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LANGUAGE CHANGE - Coggle Diagram
LANGUAGE CHANGE
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Semantic change - When the meanings of words shift over time.
Neosemy is when a word develops a new meaning
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Lexical change- When new words (neologisms) enter our language, or when old words cease to be used any more (archaisms)
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Borrowing words from other languages (and then either anglicising them or retaining their original spelling or phonology).
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Combination of clipping and compounding: words are shortened and joined together to form a new word. Often fail to take hold!
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Many words in the English language have been created by adding Latin or Greek prefixes or suffixes to existing words (e.g. Greek ‘hyper’).
Why does it change? -
tech
colonialisation
changes in society
politics
efficiency- Assimilation – when sounds next to each other are pronounced in a different way from normal to make them easier to say. Assimilation within a word tends to be more common than between words: most people, for example, would pronounce ‘handbag’ as ‘hanbag’.
Omission – when sounds are left out from words. If a lot of speakers do this over a prolonged period of time, the sound can end up being lost altogether.
MODELS OF LANGUAGE CHANGE
- curve model - CHEN
Users pick up a language change at a gradual rate before it accelerates and spreads into wider usage before slowing down again and stabilising
- Old and new terms may coexist until old forms are eventually lost
Wave Model - BAILEY
Geographical distance has an impact on language change spread – change weakens the further from the ‘epicentre’ you are.
Words adopted by multicultural youths in London are less likely to be taken up by white middle class speakers in Edinburgh (they’re distanced from the epicentre
THEORIES
- Random fluctuation theory - Charles Hockett
he proposed random mistakes and events lead to language change
Random events, such as the Coronavirus pandemic, may also affect our language.
Substratum theory
The English language changes through contact with other languages. In the past this was mainly through trade and invasion, but may happen nowadays through social networking and immigration.
Functional theory
Halliday proposed that language changes and adapts according to the needs of its users. Words disappear over time (becoming archaisms) as things change – for example, advances in technology means ‘cassette’ has been replaced with ‘CD’ which may also fall out of usage and be replaced with ‘streaming