Week 9 language change

1. Week 9: Language
Change

2. Outline
1. Language Change
2. Language Change Causes
3. Language Change Types

3. Is language change bad?
Ye knowe ek that in forme of speche is change
Withinne a thousand yeer, and words tho
That hadden pris now wonder nyce and straunge
Us thinketh hem, and yet thei spake hem so.
And spedde as wele in love, as men now do.
--- Geoffrey Chaucer, Troilus and Creseyde, ca. 1385
You know that even forms of speech can change
Within a thousand years, and words we know
Were useful once, seem to us wondrous strange—
Foolish or forced – and yet men spoke them so.
And they spoke of love as well as men now do.

4. What is language change?
Language change is a phenomenon studied both by historical linguists and
sociolinguists.
Historical linguists study basically the change of languages over time (diachronic
change) and examine how languages were used in the past and how they relate
to one another [1].
Eg. Old English Middle English Modern English

5. The Three Types of English Language

6. Sociolinguists study the origins or the causes of language changes
and explain how society and changes in speech communities influence
language and generate sociolects [1].
Eg. Spanish spoken by an upper class man/woman in Madrid
and Spanish spoken by a working class man/woman in Andalucía.

7. Language change is the phenomenon whereby
phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and
other features of language vary over time [1].

8. Language Change
Causes

9. Language Change Causes
1. Economy
2. Analogy
3. Language Contact
4. Language Acquisition and Learning
5. Social Differentiation

10. 1. Economy
The principle of least effort is one of the basic and most used
explanations for many language changes [3].
Eg. She + is = she's; we + have + been = we've been;
clothes /kloʊðɪz/ - /kloʊz/;
fifth /fifθs/ /fifs/.

11. 2. Analogy
► A linguistic process that reduces words which are perceived as irregular by
making them similar to other regular forms (O’Grady et al. 1997).
► Cognitive factors also play a role in change in all components of grammar.
Examples:
Semantic historically “livid” meant “pale”, its similar sound with
“vivid” has led to analogical semantic change.
Morphological the verb “thrive” (thrive-throve-thriven) is on its way
to becoming a regular verbs (thrive-thrived-thrived).

12. 3. Language Contact
► Languages come into contact with each other.
► Migration, conquest and trade bring speakers of one language into contact with
speakers of another language.
► Geographic separation: when people move away from each other, their language
will diverge, at least for the vocabulary, due to different experiences.
► The most common way that languages influence each other is the exchange of
words especially if there is lexical a gap in the language [3]. Eg. “shushi” from
Japanese.
► Or if the dominant language is thought to sound more prestigious[3]. Eg. French
loans in English in law (“crime”, “judge”).
► Any examples of BORROWED words?

13. 4. Language
Acquisition/Learning
► A psycholinguistic explanation related to the generative
theories (N. Chomsky – human beings possess an innate faculty
for acquiring language).
► Language acquisition by children is considered the main origin
of language change because the child’s inner grammar may
differ from the adult’s. Yet, it has been demonstrated that
language change is not restricted to language acquisition, but
may also occur with adult speakers [3].

14. 5. Social Differentiation
► Social groups adopt distinctive norms of dress, adornment, gesture and so
forth; language is part of the package.
► Linguistic distinctiveness can be achieved through vocabulary (slang or jargon),
pronunciation (usually via exaggeration of some variants already available in
the environment), morphological processes, syntactic constructions, and so on.
► Social prestige: Language may not only change towards a prestigious accent,
but also away from one with negative prestige, as in the case of rhoticity of
received pronunciation. Such movements can go back and forward.

15. Sociolinguistic
Explanations
It is assumed that we can infer how a language will vary over time
if we analyse the linguistic behaviour of different age groups at a
certain point in time.
W. Labov stated that two decisive parameters influence speakers´
linguistic behavior: their social class membership and the
formality of the situation [3].