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EXTERNAL factors to lang change (CHANGING SOCIAL CLIMATE (Industrial…
EXTERNAL factors to lang change
CHANGING SOCIAL CLIMATE
Industrial Revolution saw increased urbanisation & emergence of a new middle class
middle classes were conscious of their new lan. many dictionaries, pronunciation guides, grammar guides published during 18th, 19th C, advising members of this new social group of 'correct' lang usage
from late 15th C, feudalism began to decline but clear divisions of class remained
Elementary Education Act 1870 passed = compulsory education for all aged 5-12 = literacy improved a lot
from time of Norman Conquest England followed strict feudal system
INCREASED CONTACT W/ WORLDWIDE COMMUNITY
2 wars in 20th C. both exposed lang to contact w/ countries from around the world (US, colonial & post colonial countries e.g Australia, Canada, India). wars often intense periods of word creation & adoption
post war = increase in travel & contact w/ other cultures & experiences = extensive borrowing
YOUTH CULTURE
1950s = emergence of the teenager. before, kids left school at 14, went straight into trade. rise in youth culture saw social group open to change & linguistic creativity. Young pply often seen as innovators of lang use. consider words 'teddy bous', 'mods', 'hippies', 'emos' etc
EXPRESSIVENESS & CREATIVITY
many synonyms for 'good' - why create new ones?
Deutscher (2006) suggested some changes in lang for reasons of expressiveness. suggests we search for new ways to say things that are common to much human experiences
alternative explanation = diff subcultures use particular terms as markers of social ID
INCREASED POLITENESS
loss of 'thou' & 'thee' to retain only 'you'= significant marker of increased politeness . many langs e.g French, Spanish kept polite & more informal 2nd person pronoun
taken this further by sometimes avoiding 'you' to ensure we don't cause any offence
politeness principle followed w/ increased use of euphemism & politically correct terms
INFORMALITY
acc to Norman Fairclough - lang seen as restructuring boundary tween public & private orders of discourse and a shift in boundaries tween speech & writing, leading to more colloquial style of lang use
POLITICS
major political controversy of 70s gave rise to term 'Watergate' (OG name of building complex broken into by Prez Nixon's operatives) to denote a wide-ranging scandal
suffix '-gate' has become a libfix (suffix liberated from its OG word) that is often added to new words to denote any kind of scandal
rise of 'isms' and 'phobias' describe political & social movements also interesting
TECHNOLOGY
communication systems - telephone, telegraph, email, internet, social networking influenced lexicon (where particular words needed to refer to hardware we use) and way we use lang -- increased use of acronyms, initialisms, homophonic representation
older words might be recycled to have new meanings e.g word 'tablet' was made of stone (Ten Commandments written on it), now small computers. Meaning was in currency long before tablet was pill
Web 2.0 allowed users to interact & collab w/ each other & become creators of user-generated content in virtual community
TV, film exposure to range of regional, national, international dialects