A2 English Language ENGB3
Language Change: Prescriptivism and Descriptivism 07/10/13
Watch the video below, starring Stephen Fry and complete the questions...
|
1. Is Stephen Fry a descriptivist? Prescriptivist? Provide evidence?
2. What does he suggest about people and their use of language/attitude towards language? 3. Note any interesting terms. |
09/10/13: Watch the documentary below on THE HISTORY OF THE ENGLISH LANGUAGE and answer the comprehension questions to consolidate your knowledge.
LANGUAGE CHANGE REVISION
Below are a selection of videos on LANGUAGE CHANGE that I have chosen for you to watch -
use these for independent learning and to expand your knowledge for ENGB3.
use these for independent learning and to expand your knowledge for ENGB3.
|
|
Top Tips for answering language change questions:
- Stick to frameworks
- Get as much context as you can in - eg look at the date and try to think what would have been happening at the time.
- A key period is following the introduction of the printing press (1476) and the introduction of the first dictionary (1755 - Samuel Johnson). Also remember the grammar books that appeared at the time - the writers that tried to "fix" the language (Robert Lowth's Short Introduction to English Grammar was written 1762). All these had an influence on the language, and helped it to become standardised (slowly - remember it didn't all happen at once).
- Important point: the dictionary (Samuel Johnson 1755) was prescriptivist! It taught people how words should be defined and spoken, Mr Johnson also excluded words he found unfashionable from the dictionary. The finished version was very expensive and could only be afforded by the wealthy.
Where some English words have come from...
- English is a Germanic language
- Some words can be Latinate - tend to be the more sophisticated, scientific words - or ones to do with legality. Latinate words were introduced mainly during the Renaissance to make the words sound more impressive
- Norse words - tend to be things like "window" and "sky" - everyday outdoor objects
- Saxon/Celtic words - words to do with family relationships
- French influence - along with Latinate, return to "correct" spelling which led to the "b" in "subtle" and "debt" as a reminder of the latin origin (debt comes from debitum which has a "b"). Also, some words have entered English twice. "Chief" and "Chef" both have the same french root, which is thought in turn to come from the latin for "head".
- Samuel Johnson's dictionary (1755) wasn't the very first, but was the first substantial one that people refer to
- Contemporary language change - estuary English, slang etc
Reasons for Language Change...
- Blurring of the class structure - fewer extremes
- Proliferation of TV and film
- Education - compulsory education etc
- New technology
- Rise of youth culture
- Media & public broadcasting
- Impact of foreign invasion (Norse, Norman French)
- Printing press - introduced by William Caxton in 1476 - used East Midlands dialect - dialect of education (Oxbridge) etc, became Standard English. Printing press worked by ordering letter blocks, so the actual font needed to be standardised. As well as that, spelling and language was standardised to a certain extent as well. Perhaps most importantly is that it was the portal into the world of written texts, which allowed them to be passed around and transported all across the country, which may have contributed to standardising language.
- Rise of merchant classes
- Scientific development/technology
- King James Bible
Attitudes towards variation and change...
There are two main attitudes to language change - ‘prescriptivist’ and ‘descriptivist’. Descriptivists seek to describe, (objectively) how language is used. They do not subscribe to ‘correct’ and ‘incorrect’ language use. Prescriptivists favour rules that identify ‘correct’ language usage. They disapprove of uses of language that breaks these rules.
An example of these behaviours in action is in the use of double negatives. Jean Aitchison, an avid descriptivist, suggests that the use of double negatives is merely a means of emphasising a point. She states that in other languages, the illogicalness of the statement is ignored and the multiple use of negatives just goes to enforce the idea further. In contrast, prescriptivists would argue that by using double negatives, you are expressing a positive. They view language in a logical manner.
John Humphrys is a well known prescriptivist, who compared the misuse of an apostrophe as ‘vandalism’. He said, “Unless you get into the habit of being precise, you will be open to misunderstanding.” This is a common prescriptivist view. Lynne Truss has a similar perspective, calling it, in The Telegraph, an ‘apostrophe catastrophe’. “I am popularly supposed to be the sort of person who regularly upbraids the illiterate,” she said.
As previously stated, Jean Aitchison is a descriptivist. She attacks the prescriptivist view in her three language myths that she feels are false:
The Crumbling Castle myth suggests that English was a once great castle, but over time it has decayed and crumbled into the sea. She states this is false because the description of English as a ‘once fine language ‘ is a particularly inaccurate one, as language is constantly changing and evolving. “No year,” she said, “can be found when language achieved some peak of perfection.”
The Damp Spoon myth suggests that ‘bad English’ sticks to people who are lazy and passive. The laziness is reflected by the people that put the damp spoon into the sugar bowl. Aitchison, though, states that “the only lazy speech is drunken speech” and that speaking quickly, for example, isn’t a sign of laziness – it is anything but.
The Infectious Disease myth suggests that ‘bad English’ is like a horrible disease, like herpes, that spreads from person to person. We have no control or vaccine. It is coming to get you! Aitchison suggests that the idea that changes are ‘caught’ and ‘spread’ is technically correct, but it is no disease. People pick up changes in language because they want to.
Similarly, David Crystal, language extraordinaire, shares the same perspective as Aitchison. He created his own Tide Metaphor to explain language change. In this, he suggests that language is like a tide – constantly changing. It ebbs and flows, bringing in new words and taking out others in a natural, progressive way. In using this metaphor, Crystal claims that changes are not for the worse, or for the better. “Just changes,” he says.
An example of these behaviours in action is in the use of double negatives. Jean Aitchison, an avid descriptivist, suggests that the use of double negatives is merely a means of emphasising a point. She states that in other languages, the illogicalness of the statement is ignored and the multiple use of negatives just goes to enforce the idea further. In contrast, prescriptivists would argue that by using double negatives, you are expressing a positive. They view language in a logical manner.
John Humphrys is a well known prescriptivist, who compared the misuse of an apostrophe as ‘vandalism’. He said, “Unless you get into the habit of being precise, you will be open to misunderstanding.” This is a common prescriptivist view. Lynne Truss has a similar perspective, calling it, in The Telegraph, an ‘apostrophe catastrophe’. “I am popularly supposed to be the sort of person who regularly upbraids the illiterate,” she said.
As previously stated, Jean Aitchison is a descriptivist. She attacks the prescriptivist view in her three language myths that she feels are false:
The Crumbling Castle myth suggests that English was a once great castle, but over time it has decayed and crumbled into the sea. She states this is false because the description of English as a ‘once fine language ‘ is a particularly inaccurate one, as language is constantly changing and evolving. “No year,” she said, “can be found when language achieved some peak of perfection.”
The Damp Spoon myth suggests that ‘bad English’ sticks to people who are lazy and passive. The laziness is reflected by the people that put the damp spoon into the sugar bowl. Aitchison, though, states that “the only lazy speech is drunken speech” and that speaking quickly, for example, isn’t a sign of laziness – it is anything but.
The Infectious Disease myth suggests that ‘bad English’ is like a horrible disease, like herpes, that spreads from person to person. We have no control or vaccine. It is coming to get you! Aitchison suggests that the idea that changes are ‘caught’ and ‘spread’ is technically correct, but it is no disease. People pick up changes in language because they want to.
Similarly, David Crystal, language extraordinaire, shares the same perspective as Aitchison. He created his own Tide Metaphor to explain language change. In this, he suggests that language is like a tide – constantly changing. It ebbs and flows, bringing in new words and taking out others in a natural, progressive way. In using this metaphor, Crystal claims that changes are not for the worse, or for the better. “Just changes,” he says.
A framework for LANGUAGE CHANGE exam questions:
DISCOURSE
PRAGMATICS
LEXIS
SEMANTICS
GRAMMAR
GRAPHOLOGY
CONTEXT
OTHER ISSUES
RESEARCH COVERAGE
TEMPORAL VARIATION
- How is cohesion created?
- Is there evidence of contrasting registers?
- Is there evidence of dialogue or narrative structures? Are there any interpersonal features?
- Is there evidence of different discourse conventions?
- Is there one general viewpoint or several?
- Is the register formal or informal?
- Is there a difference in purpose between the texts or in an older text compared to your knowledge of modern texts?
PRAGMATICS
- Is the reader expected to recognise and identify with specific societal roles?
- Is the reader expected to share social codes and values?
- Is the reader expected to accept particular roles and responsibilities?
- Is the reader expected to accept particular social attitudes/ cultural assumptions?
- What attitude is expressed about language: prescriptive or descriptive?
- Are assumptions made about the readers’ knowledge and understanding?
- Is there evidence of changing values or ideologies?
LEXIS
- Is there obsolete lexis or for old roles and practices?
- Is there archaic language or archaic slang?
- Is the lexis Latinate, or of classical derivation, or polysyllabic or formal? Are the collocations archaic or unfamiliar?
- Are there unusual allusions e.g. classical or religious?
- Are there any unexplained references?
- Are there differing specialist terms?
- Is there evidence of borrowing, clippings conversion, neologisms or coinages?
- Does lexis suggest technological development?
- Are there any emotive overtones to the lexis?
- Is there evidence of colloquial or slang lexis? Is the lexis of Old English origin or short words or informal? *Is it largely intelligible and familiar?
- What influence has technology had?
SEMANTICS
- Identify the semantic fields
- Are there specific connotations, metaphors, innuendo or figurative language?
- Is there evidence of semantic shifts or changes
- Is there any pejoration or amelioration?
- Is there anything significant in the terms of address, are there politeness markers?
- Is there any difference between the texts in the degree of implicitness?
- Is the text accessible and easy to understand?
- Is there any relevance in how much authority the text has?
- Are there examples of special collocations or metaphors?
GRAMMAR
- Are grammar choices formal or informal?
- Does syntax seem outdated? Does it suggest a classical style? Are there any complex or Latinate grammatical structures? Is there any unfamiliar syntax?
- Comment on the verb forms, adverbs, pre-modification.
- Are prepositions used differently?
- Are there differences in conjunctions/punctuation?
- Do the texts use modal auxiliaries? What do they convey?
- Does the text use pronouns for immediacy of address
- Are any questions used without auxiliary verbs?
- Are minor sentences used?
- Are there any variations in sentence length and complexity?
- Is there use of syntactic parallelism or repeated sentence structures?
- Do the texts use the forms of informal speech?
- Does the text use a lot of imperative, declarative, exclamative or interrogative sentences?
- Orthography
- Are capital letters used differently?
- Do texts use different letter forms e.g. the long s
- Are words abbreviated in a familiar way?
- Are there any differences in spelling or punctuation?
- Are there competing or unusual spellings?
- Are spellings similar to modern English?
- Are there approximations of foreign spellings or unusual letter strings for English spelling?
- Are plurals formed differently?
- Does the spelling in the texts relate to your knowledge of standardization?
- Are conventions related to technology?
GRAPHOLOGY
- How are fonts used, for example - to assist discourse structure/for emphasis?
- How are illustrations used?
- Are there different design or layout conventions, for example - bar code, price and logo slogans?
- Is there a greater use of graphological devices to signal text structure, for example - space-shifting, textboxes, bullet points; or systematic, colour coded layout, headings.
CONTEXT
- What sort of societal roles are implied?
- How does the text position the reader?
- What are the shared social values?
- What attitudes to the text are assumed?
- Is there an authoritative tone?
- Is there a religious context assumed?
- Is there an assumption about the reader’s education?
- Is there evidence of a prescriptivist attitude?
- What principles are assumed to be self evident, true or desirable?
- What stage of language development is exemplified in the text?
- Is the use of language very specific to this type of text or can you generalise?
OTHER ISSUES
- Situational as well as temporal variation.
- What can be assumed about the audience and how the text is read e.g. is the text intended to be read aloud?
- What is the social and linguistic context?
- Can you find any relationship to key/landmark texts you are aware of? (e.g. Lowth’s grammar; Johnson’s dictionary)
- What evidence does it supply about attitudes to language change?
- What evidence is there of attitudes to gender, class and ethnicity?
- What evidence is there of the society’s different technologies and priorities?
- What sort of situation produced this text? What are the genre conventions of this text?
- What sort of priorities is does the author/audience seem to have?
- Can you make connections with other texts you have seen?
- Does it reflect specific economic or scientific priorities of the time?
- What comparisons can you make to modern texts/use of language?
- Does the text represent the views of a particular section of society?
RESEARCH COVERAGE
- Stronger answers will place the text within a sociolinguistic and socio-cultural perspective.
- Some students will be able to make connections between this text and other texts they have encountered.
- There may be references to other developments relevant to language change including those in education, economic development and popular culture.
- Can you show differences in situational as well as temporal variation- you are aware of how the situation in which this text is produced influences the language as well as when it was produced.
TEMPORAL VARIATION
- Technological context e.g. relatively unsophisticated print methods of older texts.
- The more Informal and conversation style of modern texts.
- Change in attitudes towards language: grammatical preoccupations of previous years, compared with communicative competence model of modern texts.
Lexical Change
- Affixation - the addition of bound morphemes (prefixes and suffixes) to an exitsting word (e.g. sudden + ly = suddenly)
- Acronym - a word formed from inital parts (letters, syllables) (e.g. NASA National Aeronautics and Space Administration)
- Initalism - a group of initals used to form a word, with the letters pronouced seperately (e.g. BBC British Broadcasting Company)
- Clipping - forming words by dropping one or more syllables from a polysyllabic word (e.g. influenza flu)
- Eponyms - name of something after whom something is named (e.g. a sandwhich is named after Lord Sandwhich)
- Proprietry Names - something named after a brand (e.g. vacuum cleaner made by hoover, now called hoover)
- Compound - two words put together to form a new word in its entirety (e.g. girl + friend = girlfriend)
- Blending - two words mixed together to make a new word (e.g. smoke + fog = smog)
- Archaisms - words that are obsolete and no longer used by general population
Neologisms (new words) - why are they formed?
- Internet and technology
- Slang/colloquialisms because of modernistic expression
- Compounds/blends
- Inventors of new words (e.g. Shakespeare)
- Imperialisation/invasion and the borrowing of words from other cultures
- Derivations from ancient languages
- Adoption of words with associated prestige
- Acronyms
Loan Word - a word that has been adopted from another language (e.g. cafe from the french)
Semantic Change
- Broadening - a word's meaning becomes more general but retains some of its original meaning (e.g. rubbish = rubble but also now means anything worthless)
- Narrowing - a word's meaning becomes more specific (e.g. starve 16th century - to die of hunger, modern - to be really hunrgy)
- Amelioration - a word acquires more favourable connonations or positive meaning (e.g. success used to mean simply a result but now means a good result)
- Pejoration - a word acquires less favourable connotations or negative meaning (e.g. gaudy used to mean brilliant and cheerful but now means tasteless)
- Weakening - words lose some of their original force or strength over time (e.g. swear words)
- Metaphor - words often acquire new meaning because they begin to be used metaphorically - the representation of words change
- Idiom - a group of words whose meaning cannot be interpreted from the meaning of the constituent words (e.g. 'cat out of the bag')
- Euphemism - a polite expression for for things too inappropriate to talk about directly (e.g. collateral damage - killing hundreds of people)
- Political Correctness - some change has risen from this, when words and phrases with negative meaning have been changed (e.g. mentally handicapped changed to learning difficulties)
Orthographical Change
- Homonyms - same spelling, same sound, different meaning (e.g. stalk (verb)/ stalk (noun))
- Homophone - same sound, different spelling, different meaning (e.g. weight and wait)
- Vowel sounds spelt differently (e.g. 'a' and 'eigh' and 'ay')
- The long 'S' - used at the end of a word/ before an apostrophe/ before or after the letter 'f' if not hyphenated
Graphological Change
Features that may have changed:
- Overall layout - focus on appealing areas, sacn for content we seek
- Font/typeface - printed press changes handwritten, expands with technology
- Bold/italics/underlining - emphasis, more common with technology
- Upper and Lower case letters
- Visual symbols - e.g. ;) or emoticons
- Individual letter may now be used as symbols - X , a kiss, adult, wrong answer
- Illustration - line drawing previous, now coloured images due to improved technology
- Colours in text - symbolism of feeling, emphasis etc.
Phonological Change
- Omission - sounds disappear from words (e.g. 'football - fooball)
- Assimilation - Pronounciation of one phoneme affected by an adjacent phoneme (e.g. don't you - donchu)
- Val Speak - from California in 80s/90s, rising intonation and emphasisers such as 'like', 'totally' etc.- lack of confidence, filler when struggling in conversation
- Martha's Vineyard - an island where it was found by William Labov that local fishermen deliberately diverged from tourists to distinguish themselves.
- Estuary English - a form of speaking derived from the estuary of the Thames, used commonly modern to downplay privilege, standard english with a certain accent and features common to the South of England when spoken
Grammatical Change
- Adverbs have changed position (e.g. the ripest fruit first falls)
- We now use contractions (e.g. Will not it be a good plan? - Won't)
- Change in word order (syntax), particularly pronouns (e.g. Dreadful stories they were - they were dreadful stories)
- Now use auxillary verb 'do' (e.g. she wanted not to go - she didn't want to go
Modern:
- Started to replace adverbs with adjectives (e.g. you've done great)
- Irregular verbs still changing (e.g. I've wrote it)
- Pronouns - 'whom' being replaced with 'who'
Useful Revision Pages (Click on the button to link to the site/article)
Mark Scheme & Example Exam Responses for ENGB3:
engb3_64marks_anonymised1.pdf | |
File Size: | 986 kb |
File Type: |
engb3_76marks_anonymised1.pdf | |
File Size: | 844 kb |
File Type: |
engb3_82_marks.pdf | |
File Size: | 693 kb |
File Type: |