Language Change

1. class systems and their changing nature
2. Politics and power systems
   1. Invasions
3. Conflict and wars
4. social trends and fashions
5. New technologies
6. Access to education

Annotations:

• The world is getting smaller so we have access to more language and other languages are influenced by us

1. Borrowings
2. Pidgins and creoles
3. Cultural infusion - language has expanded hugely due to cultural 'rubbing of shoulders'

1. Descriptive approach

   Annotations:

   • commenting on language rather than making a judgement; language develops gradually and inevitably - deals with appropriateness rather than 'correctness'
   1. More modern approach
2. Prescriptive approach

   Annotations:

   • Making judgements about language; saying what language definitiely 'is' rather than what it might be. Say that language is decaying.
   1. Crumbling Castle theory etc.

1. Crumbling castle - lang. was once a beautiful castle to but has been left to fall into disrepair.
2. Language web - lang. is intertwined and inter-connected.
3. Cuckoo's nest - theory of lexical change, that multiple words exist but that a dominant word kicks the others out of the nest
4. damp spoon - laziness causes language deterioration
5. language tree - that language is like a tree with branches of variation, a trunk of similarity etc.

1. Diachronic - over time - how language changes over time
2. Synchronic - a snapshot of language variation at any point in time.

1. Origins and word roots
2. Dictionary writing and definitions