Language change

Language change

Shifting meanings (semantic shift)

e.g. ‘fond’

·         current meaning: to like something, be affectionate (e.g I am extremely fond of cupcakes)

·         Earlier meaning: foolish, silly

The meaning of ‘fond’ has ameliorated (become more positive over time), moving from fairly negative semantics to more positive.

Neosemy: the process whereby a new meaning develops for an existing word

Processes involved with neosemy:

Generalisation/broadening-

-          The meaning of a word broadens so that it retains its old meaning but also has new meanings

-          Holiday- originally from ‘holy-day’; in the past people were only permitted a day off during days of religion importance

-          Place- original referred to a broad street but now refers to any area

Specialising/narrowing-

-          The opposite of broadening – a word becomes more specific in meaning:

-          Meat- the Old English ‘mete’ used to mean food in general but now refers to a specific type of food

-          Wife- used to refer to all women, not necessarily those who were married

Amelioration-

Over time a word acquires a more pleasant or more positive meaning;

-          Pretty- used to mean sly or cunning

-          Brave- used to mean wild/savage

-          Terribly- used to mean dreadfully but now is used as am intensifier

Pejoration-

-          The opposite of amelioration – over time a word becomes less favourable:

-          Villain- used to mean farm worker

-          Notorious- used to mean ‘widely known’ but now is linked to someone who is famous for having done something bad

-          Hussy- used to mean ‘housewife’ but now refers to a woman with loose morals

Weakening/bleaching-

-          The loss of reduction of the force of meaning of a word:

-          Thing- in Old English this referred to a meeting or assembly but now can refer to an unspecified object or anything

-          Shit- along with its literal meaning, it’s not uncommon for people to use expressions such as ‘I’m getting my shit together’ which has weakened to refer to stuff’

Euphemism- 

polite form of expressions for things that may be considered unpleasant:

-          E.g. he passed away instead of ‘he died’

-          Downsizing, is often used to refer to making peoples jobs redundant

Polysemy- words acquire many possible meanings, which coexist with the original:

-          Milk/milking it: where ‘milking it’ has evolved from the verb ‘to milk’ in its original sense

-          Good: Tom is a good person who words hard for the benefit of others

-          It was a good piece of work

-          Foot: when he got to the foot of the hill, he stumbled and twisted his foot

Why do words change meaning?

External factors-

-          Such as cultural changes, technological innovation or social convention may affect how a word is used. E.g the rise of technology has seen development in words such as: virus, bug, crash, windows

-          Changing social ideas can mean that a need for a new term arises, such as LGBT (lesbian, gender, bisexual and transgender) to replace words that are no longer acceptable

-          Cultural changes can result in the broadening or bleaching of a word as the original usage loses significance

Internal factors can also affect semantic change-

-          The basic meaning of a word can be linked to some similarity, either a specific attribute or an abstract concept. E.g. an actual virus can be likened to a computer virus.

Process	Definition	Example
Coinage/neologism	The deliberate creation of a new word, not a common process of word formation	Widget hobbit spoof
Borrowing/loan words	Borrowing of words/concepts from other languages. Words are either anglicised (made more English so we no longer recognise them as loan words) or they may retain their original phonology	Bungalow (from Hindi) Landscape (dutch) Futon (Japanese) Saga (Icelandic)
Compounding	Words are combined together to form new words	User-friendly Long winded Handheld
Clipping	Words are shortened and the shortened form becomes the norm	Pram Phone Deli Bus Gym Flu
Blending	A combination of clipping and compounding: words are abbreviated and joined together to form a new word	Moped (motor and pedal) Newscast (news and broadcast)
Acronym	First letters are taken from a series of words to create a new term	NATO AIDS
Intialism	The first letters from a series of words form a new term, but each letter is pronounced	BTW CD MP3 OMG
Affixation	One of more free morphemes are combined with one or more bound morphemes	Disinterest regift