Theories of language change

Theories of language change

Hana Kajanija

Before we start

• Different theories of why language change
• Theories which need to be discussed, understood and tested

Functional theory (Michael Halliday)

• Tool which enables changing economic and social functions in society.
• Language changes according to the needs of its users.
• Lexis is not actively discarded.
• Shortening of words.

Because it stands as a metaphor for society, language has the property of not only transmitting the social order but also maintaining and potentially modifying it.

Cultural transmission theory

• Various theories have developed this theory
• Bandura(1977), Mackintosh(1983) and Hartl and Clark(1997)
• Our culture is the sum total of ideas, customs, and social behavior of our society.
• This theory explores the process of learning new information
• Transmission of language
• Cultural transmission

Transmission: the learning and passing on of information between people in a group

Random fluctuation theory (Charles Hockett)

• Language changes developed in a more random way
• Spread of estuary English in the UK.

Examples

1. Technology (errors have been adopted as an acceptable feature)
2. The 5 second rule

Example

A: So like I thought we could hang out... like at the beach with Taylor B: Cool... uh... how do we get there?... like is your mom around to take us? A: Oh, um yeah, I'll just call her

Substratum theory

• The late 1960s and early 1970s, citing Wiliam Labov's study of Jewish communities
• Links language change to the spread of language and specifically, when applied to English
• Use of word "like"

Examples

Prosper prosper-ity used Calm calm-ity not used dis-respect respect used Dis-gruntled gruntled not used

Theory of lexical gaps

• Offshoot of Halliday's 1950s functional theory
• Likely sequence of English sound combinations makes some new words possible to form
• Loan word from another language

The wave model and tree model of language change

Protolanguage: a common ancestor of modern languages Language family: a group of languages that are related in structure and which have evolved from a common protolanguage

The tree model

• Knowledge that the many languages in existence can be traced back to a much smaller number
• Common language split into separate ones
• Protolanguage
• Language family
• Languages change only by splitting from a common core and can be grouped the same way as a family tree

The wave model

• Different from the tree model
• Language features get weaker

Transmission: the learning and passing on of information between people in a group

The S-curve model (Chen, 1968)

• Any change starts in a limited way, then accelerates
• People's willingness to adopt new forms

Thanks

Any questions?