Many words that existed in Old English did not survive into Modern English. The study of lexical changes is the task of onomasiology. Onomasiology (from ὀνομαζω (onomazō — to name which in turn is from ὀνομα — name is a branch of Linguistics concerned with the question "how do you
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. A lexicographer is a person devoted to the study of Lexicography, especially an author of a Dictionary.
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. In Historical linguistics, phonological change is any Sound change which alters the number or distribution of Phonemes in a language William Labov (ləˈboʊv born December 4, 1927) is an American linguist widely regarded as the founder of the discipline of variationist Sociolinguistics Martha's Vineyard (adjoining the smaller Chappaquiddick Island) is an Island off the US east coast to the south of Cape Cod, both [1] 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. Received Pronunciation ( RP) is a form of Pronunciation of the English language (specifically British English) which has long been perceived as 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.
Spelling changes
The modern obsession with spelling is a fairly recent trend. Spelling is the Writing of a Word or words with the necessary letters and Diacritics present in an accepted standard order 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. A printing press is a mechanical device for applying pressure to an inked surface resting upon a medium (such as paper or cloth thereby transferring an image Famously, Shakespeare spelled his own name in many different ways. William Shakespeare ( baptised Additionally, they were tempted to choose from the various spellings based on typographical criterion, e. Typography is the art and techniques of arranging type, Type design, and modifying type Glyphs Type glyphs are created and modified using a variety 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 which had changed over time. For example, the spelling of words such as "night" would have represented the original pronunciation, the "gh" representing a sound similar to that found in the Scottish "loch". Other examples include the 'k' in 'knee' and 'knight' that were previously pronounced and the 'ch' in 'chicken' and 'cheese', which was once pronounced as 'k'.
It could be said that English spelling is stuck in the 15th Century, when William Caxton chose the East Midland dialect i. e. London (Wessex) variety of English for his first print in 1476. London ( ˈlʌndən is the capital and largest urban area in the United Kingdom. West Saxon redirects here For other meanings of Wessex or West Saxon see Wessex (disambiguation. He had to discriminate against many duplicate words used in other areas of England (such as the East Anglia, Northumberland and Mercia). East Anglia is often used as a shorthand for the Kingdom of the East Angles. Northumberland is a county in the North East of England. The non-metropolitan county of Northumberland borders Cumbria to the west Mercia (ˈmɝsiə was one of the kingdoms of the Anglo-Saxon Heptarchy. For example, the Southern word 'eyren' was unintelligible with the Northern equivalent, 'egges' (modern 'eggs').
Semantic changes
The appearance of a new word is only the beginning of its existence. In diachronic (or historical linguistics, semantic change is a change in one of the meanings of a word. Once it becomes part of the language the meanings and applications it has for speakers can shift dramatically, to the point of causing misunderstandings. For example, 'villain' once meant a peasant, or farmhand, but means a criminal individual in modern English. Modern English is the form of the English language spoken since the Great Vowel Shift, completed in roughly 1550 This is an example of a word that has undergone pejoration, which means that a negative meaning has come to be attached to it. Conversely, other words have undergone amelioration, where a positive meaning comes to be understood. Thus, the word 'wicked' (generally meaning 'evil') now means 'brilliant' in slang or in a colloquial context.
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' (Old English 'hund') referred to 'all dogs', and now it means a particular type. Examples of words that have been broadened semantically include 'dog' (which once meant a particular breed).
Syntactic change
To the extent that a language is vocabulary cast into the mould of a particular syntax and that the basic structure of the sentence is held together by functional items, with the lexical items filling in the blanks, syntactic change is no doubt what modifies most deeply the physiognomy of a particular language. To the extent that a language is Vocabulary cast into the mould of a particular syntax and that the Basic structure of the Sentence is held together by Functional The vocabulary of a person is defined either as the set of all Words that are understood by that person or the set of all words likely to be used by that person when constructing The "Basic Structure" doctrine is the judge-made doctrine whereby certain features of the Constitution of India are beyond the limit of the powers of amendment of the Lexical items are single words or words that are grouped in a language's lexicon To the extent that a language is Vocabulary cast into the mould of a particular syntax and that the Basic structure of the Sentence is held together by Functional Syntactic change affects grammar in its morphological and syntactic aspects and is seen as gradual, the product of chain reactions and subject to cyclic drift. Gradualism is the belief that changes occur or ought to occur slowly in the form of gradual steps (see also Incrementalism) Politics and society In Politics A chain reaction is a sequence of Reactions where a reactive product or by-product causes additional reactions to take place [2] The view that creole languages are the product of catastrophism is heavily disputed. A creole language, or simply a creole, is a stable Language that originates seemingly as a nativized Pidgin. Catastrophism is the idea that Earth has been affected in the distant past by sudden short-lived violent events that were sometimes worldwide in scope
Sociolinguistics and language change
The sociolinguist Jennifer Coates, following William Labov, describes linguistic change as occurring in the context of linguistic heterogeneity. Sociolinguistics is the study of the effect of any and all aspects of Society, including cultural norms expectations and context on the way Language is used This is an overview of the regular and recurring characters of long-running series JAG. Heterogeneous is an adjective used to describe an object or system consisting of multiple items having a large number of structural variations 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. ”[3]
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. The Internet is a global system of interconnected Computer networks
Notes
- ^ William Labov, 1963. "The social motivation of a sound change. " Word 19. 273-309. The 1963 study is widely recognized as a seminal work in the foundation of sociolinguistics.
- ^ Henri Wittmann (1983). Henri Wittmann (born 1937 is a Canadian linguist from Quebec. "Les réactions en chaîne en morphologie diachronique. " Actes du Colloque de la Société internationale de linguistique fonctionnelle 10. 285-92. [1]
- ^ Coates, 1992: 169
References
- Coates, J. (1992), Women, Men and Language, Second Edition, Essex.
- Labov, William (1994, 2001), Principles of Linguistic Change (vol. I Internal Factors, 1994; vol. II Social Factors, 2001), Blackwell.
- Wardhaugh, R. (1986), An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford/ New York.
- Wittmann, H. (1983), "Les réactions en chaîne en morphologie diachronique. " Actes du Colloque de la Société internationale de linguistique fonctionnelle 10. 285-92. [2]
See also
External links
- Sounds Familiar? Visit the British Library website to listen to changing accents and dialects from across the UK
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