Language Change

Group 2
Ni Putu Devi Septirahyuni (1201305089)
A.A Ngurah Andika Rama (1201305099)
Alvine Manuel (1201305114)

Unit 6 Language Change

Talk

about language change like the discussion

between the young people at the beginning of this
section, often treats language as an entity
independent of its speakers and writers.
In reality it is not so much that language itself changes
as that speaker and writer change the way they use
the language. Speaker innovation is a more accurate
description than language change.
Speaker innovate sometimes spontaneously but more
often by imitating speaker from other communities. If
their innovations are adopted by other and diffuse
through their local community and beyond into other
communities then linguistic change is the result.

6. 1 Variation and Change

Language varies in three major ways which

are interestingly interrelated over time, in

physical space, and socially. Language
change variation over time as its origins
in spatial (or regional) and social variation.
The source of change over time is always
current variation.
So the regional and social variant described
in previous three chapters provide the basis
for language change over time. All
language change has its origins in variation.

The possibility of linguistic change exists as

soon as new form develops and begins to be

used alongside an existing form. If the new form
spreads the change is in progress.
If it eventually this places the old form the
change has become a faith accompli it has
gone to completion. One area of vocabulary
where this is very easy to see is in the slang
words used by young people to mean really
good. One area of vocabulary where this is very
easy to see is in the slang words used by young
people to mean really good.

There is constants turnover of such words

in any speech community such as: super,

spiffing, bonzer, groovy, cool, neat,
fantastic, magic, excellent, wicked, hot,
rad. A particular word, such as wicked, may
first develop this meaning of really good
in the usage f a particular sub-group-say
young men if the young men have some
kind
of
status
within
the
speech
community. In other words, if other groups
such as young boys or young woman
admire them, then the new word will be
begin to spread all over the world from

Similarly, a sound change occurs when one

sound is a replaced in peoples speech by

another over a period of time or when a
sound disappears as will be illustrated
below. The process is the same in New
Zealand, for example, words like new and
nuclear were ones pronounce nyew [nju:]
and nyuklear [njurklia]. Right now there is
variation in the community. A new norm
has been introducd.

6.2 Post vocalic [r] - its spread

and its status
Accents with post-vocalic [r] are called rhotic. In large

areas of England rhotic English accents are regarded as

rural and uneducated. In large part of America, on the
other hand post-vocalic is alive and well extensively used.
Many American accents (though not AAVE) are rhotic.
Under the influence of southern British norms, however,
eastern new England is generally non-rhotic. But there is
also a conflict thing pattern. A survey in the 1960s found
that rhoticism was increasing in New York, where it was
regarded as prestigious. Post-vocalic was used by almost
all New Yorkers in their most formal and careful speech
and young people from the upper middle class
pronounced it even in their most casual speech a sure
signal there is was spreading.

So

the pronunciation of [r] in English

speaking communities provides a wealth of
examples of the complexity of linguistic
variation and language change, as well as
the arbitrariness of the forms which happen
to be standard in any community. While [r]
less speech is the prestigious form which
is still spreading in England, in some part of
America it is the rhotic variety which is
increasing.

6.3 The spread of vernacular

forms
It

is easy to understand that a pronunciation which is

considered prestigious will be imitated, and will spread through
a community. But there are also many examples of vernacular
pronunciations which have spread throughout speech
communities. It is possible for changes to proceed from a
variety of starting points in a variety of directions.
Example: Marthas Vineyard is a little island about three miles
off the coast of Massachusetts and within reach of people from
Boston and New York as a holiday retreat. There are about 6000
permanent residents on the island. Every summer the island is
flooded with visitors who outnumber the resident about seven
to one. Not surprisingly these visitors are presented by the
locals, despite the fact that they become increasingly
dependent on tourist for their income. The attitude of the local
towards the visitors is reflected in the Vineyarders speech.

On Marthas Vineyard those who have lived on

the island for generation and especially those

men who fish for their lively hood, resent the
fact that the island has been invaded by more
resent immigrants, and especially by summer
tourists. 1950s linguistic survey revealed that
these attitudes were reflected in the way they
pronounced words like light and house. Their
pronunciation of the vowels in these words
had gradually become more and more
centralized.

6. 4 How do changes spread?

1. from group to group
Many linguists have used the metaphor of waves to explain
how linguistic changes spread through a community. Any
particular change typically spread simultaneously in different
direction, though not necessarily at the rate in all direction.
Social factors such as age, status, gender, and region affect
the rates of change and the direction in which the waves roll
most swiftly. The waves metaphor is one useful way of
visualizing the spread of a change forms one group to
another.
In any speech community different sets of waves intersect.
You belong simultaneously to a particular age group, region,
and social group. A change may spread long any of these
dimensions and into another group.

2. from style to style

One theory of how a change spreads presents the process as a
very systematic one. In the speech of a particular individual it
suggests the change spreads from one style to another (say
from more formal speech to more casual speech), while at the
same time it spread from one individual to another within a
social group, and subsequently from one social group to
another.
Using this model we would trace the spread of prestigious
post-vocalic pronunciation in New York, for instance, first in the
most formal style of the young people in the most socially
statusful group in the community. Then it would spread to a
less formal style for that group, while also spreading to the
most formal style of other groups, such as to older peoples
speech, and to the speech of people from a lower social group.

3. from word to word

It seems to be the case that sound changes not only spread from one
person to another and from style to another styles, they also spread
from one word to another.
Some changes spread through different words one by one. This is
called lexical diffusion: when a sound changes begins all the words
with a particular vowel dont change at once in the speech of a
community. People dont go to bed one night using the sound [u:]
and wake up using [au] in house, pouch, how, and out. Instead, the
sound changes occurs first in one words, and then later in another,
and so on.
In Belfast, for instance a vowel change affected the vowel in the
word pull before put, and put before should. And in East Anglia the
vowel in must changed before the vowel in come, which changed
before the vowel in uncle, although they all stated off with the same
vowel, and they all ended up with the identical different vowel at a
later point.

6.5 How do we study Language

change?
Apparent-time studies of Language
change
A great deal of linguistic variations is stable
but some is an indication of linguistic
change in progress. The patterns of
deletion of the regular past tense affix (-ed)
are stable in English speaking communities.
In Norwich, as elsewhere, the forms [in] vs
[iq] and [h] dropping, discussed in chapter
6, are also examples of stable variants.

The patterns noted for different group in

the community have not changed over the

last fifty or sixty years. The substitution of a
glottal stop for [t] in certain positions, on
the other hand, is increasing in Norwich.
The use of [d] for the initial in then and
than is an example of stable variation in
New York. There is no evidence that the
vernacular pronunciation with [d] is
increasing. The challenge is to identify the
clues which make it possible to predict
which current variation will result in change
and which wont.

A steady increase or steady decline in the frequency

of a form by age group suggest to a sociolinguist

that a change may be in progress in the speech
community, whereas a bell-shaped pattern is more
typical of stable variation.
It is apparent that [r] is a prestigious pronunciation
in New York, for instance, since higher social groups
use more of it that lower social groups.
It seems likely that it is spreading through the
community, because younger people are using more
of it than older people. all this point it is important to
compare this pattern with the normal pattern of
different ways of speaking at different ages.

Thank

you~ :*