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Language Change Theories - Coggle Diagram
Language Change Theories
Aitchison's Metaphors
- 'The Damp Spoon' - "vulgarity" of some current usage.
- 'Crumbling Castle' - when looking for it, a beautiful castle does crumble
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Functional Theory - Halliday - Language changes due to its users needs e.g cassets - blu-ray. However, cannot account for all language change, only lexical change.
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Random Fluctuation Theory - Hockett (1958) - Random events and errors create language change e,g typing cool can autocorrect to 'book' - now book means cool.
Language Determinism V Language reflectionism -
- Determinism (Sapir-Whorf) = Language shapes thought
- Reflectionism = Thought shapes language e.g removing racist terms will not remove racist thought
The Euphemism Treadmill - Pinker (2003) - Words introduced to replace offensive words eventually become offensive themselves
The Tree Model - Language change by documenting the origins and development of languages
- requires stable, definite laguages
- does not account for sociological factors e.g Singlish V English
The Stratum Theory- language is changed by contact with other languages
- Superstratum Language has higher prestige than language it influences e.g French in Norman English
Substratum language has lower prestige than the language it influences e.g The Guals influencingLatin
Adstratum language has the same prestige as the language it influences e.g Old Norse + English
Miller and Swift - Handbook of non-sexist writing
- advocated reforms to improve equality, mentioning the pronoun problem (they not he when gender unknown), job titles (female doctor)
Bill C -16 - seeks to add to the grounds of gender identity and gender expression to broaden the recognition of the rights of other members of sexual minority groups. "A significant step to recognising gender diverse communities"
The Wave Model - language change through the spreading of 'innovations'
- The Wave Model does not require stable languages, regarding them as impermenant collections of features at the intersection of multiple circles
The Great Vowel Shift - happened just after the printing press, and standardisation of English language (1300-1500)
- evolutional, wave shift theory
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Inkhorn Controversy - English needed more words, therefore words borrowed from other languages.- 'Inkhorn terms' became an abusive label to describe the writing of anyone who adopted these Latin neologisms
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Schneider's dynamic model - establishes how English develops during colonisation and post colonisation
- Foundation (colonial expansion spreads English)
- Exonormative stabilisation (politically dominant country determines linguistic behaviour)
- Nativisation
Endonormative stabilisation (local norms developed)
- Diffferemtiation (regional slang)
Criticism - doesn't take into account speaker's ability to speak the language
Kachru's Circles - A model seeking to categorise the differences in English across the world
Inner Circle - English is first language (L1) e.g USA, UK
Outer Circle - English is second language (L2) e.g India, Nigeria
Expanding Circle - English is used to communicate with speakers of other languages for business, politics etc
Criticisms
- does not address diversity within circles
- developed before internet
- 'inner circle' judgement and prejudice
Two Diaspora Model - First Diaspora: migrations to North America, Australia, New Zealand, South Africa. L1 varieties of English = 'new Englishes'
Second diaspora: colonisation of Asia and Africa. L2 varieties of English
Criticisms: does not say how language was introduced, lacks chronology, not up to date with recent developments
Saphir-whorf - Linguistic determinism - Determinism: Language shapes thought (if we did not have racist language, we would not be racist)
Reflectionism - Thought shapes language
American English
- Many forms of American English
- Only 1% of American English spellings differ
Loan words (US to UK) - moose, raccoon
Surviving words (UK to US) - fall, diaper, candy
Returning words (UK to UK) - hire, quit