Language change

Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, semantic, syntactic, and other features of a language are modified over time. Two linguistic disciplines are concerned with this topic: Historical linguistics and sociolinguistics. Historical Linguists look at past states of a language and seek to explain how the present state came about. Linguistic reconstruction looks at language in the present and seeks to reconstruct the past. (Also called philology) Sociolinguists are interested in the origins of language changes and want to explain, how society and changes in society influence language.

Up to the 1960s, linguistic change was mainly seen in its historical dimensions, as linguistic change could only be detected via its consequences. But due to new technological possibilities, like tape recorders, linguistic change in progress could be observed. One of the first studies of linguistic change in progress was William Labov’s study in Martha’s Vineyard in 1963.

Factors for linguistic change:

1. Economy: Speakers tend to make their utterances as short and simple as possible. They try to exert least to achieve a certain aim. (abbreviations, simple grammar structures in spoken language)

2. Innovation: Humans always try to find the right way between assimilation to a group and individuality. Thus, language can be used to show one’s belonging to a group and it can also be used as a tool of differentiation and expressing one’s uniqueness.

3. Variation: Language users are flexible. Depending on the speech situation and the aims of a speaker, there are numerous possibilities to express the same thing.

4. Evolution: Developments and changes in society influence language and foster language changes.

Language Change is a fact of life. The world we live in is changing constantly so it makes sense that our languages too are constantly changing, words come and go without many of us noticing. At any given moment the English language has a huge variety within itself, this multiplicity of language is known as synchronic variation. From these different forms comes the affect to language over time diachronic variation.

This process of language change might be compared to the process of evolution and natural selection (see Darwin) in the natural world: at any given time, for example, some horses may be taller than others, or have different-sized tails but over time some of these features will come to dominate the species, and other features will become rare thus altering the appearance of the entire species. Just as language has many speakers, at any given time, with huge differences in their phonology, lexis, semantics, and grammar, and then try to trace which of these take root and influence the development of the language over time.

a) The changing lexicon

The constant influx of new words in the English language would make it an obvious choice of investigation into language change, although it is difficult to define precisely and accurately the vocabulary available to speakers of English. Throughout its history English has not only ‘borrowed’ words extravagantly from other languages but has re-combined and recycled them to create new meanings.

Dictionary writers (lexicographers) try to keep track of the change in language by recording the appearance in the language of new words, or new usages for old words.

b) Phonology

AS already mentioned the sociolinguist William Labov famously recorded the change in pronunciation in a relatively short period in the American resort of Martha’s Vineyard and showed how this was the result of social tensions and processes. Even in the relatively short time that broadcast media have been available, we can observe the difference between the ‘marked’ RP of the newsreaders of the 1940s and the 1950s and the more neutral, ‘unmarked’ RP of today. The greater acceptance and fashionability of regional accents in the media may also reflect a more democratic, less formal society.

Small-scale phonological changes are difficult to map and record –especially as the technology of sound recording only goes back a hundred years or so. So the only evidence we have of how our language has changed over the centuries is written evidence of what English sounded like.

c) Spelling

The modern obsession with spelling is a fairly modern trend. Differences in spelling are very often the most immediately obvious thing about a test from a previous century. In the pre-print era when literacy was much less common, there was no fixed system and in the handwritten manuscripts that survive, words are spelt according to regional pronunciation and personal preference.

So the development of the printing press brought dilemmas to the printers; texts from the fifteenth-seventeenth centuries show many internal inconsistencies, with the same word often being spelt differently within the same text.

Unfortunately modern spellings were not the result of a single consistent system, they show evidence of previous pronunciations e.g. the silent gh in words such as night would have represented a pronunciation similar to that found in the Scottish loch.

d) Graphology and orthography

Even relatively recent texts, such as personal letters or diaries written in the early twentieth century can reveal that handwriting styles have changed ; look further back into the nineteenth century or earlier and such differences become even more marked. Similarly, the conventions used by printers have changed, as at first the use of lower/upper-case letters, various fonts and punctuation developed in a fairly hap hazard way.

e) Semantic change

The appearance of a new word is only the beginning of its existence, once it becomes part of the language the meanings and applications it has for speakers can shift dramatically. Therefore, when reading a text from the past, you may think you recognize a word but may actually misunderstand the sense it conveyed when it was written.

The sociolinguist Jennifer Coates describes that linguistic change occurs in the context of linguistic heterogeneity. She explains that “[l]inguistic change can be said to have taken place when a new linguistic form, used by some sub-group within a speech community, is adopted by other members of that community and accepted as the norm.” (Coates, 1992: 169)

Language change has been induced by a number of factors over the centuries. In modern times language change is for example being brought about by technology. The internet and mobile technology have drastically altered language with the use of instant messaging and texting from mobile phones.

References:

Wardhaugh, R. (1986), An Introduction to Sociolinguistics, Oxford/ New York. Coates, J. (1992), Women, Men and Language: Second Edition, Essex. German Wikipedia: Sprachwandel

See also