An article on language change

This article was published on the 5th January 2015. 3 days ago and there is still news about how technology is changing are language and therefore how we think about the world around us! It talks about how "to google" became a verb and what effect that had on how we think like how easy it is now for solving problems and how it has govern us a "transactive memory", which means the art of storing information in the people around us! It gives an argument that is dramatically changes how we achieve things due to that fact we can rely on googling to tell us the answer!

There is also something called "uberiszing", which is confusing to understand by as this article puts it: "it has taken the general meaning of disrupting any industry through the use of technology to circumvent unnecessary bureaucracy and legislation" so basically industry is modernising to the time. There are conflictions of this is about is this true? Does industry need to change to catch up with the time? Also, as the article point out: "As a new term, it is an interesting example however of how a term that was supposed to have a specific meaning has been turned into something completely different through popular usage."

It fonally goes onto to talk about change and how in 2005, these new terms would have been nonsence to the people on the time but now context has changed and language is fastly changing with it.

Link: http://theconversation.com/how-technology-is-changing-language-and-the-way-we-think-about-the-world-35856

A TED Talk in how to make up new words!

A recent talk by Erin McKean as been added to the many language talks on TED. It is called "Go ahead, make up new words!". The speaker is lexicographer and her job is about adding words to the dictionary. In her talk, she encourages her audience that making up new words is important as it makes her job fun! She gives a guide to how new words are created:

• First way is by "borrowing" words from other countries like caramel from French

• A second way is by compounding words, which is putting to words together to create a new word, like bookworm

• A final way is by blending words, which is were twos words are put together but some of the letter fall off, like brunch = breakfast and lunch

This part of the talk looks into how language changes and in this case, Erin welcomes it. As we know, some people don't welcome the change but it all links back to whether you have a prescriptive or a descriptive attitude to language.

She also mentions Jean Berko-Gleeson and her Wug Test, which is about CLA and how children automatically know how to pluralise words. This is relevant reminder on how this supports the nature debate in CLA as children haven't been taught this, they just seem to know!

This is an interresting talk to watch as it gives a mixrute of both topics that the exam is covering and its a good reminder for the debates that are going on in each.

Link: https://www.ted.com/talks/erin_mckean_go_ahead_make_up_new_words?language=en#t-249956

Language Change task

So first part of this task is to identify where I am from. So I was born in bath hospital and have always lived in a town close to Bristol. However my family come from all over the country, as shown here:

However, there is a certain idea that my family may even originate back from Poland on my dads side!

The second task, is to identify English speaking cultures that I know of. Here is a list from Wikipedia of some of the most common ones:

Which most I reconise, apart from one in Africa or Sierra Leone which I didn't realise was English speaking was dominant!

The final task was to smack the etymology of my surname. My surname is Trueman and what I found is quite interesting!

"This surname is of early medieval English origin, and is an interesting example of that sizeable group of early European surnames that were gradually created from the habitual use of nicknames. These nicknames were given with reference to a variety of personal characteristics, such as physical attributes or peculiarities, mental and moral characteristics, or to habits of dress and occupation. The derivation, in this instance, is from the Middle English "trew(e)", faithful, steadfast, from the Olde English pre 7th century "treowe", with "man", man; hence, "true, trustworthy or faithful man", perhaps the soubriquet of some herald or messenger. Trueman was also apparently used as a given name during the Middle Ages, and some instances of the surname may derive from this use. One Thomas Treweman was noted in the 1273 Hundred Rolls of Worcestershire, and a William Trueman appears in the 1279 Hundred Rolls of Oxfordshire. In the modern idiom the name is spelt: Trueman, Turman, Trewman and Tro(w)man, all forms being most widespread in the West Midlands, especially in Staffordshire. The first recorded spelling of the family name is shown to be that of Richard Treweman, which was dated circa 1215, in the "Cartulary of the Priory of St. Gregory", Kent, during the reign of King John, known as "Lackland", 1199 - 1216. Surnames became necessary when governments introduced personal taxation. In England this was known as Poll Tax. Throughout the centuries, surnames in every country have continued to "develop" often leading to astonishing variants of the original spelling."

Read more:  http://www.surnamedb.com/Surname/Trueman#ixzz3Nru19LCB

 

What I found on social media!

So I just was browsing Facebook today, when I found this link to a quiz:

http://en.what-character-are-you.com/m/en/927/index/4875.html?utm_source=Facebook&utm_medium=mobile&utm_campaign=trafficcheck

And what does it lead to? A quiz that checks how good your grammar is! There are 15 questions and it does increase in trickiness. Have a go now!

Cousework: media text

Here are two examples of texts, which will be like my media text for my coursework:

http://www.chicagonow.com/where-are-we-going-dad/2014/12/monolingual-parents-supporting-childrens-language-learning/

http://uncovercalifornia.com/content/22686-music-can-help-improve-children-s-language-development-study

Both articles here, explain in simple terms what the research carried out shows how you as parent can help to improve or support your children's language in its development. This gives me an idea on how to write my media text as I must remember my audience is parents and all the complicated terminology that I have been using in my analysis of my data, must be simplified so it is understandable for my audience to read. But keep the main points easy to read and understand. 

AO1 for CLA, Language Change and Investigation

Syntactical moods = declarative, imperative, exclamitive and interrogative

-Tense = child struggles to make past tense in telegraphic stage and language change there is use the present tense to disguise opinion ad a fact

-Punctuation = holophrase to show mood. This is phonological features and rising intonation = relationship between child and caregiver.

 Minor sentences - female use more phonological features to add more meaning to language or man use them to state.

 - How the sentence is construct - omitting lexis and virtuous errors!

- Older texts will be quite verbose and complex for an educated audience or pre-standardisation

- Types of sentences = main, subordinate, minor, simple, compound and complex.

- F.P.A = spoken language -hedges and fillers and spontaneous. Is the Introduction for language change

- Caregiver scaffolding - answer interrogative with interrogative but in language change because that person doesn't know the answer

- Nouns = language we borrowed, needed verbs but new objects needed a name - the British Empire - BBC English - OED - Oxford English dictionary

- Concrete or abstract e.g political speeches = allow audience to make decisions

- Context - synonyms = slightly different way of saying the same thing

- Figurative language

- LFL = formal, romanised, latinised = language of power

Language change - The Written Word

We know how much language has changed due to the written word especially the invention of the printing press leading to the written word being produced for mass audiences, which equals the increase of standardisation. Interesting link: https://books.google.com/ngrams this link goes to a site I where you can explore how words come and go from the 1800 up to 2000. It's a good website to explore as see how far words for back!

The written word needs to be mentioned in relation to F.P.A in an exam context.

Stephen Fry's Planet Word - Spreading the Word

Writing allows us to speak to the past and see our future. Nowadays it's about seeing the difference between speaking and  writing and how it's converging. Writing became an optional extra, showing us the innate ability of how to use language. Chomsky and Lennenburg would agree with that statement! The access of reading and writing helps us to explore the past and discover more about it. But how did writing come about.

Fry sys they may be due to taxation and currency but all we know is that once it started it never stopped. It led to stories poems laws and events being written down that's begin with you had to be educated to understand it.

Introduction to the alphabet was an important step as it was about trading and spreading the word. Religion also have writing and it became a key influence to language change as it showed instrumental power of religion for example the Vatican as no one can edit Gods word. It added synoptic ideas and helped to preserve myths, stories and rules.

A major revolution for writing with the events of the printing press by William Caxton. It was about romanisation of language and hope things alphabet simplicity.. Books became free from handwriting and Geoffrey Chancer was the first authors to get his work printed. However, he died before he could see his work printed but had still requested standardisation of language.  This house to suggest that standardisation is revolutionary as the bigger the audience the bigger the shared understanding. BUT it is over a period of time.

The influence of the printing press is still seen today as little letters as still called lower case letter and bigger letters are still called upper case letters. This terminology was all thanks to the printing press.  It helped to create diversity and change people's attitude to learning and knowledge, otherwise known as enlightment.

Technology is a major factor in language change. It helped to create new ways of thinking like the creation of library's and how now they are using the Internet to help become the new search engine for books and the e-book. Amazon for example has now become the biggest publishers today, which their electronic versions of books helping to increase sale of the much beloved stories we know. The Internet as become the way we consume knowledge these days as if texts are printed, it is every hard to edit them afterwards . However, online they can be change of corrected for consumer purpose like Wikipedia. There is less pressure to be correct to. There is more scope and that leads into in informalisation of language.

Comparing now and the past, the generation today write a lots more than they used too. Amd it's know not just the elite that can understand and use it. The immediacy to find out more and to create a direct connection between the reader and the writer has become an important purpose. However, it is always hard to predict where it is going to go next.