100% satisfaction guarantee Immediately available after payment Both online and in PDF No strings attached
logo-home
Previously searched by you
Previously searched by you
logo
Language Change: Progress or Decay? Complete Summary $8.38
Add to cart
Quickly navigate to
Preview
  2.  
  3. Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
  4.  
  5. Linguistics - Language variation and change

Summary

Language Change: Progress or Decay? Complete Summary
 5 purchases
  • Module
  • Linguistics - Language variation and change
  • Institution
  • Universiteit Van Amsterdam (UvA)
  • Book
  • Language Change

This is a complete summary (chapters 1 through 16) of the 2013 edition of Jean Aitchison's Language Change: Progress or Decay? The summary is based on the weekly assignments for the UvA course Variation & Change and may include some extra information given in our seminars.

Preview 1 out of 17  pages

Document information

  • Yes
  • March 20, 2019
  • 17
  • 2018/2019
  • Summary

Subjects

  • linguistics
  • aitchison
  • variation
  • change
  • variation and change
  • english

Connected book

book image

Book Title:

Author(s):

  • Edition:
  • ISBN:
  • Edition:

Written for

  • Universiteit van Amsterdam (UvA)
  • Engelse Taal en Cultuur, English Language and Culture
  • Linguistics - Language variation and change
All documents for this subject (1)

Seller

avatar-seller
Juul1996

Reviews received

Content preview

Chapter 1: The Ever-Whirling Wheel: The Inevitability of Change

There are three possible directions for language change:
1) Slow decay
2) Slow evolution towards something more efficient
3) The possibility that language remains more or less the same over time from the
perspective of either improvement or decay.

The idea that language is decaying is based on social class prejudice

Latin has been held in high regard in Europe for many centuries. Latin was considered a
‘good’ language because of its association with the church and with academic discourses
and scholarship from the Renaissance onwards.The centrality of Latin in education around
1700 contributed to the idea that there was a fixed, correct form of a language. Secondly,
because Latin is a dead language, its perceived superiority led to the perceived superiority
of written language over spoken language: ’The written language is secondary [to the spo-
ken one] and derivative’. Thirdly, English was seen as a descendant of Latin that had lost
its endings or suffixes, and languages, like Latin, with inflections, were considered
superior.

Especially in the eighteenth and nineteenth centuries people were worried about language
change.
Linguistic purism: the belief that words derived from foreign languages should be
avoided. A notable occurrence is the resistance against ‘inkhorn terms,’ words derived
from Latin and Greek, in the 16th century.

The notion that there should be a ‘correct’ language is based on snobbism and people’s
natural tendency towards keeping things as they are or used to be. Not all countries have
as strong a standard language ideology as the countries of Western Europe. However, in
some cases, a fixed form of language can help avoid ambiguities or misunderstandings.

Grammar can be either:
1. the grammar of linguistic purists with the intention of spreading the perceived ‘proper’
usage, delineating ‘incorrect’ usages and educating the ignorant, or:
2. the grammar of linguists, which intends to describe language is actually used rather
than prescribe how it should be used. This is the difference between prescriptive and
descriptive grammars. I do think this distinction is important in keeping the task of the
linguist separate from things like prejudice or subjective judgement.
Prescriptive grammar: prescribes how language should be used.
Descriptive grammar: describes how language is actually used.
Bishop Lowth wrote a prescriptive grammar.

phonetics concerned with the sounds of speech
phonology concerned with how sounds are organized within languages
morphology concerned with words and their formation
syntax concerned with sentence structure
semantics concerned with meaning and the way language conveys meaning


The rise and fall of single words are only a symptom of people’s subconscious language
rules and attitudes, therefore the latter is the focus of Aitchison’s book.
*******************************************************************************************************

The benefits of buying summaries with Stuvia:

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Guaranteed quality through customer reviews

Stuvia customers have reviewed more than 700,000 summaries. This how you know that you are buying the best documents.

Quick and easy check-out

Quick and easy check-out

You can quickly pay through credit card for the summaries. There is no membership needed.

Focus on what matters

Focus on what matters

Your fellow students write the study notes themselves, which is why the documents are always reliable and up-to-date. This ensures you quickly get to the core!

Frequently asked questions

What do I get when I buy this document?

You get a PDF, available immediately after your purchase. The purchased document is accessible anytime, anywhere and indefinitely through your profile.

Satisfaction guarantee: how does it work?

Our satisfaction guarantee ensures that you always find a study document that suits you well. You fill out a form, and our customer service team takes care of the rest.

Who am I buying these notes from?

Stuvia is a marketplace, so you are not buying this document from us, but from seller Juul1996. Stuvia facilitates payment to the seller.

Will I be stuck with a subscription?

No, you only buy these notes for $8.38. You're not tied to anything after your purchase.

Can Stuvia be trusted?

4.6 stars on Google & Trustpilot (+1000 reviews)

65646 documents were sold in the last 30 days

Founded in 2010, the go-to place to buy revision notes and other study material for 15 years now

Start selling

Recently viewed by you

Exam (elaborations) ·

(0)

CISA Dumps - Way To Success In Real Isaca CISA Exam

Summary ·

(0)

Samenvatting deel 2 Inleiding tot het Recht

Lecture notes ·

(0)

2024 Machine Learning Notes Highlights (first part)

Exam (elaborations) ·

(0)

Top Driver Ohio Final Exam| Answered 100% Correctly

Summary ·

(0)

Huidtherapie jaar 1 Blok C Samenvatting Loep

Summary ·

(0)

Praktisch internationaal recht samenvatting

Summary ·

(0)

Samenvatting Taalontwikkelingsstoornis (TOS) fase 1

Exam (elaborations) ·

(0)

CTBS PRACTICE TEST QUESTIONS AND VERIFIED ANSWERS

Package deal ·

(0)

LATG Bundled Exam Questions and CORRECT Answers

$8.38  5x  sold
  • (0)
Add to cart
Added