Language Change questions..

Questions:

What are the main reasons for language change? 

• The main reason is that language changes because it is learnt as people are spread out over different regions and different cultures
• Part of the change is random
• Adaptation to changing needs
• Become more uniform through centralized media and publications
• Setting of official standards
• Standardized education

What are the ways in which language changes?

1. Adaption - changes through daily use, common words tend to change and be simplified more often than seldom words 
2. Synthesis - borrowed from our languages 
3. Standardization - tend to become more 'regular' over time
4. Genesis - New words are created to express new ideas 
5. Design - Some language are controlled by an agency which regulates changes to the language

What are they key influential factors on the development of English as accessible to all? 

The way we speak about technology today is how we spoke about it before it became what it is today, just with a more detailed and varied vocabulary. And its biggest influence has been on the way we write. The structure of the letter was altered due to the invention of email and along with it came new abbreviations such as IMO and FYI. It also interested the novel idea that words in upper case letters mean we are SHOUTING whilst lower case is the accepted form. But compared to the impact on language mobile phones have made, this is only the beginning. Text messages in particular are so widely accepted that it is even included in advertising. Virgin Media, for example, ran a campaign for it's provision of broadband (Brdbnd) and even a council campaign used the txt speek for their title: 'Dnt B Wstfl'. 

• What is the difference between a prescriptive and descriptive attitude to language use.

Prescriptivist Opinion - likes to hold onto the old grammar rules such as 'shall' instead of 'will' . It's the 18th century kind of grammar from when people tried to make English conform to Latin rules. 

Descriptivist Opinion - Explains language in terms of what grammar items mean, how native speakers express themselves. Takes it's language currently spoken by educated native speakers. It recognizes that language changes always and forever. New words get added and pieces of grammar fall into disuse.

• Find two quotes that represent each attitude that you can make reference to in the exam.

1. Prescriptivst: '[Prescriptivism is the] policy of describing languages as we would like them to be, rather than as we find them. Typical examples of prescriptivist attitudes are the condemnation of preposition stranding and of the split infinitive and a demand for It's I in place of the normal It's me."
2. Descriptivist:  'In a descriptivist approach, we try to describe the facts of linguistic behaviour exactly as we find them, and we refrain from making value judgments about the speech of native speakers. . . .'

• What did Johnson think were the problems with his dictionary? Are these problems still evident in dictionaries today?

• What is a 'lingua franca' and to what extent was/is English one?

Lingua Franca is the use of the English language as a common means of communication for speakers of different first languages. As a foreign language it aims at meeting native speaker norms and gives prominence to native speaker cultural aspects. Used functionally and geographically, ELF is a new phenomenon because of the extent to which it is used.

• What are the prestigious forms of English now? (overt and covert)

Covert - A feature of a word or phrase is said to be covert if there is no surface evidence of it's existence within that word or phrase. For example, many languages have covert grammatical gender in nouns i.e. there is no way to what gender the noun is.

Overt - One that is widely recognized as being used by a culturally dominant group. In England, this would be RP. 

• How was politically correct language and the Sapir-Whorf hypothesis influenced modern English usages?

Political correctness movement is an intellectual effort to use language to allow and encourage social progress. The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis is a widely accepted part of this theory. All of language is a construct that attempts to signify abstract meaning, and any construct will be lacking. The language we uses affects not just the messages we communicate, but the fundamental ways that we think and act. 

• Find three examples of obsolete English grammar that you can make reference to in the exam.

1. Hugger-Mugger (act in a secretive way)
2. Grumpish (An alternative to grumpy)
3. Snowbroth (Freshly melted snow) 

• Find three features of modern punctuation that take advantage of a lessening of prescriptivism.

1. 'In order to protect your computer, you should do the following: run a trustworthy anti-virus system such as AVG and keep it updated.' - colon usage
2. The use of multiple '?!' as expression and shock
3. ':-)' use of punctuation to create faces and expression

• Find three neologisms from the past five years.

1. Smirting - flirting while outside the front door of a building to smoke
2. Trout pout - too much collagen injected into person's lips 
3. Cheepuccion - inexpensive, low quality cappuccino usually bought from a vending machine

• Do an internet search to find an article that interests you on language uses. Find a key quote to memories. How does that writer communicate their ideas?

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/29/obama-improper-grammar-presidential-language 

"No one is madder than me about the fact that the website isn't working as well as it should ... It's going to get fixed." —President Obama

"Obama used the term 'madder' instead of 'more mad' & now I know why our educational system is in the [redacted]"

• Read at lesat one chapter from a book from a library about language change; identify how the attitudes expressed in it are a product of when it was written.
• What does gender theory reveal about English use through the ages?