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Language change (Semantic shifts (Political correctness (PC) (Attitudes…

- - - - Valenti (2016) argues that “[o]ur language should reflect the world we want, not antiquated attitudes towards women” as biased sexist words with inherently negative connotations still seem to exist such as 'slut', 'spinster' and 'diva'
      - The changes are often simple - swapping gendered morphemes for gender-neutral ones (e.g. 'chairperson' rather than 'chairman/woman') or by substituting other lexical items
    - - i.e. self-censoring; changing or modifying our behaviour in order not to offend others
      - Being courteous and inclusive, especially of marginalised groups
        
        Singer (2017) likens NB people's preference of the gender-neutral pronoun “they” to correcting someone if they got your name wrong, e.g. asking for someone to call you "Steve" instead of "Steven"
      - Related to progressive identity politics, likely supported by left wingers but criticised by more conservative, traditional right wing
    - - Extremist, over the top
        
        PC itself holds negative connotations nowadays; it is often collocated in tabloids with phrases like 'gone mad'
        
        PC and its users often come under fire in online communities SJWs (social justice warriors
      - Thought police, restricting freedom of speech
        
        Browne (2006) claims that “the pervasiveness of political correctness is closing down freedom of speech and open debate [...] rather than say:… I would like to hear your side, the politically correct insist: ‘you can’t say that’”
        
        This view alleges that PC people are only interested in what is PC, rather than what is necessarily correct; suggests a level of hypocrisy also
        
        “[t]hey want to create a world where none of us can open our mouths without first mentally censoring ourselves. They want us all to think like politically correct lefties” (Delingpole, 2013, The Sunday Express)
      - Patronising?
        
        Using the example of 'brainstorm', many of the people with epilepsy that were interviewed in the British Epilepsy Society's survey said that they felt that this sort of political correctness singled out people with epilepsy as being easily offended
      - Talking-shop attitude -> making a fuss about something but not actually doing anything about it in a practical sense?
    - - 'Brainstorm'
        
        In 2008, the Welsh Development Agency and the Department of Enterprise, Trade and Investment in Belfast deemed the word brainstorming to be politically incorrect, with 'thought-showers' suggested as a suitable replacement
        
        93 percent of people with epilepsy did not find the term derogatory or offensive in any way and many felt that this sort of political correctness singled out people with epilepsy as being easily offended
        
        First coined in the 1890s by psychiatrists to refer to severe nervous attacks
        
        Since the 1940s it has been used to describe the method of problem-solving or generating ideas where all present at a meeting make spontaneous suggestions
        
        However, according to a 2005 survey carried out by the British Epilepsy Society, 'brainstorming' is not felt to be offensive to people with epilepsy
- - - - Social mobility, immigration/emigration, trade, travel etc
      - Throughout history, people have brought/taken with them their vocabularies, which then spreads via contact with the indigenous peoples/population there, increasing the overall vocabulary of an area
      - Regional and ethnic factors may impact, could happen in one country or across countries
    - - New inventions need new vocabularies to name them and describe their functions (i.e. smartphone, texting, tweeting, podcast)
        
        Neologisms may be coined through processes of blending or compounding, but older words may also be repurposed and given new meanings, e.g. ‘cloud’ to denote where data is stored; some words may be recycled more than once, e.g. ‘tablet’ -> in the Bible, tablets had the Ten Commandments inscribed upon them, now they are handheld computers (and also things you swallow)
      - Writing technology has developed over time from the quill and ink of Anglo-Saxon times to computer-mediated communication of the present day, creating and external, graphological change
    - - Has a devastating social impact, but creates intense periods of word adoption and creation
      - WW1 gave us ‘shell shock’ (now referred to as PTSD) and ‘tank’
      - WW2 provided loanwords from Germany, ‘blitzkreig’ (‘lightning war’) and Japan, ‘kamikaze’ (’divine wind’)
    - - The Plain English Campaign -> seeks to be straightforward to understand by avoiding what it describes as 'gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information; awards 'Crystal Marks' to show its approval
      - Hate-speech
      - The Queen’s English Society - a prescriptivist, autocratic movement [link]
        
        “The Society aims to defend the precision, subtlety and marvellous richness of our language against debasement, ambiguity and other forms of misuse…Although it accepts that there is always a natural development of any language, the Society deplores those changes which are the result of ignorance and which become established because of indifference.”
    - - The influence of the user(s) of a linguistic feature/lexeme may lead to its adoption in a wider population
      - This factor is applicable to more than one of these reasons as it may be combined with youth culture and techology, or even both -> think Kendall and Kim Kardashian on Twitter, Instagram etc...
      - For example, many people searched for ‘twerk’ after Miley Cyrus’ dancing at the 2013 VMAs and it became a topic of discussion in popular culture, leading to its usage growing exponentially. Interest then leveled off and decreased -> Chen's 'S' curve model
      - Other examples include....
- - - - We use the same pool of language resources, but
        in different ways, when we are sharing an experience or thinking about an experience. Equally, we may choose to use words differently to achieve the same purpose in different situations. We therefore need to learn how to choose our language to meet the particular needs of a situation.