A2 English Language – Language Change

• Objectives• Learn and understand

word formation processes and how they relate to language change

• Understand different attitudes to language change.

• Work on an exam question.

• Activities• Follow powerpoint• Short activities to engage with

EME word formation processes using sugar paper.

• Short activities to engage with ME word formation processes using worksheet.

• Application of terminology learnt to words in different contexts.

• Analysis of quotations to uncover attitudes to language change

• Discussion of the the word ‘gay’

A2 English Language – Language Change

• Resources

• Powerpoint presentation

• Sugar paper & pens• Worksheet• Exam question

• Context• Students are half-way

through the topic of language change.

• So far they have focussed on the history of the language.

• They are now moving on to understand the mechanisms of change.

• Students are grouped on the basis of recent mock exam results

LEXICAL EXPANSION

• Many times as we went through the history of language we mentioned that certain events & people led to lexical expansion. Some examples?

• But where do these words actually come from? • Many like the exclamative “Eureka!” are

borrowings from other languages.

CREATIO EX NIHILO?

• Are they all created out of nothing? • Actually very few are …most come from other words in

various inventive different ways….(word formation processes)

EARLY WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

• In EME there were 3 main types of word formation processes

• Affixation• Clipping • Compounding

AFFIXATION

• In 1 minute write as many words as you can think of using the prefix “post-” meaning after.

• In 1 minute write as many words as you can think of using the suffix “ise-”.

• What do you notice about the word class of all the “–ise” words?

AFFIXATION – AO3

• In the 16th Century, neologisms "smelling too much of the Latin" - as the poet Richard Willes put it - were frowned upon by many.

• Examples included portentous, antiques, despicable, dismiss, homicide, destructive, encyclopaedia and ingenious, all of which he labelled "ink-horn terms“ (borrowed from Classical languages or by using Latinate affixes)

WHAT WORDS ARE THESE CLIPPED FROM?

FaxPram

Lunch

LimoFan

Flu

Memo

COMPOUNDS

2 whole words

Blackbird

Bittersweet

Oversleep

MODERN ENGLISH WORD FORMATION PROCESSES

Other Shortenings

parts of the word left out for economy

Initialisms

takes the first letter of each word in a phrase – but then sounded as each letter in sequence

e.g. BBC

Acronyms

takes the first letter of each word in a phrase to make a new word

Scuba (Self Contained Underwater Breathing Apparatus)

BEWARE

• Acronymy is not a totally new word formation process…some have been around for many many years:

• SPQR• INRI• BUT it became hugely popular in the 20th century

(ie in Modern English)when the vast majority of acronyms where created (indeed the noun acronym itself dates from the 1940s)

• They became prolific in business & during the war.

THE POPULAR MODERN ENGLISH PHENOMENON OF BLENDING

Blends

combines shortening and compounding

Taking parts from two words and combining them together

Brunch

breakfast - lunch

WORKSHEET

• Try to fill in the worksheet – there might be some surprises in there…. NO MOBILE PHONES CHEATERS!!!

• You have 5 mins.• Can we make up a blend ourselves?• If we can get it trending on facebook & twitter

we will be changing language!

CONTEXT

Facebook

UnfriendFrape

ATTITUDES TO LANGUAGE CHANGE

JA herself tells us that change is “natural, inevitable, continuous”.

3. Neither progress nor decay, but inevitable

2 Progress

1. Decay

Within this she posits that there are 3 ways of viewing the phenomenon of language change:

Jean Aitchison is one of the biggest contributors to this area through her book “Language Change: Progress or Decay?” (1991).

EXAM QUESTION BP1

Pick one word from Text B

State its word class

State the word formation process

What contextual

information could we link

this to?

What sentence type is used in the definition? Could you say

anything about clauses?

REMEMBERING SECTION B

Remember the 3 stages?

How is the language issue represented?

How does the author represent

himself & others?

How does the author shape the reader’s response?

WHITEBOARDS

• Write on your whiteboard which of the 3 views is represented in the following quotations.

• “We now comment with satisfaction on the flexibility, range and versatility of the English lexicon”

• David Crystal

• “It is the relentless onward march of the … SMS vandals... They are destroying it: pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentences; raping our vocabulary. And they must be stopped.”

• John Humphrys

• “There is no predictable direction for the changes that are taking place. They are just that: not changes for the better; not changes for the worse; just changes”

• David Crystal

BRINGING IT ALL TOGETHER

GAY• What words can you think of that have been formed from the word gay?

EXTENSION WORK

• On the blog read the article called “Gay abandon” by Dan Clayton

• Also check out the poster on the politically correct usage of the word ‘gay’

• In your extended reading pack you should also read the article “Blends and Ends”

SEMANTIC SHIFTS

Amelioration - the meaning of the word is more positive

than the original.

Pejoration - the meaning

of the word is more

negative than the original.

Narrowing - the meaning of the word narrows so

that it includes

fewer objects/ideas.

Widening - the meaning of the word broadens to

include more objects/ideas.

Conversion - Words

change their ‘class’.

Inversion – words come to mean the opposite of

their original meaning.