1.
55. How language changes
미디어커뮤니케이션학과 하민진
국제무역학과 한희민

2. Index 01 Intro 02 How does the language change?
03 Why does language change?
04 Social factors
05 Linguistic factors
06 Conclusion
07 Q&A

3. 1 Intro 01 02 03 04 05 1
Language changes 06 07

4. 1.1 Intro 01
Language began, it immediately began to change and has been changing ever since. 02 03
Change affects the way people speak as inevitably as it does any other area of human life. 04 05 2 3
The only languages that do not change are dead ones. 06 07
During the 19th century, linguists began to use a comparative method .
During the 20th century, emphasis shifted towards a search for explanations of why do language change?

5. 01 02 03 04
How we know
what old languages
sounded like 05 2 06 07

6. 2 How we know what old languages sounded like01 02
How do we know, in the days before recorded sound, how languages were pronounced? 03 04
Evidences 05 06 1.
When European languages first came to be written down, it borrowed symbols from alphabets already in use –Latin 07
Modify or add to these symbols whenever sounds which the older alphabets couldn’t cope with
It is thus possible to use changes as evidence of differences in the way two languages were spoken

7. 2 How we know what old languages sounded like01 2.
In the 16th and 17th century England, detailed accounts were provided by orthoepists, specialists in the study of pronunciation 02 03 04
Early poets made words rhyme, or gave their lines particular metrical pattern 3. 05 06
Examples) 07
Name ‘Rosaline’
Shakespeare’s Romeo and Juliet-rhyming with ‘mine’
Such comparisons do not tell us exactly how the words were pronounced, or whether these were normal pronunciations of the time; but do provide the clues

8. 2 How we know what old languages sounded like01 02
Another procedure is comparative reconstruction 03
To contribute to increased knowledge of prehistoric stages of language 04 05
To aid in the investigation of mechanisms of language 06 07
To throw light on possible developmental paths of certain synchronic structures.
Most of our information about the oldest states of languages derives from this method

9. 01 02 03 04 05 3 06
How does language change? 07

10. 3 How does language change01 02
▶ During the later part of the 19th century, a sound change affected
the whole of a language simultaneously
▶ We now know that linguistic change does not operate in such an
“across-the-board” manner
▶ A more accurate view is known as lexical diffusion
▶ At first a few people use the change sporadically; then a large
number of words are affected; and majority take up the change 03 04 05 06 07

11. 3 How does language change01 02
▶ The evidence for this kind of process has come from sociolinguistic
studies of contemporary linguistic variation
▶ Pioneered by William Labov, these studies proceed on assumption
that the variation in language use which is found in any community
is evidence of change in progress
▶ Linguistic variables
▶ These are small-scale studies, but have large-scale implications 03 04 05 06 07

12. 01 02 03 04 05 4 06
Why does language change? 07

13. 4 Why does language change?01 02
▶ It is not difficult to reflect on how people spoke several years ago
▶ But it is impossible to predict a language change
▶ It is just as difficult to precise about the origins of language change
▶ To obtain the answer, we need to know why language changes 03 04 05 06 07

14. 4 Why does language change?01 02
▶ There has long been imaginative speculation on the matter
▶ Some scholars have a pessimistic view, that the causes can never be
determined
▶ These days, the speculation are being replaced by scientific research
▶ Several factors turn out to be implicated, some to do with nature of
society, and the nature of language structure 03 04 05 06 07

15. 01 02 03 04 05 5 06
Social factors 07

16. 5 5 Social factors Geographic distance01
Geographic distance 02
▶ When people move away from each other, their language diverge
▶ Similarly, when people come into contact with each other,
their language will converge
▶ The sounds, grammar, and vocabulary of one group exercise
some influence on the other
▶ These days, the increased mobility of people make this a major factor 03 04 05 5 06 07
2. Cultural developments
▶ New objects and ideas are continually being created
and language changes to take account of them
▶ At the same time, old objects and ideas fall out of daily use
and the language becomes obsolete

17. 5 5 Social factors 3. Imperfect learning01
3. Imperfect learning 02 03
▶ Some change is the result of one population imperfectly learning
▶ This is a common occurrence by many immigrant groups
or levels of bilingualism
▶ The minority language forms a substratum which in the long term
influences majority usage
▶ For example, several American English are influenced by West African 04 05 5 06 07

18. 5 Social factors 4. Social prestige01 02
▶ People come to talk like those they identify with or admire
▶ Labov’s experiment (Where are the women’s shoes?-Fourth floor)
▶ Conscious change: can be observed where people go out of their way
to use of avoid a certain feature in their spoken or written language
such as whom or intrusive
▶ Subconscious change: is where people are not aware of the direction
where their speech is moving
▶ The movement may be towards a favored accent or dialect or away
from one which is held in low esteem(negative prestige)
▶ The speakers are aware of the existence of linguistic differences
but unaware of any trends in their own speech related to attitude 03 04 05 06 07

19. 01 02 03 04 05 6 06
Linguistic factors 07

20. 6 Linguistic factors 01 02
▶ Social factors can motivate people to change language,
but is there anything in language itself welcomes a change?
▶ Several trends have been noted : ease of articulation, analogy
and randomness 03 04 05 6 06 07

21. 6 6 Linguistic factors Ease of articulation01
Ease of articulation 02
▶ In the 19th century, it was widely felt that sounds changed because
speakers would want to speak using as little effort as possible
▶ On this basis, sound systems should become simpler
▶ By weakening or dropping final consonants or allowing adjacent
sounds to influence each other
▶ assimilation phenomenon 03 04 05 6 06 07

22. 6 6 Linguistic factors 2. Analogy01
2. Analogy 02 03
▶ Irregular features in the grammar are often influenced
by its regular patterns
▶ A well-studied case is the verb system in the history of English
▶Example: The past tense and participle of help was healp and hopen
Now the verb becomes regular, using normal –ed ending
▶ Social factors, such as development of the standard language and the
growth of printing, slowed the change down, so present-day English
still has many irregular verbs. 04 05 6 06 07

23. 6 6 Linguistic factors 3. Randomness01
3. Randomness 02 03
▶ Might language change have no systematic explanation?
▶ Change might be essentially unpredictable because of the arbitrary
changes in fashion or chance errors in articulation
▶ Changes in vocabulary are arbitrary 04 05 6 06 07

24. 01 02 03 04 05 7 06
Conclusion 07

25. 7 Conclusion 01
A world of unchanging linguistic excellence, based on the brilliance of earlier literary forms, exists only in fantasy 02 03
Changes have been found in unrelated languages all over the world 04 05 7
There is no strong case for randomness in phonology or grammar. 06 07
Why do languages change?

26. Thank You
Q & A