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ENGB3 – Developing Language: Language Change (Section B)
Approaches to Language Change
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Diachronic – the study of history and the evolution of language (comparing texts from
different time periods)
Synchronic – the study of language at a particular point in time (comparing texts from
the same time period)

The History of English from 1700
From 1700 onwards, English became much more standardised
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He published in East Midland Dialect and this became the ‘correct’ and ‘prestige’ form
Samuel Johnson’s English Dictionary – 1755
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Standardised spelling and word meaning

Prescriptivist books had an impact on grammar
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Grammar books became popular in 1700s
Robert Lowth – ‘Short Introduction to English Grammar’, published 1762
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C18th elocution lessons and pronunciation
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A private school education taught people a standardised form of pronunciation
Some prescriptivists such as Sheridan believed there was a correct way to speak and
that this could be learnt through elocution lessons

Compulsory education
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In 1870, education became compulsory for all
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‘choon’ instead of ‘tyune’
Assimilation – one sound is affected by an adjacent sound
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Now word order is used to show
meanings rather than inflections
Double negatives aren’t used today, were used in past for emphasis
Pronouns – used to have many more, nowadays just tends to be “you”
Who and whom – should be whom when referring to subject
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However, in the C18th prescriptivist
movements opposed this excessive capitalisation
Used to use a hyphen for compound words (e
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to-day)

Font has changed
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Serif typefaces are older; they’re used to look more traditional now
Sans-serif fonts are used to look modern

Changes in Register
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We have a variety of registers in English language today
In the past, there was only one register
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Texts are becoming less formal

Standardisation
Language has been standardised in these areas…
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Lexis and semantics – word meanings
Grammar – grammatical rules
Spelling
Graphology – handwriting styles

Standardisation was driven by social and political reasons
Supported by technological advances that made it possibly to codify language
It is about attitudes and values, such as what is ‘correct’ and ‘poor’ English

ENGB3 – Developing Language: Language Change (Section B)
Attitudes to Language Change
Prescriptivism: involves stating a set of rules that people should follow in order to use
language ‘properly’
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It’s essential to stick to these rules so that people can understand each
other
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Lynne Truss, John Humphrys
Descriptivism: believe that aspects of language aren’t ‘good’ or ‘bad’; all varieties of English
should be valued equally
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David Crystal
The split infinitive
Prescriptivists think that the infinitive (to + verb) should not be split by an adverb
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‘to boldly go’ is from, it should be ‘to go boldly’
However, descriptivists would argue it’s a pointless rule as the meaning isn’t affective
The Oxford English Dictionary
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Editors were descriptivists – they aimed to record language not to prescribe rules

Language Theorist: Aitchinson
Said there are three ways of viewing language change:
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Decay (view of prescriptivists)
Progress (view of some descriptivists)
Inevitable, neither progress nor decay (view of most descriptivists)

Language Theorist: Halliday
His ‘functional theory’ says that language changes according to our needs

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