Language Change in English

         Language change is the manner in which the phonetic, morphological, syntactic, semantic, and other features of a language are modified over time. Each language can change continually, include English.

            Linguists have traditionally studied variations in a language occurring at the same time (synchronic study) or how language develops over time (diachronic or historical study). The study of the language change is often narrowed to the consideration of change in one aspect of language; but we should have a sense of broad historical development of English.

            Chronological change gives us a sense of succession and of history as a narrative. It can also lead us to see historical division (the end of the century) as having more importance than is really case. In what follows aspects of change and standardization. Are considered in terms of language categories:

A.  Phonology

Received Pronunciation (RP) is a national standard form of pronunciation. Listening to a recording of a broadcast from an earlier period (Phate Newsrell or Alvar Liddel, the early BBC broadcaster, reading the news for the BBC) will show how far RP has change over time – the earlier RP survives in part in the accent of Queen Elizabeth II, who speaks with much less clearly differentiate (or less open) vowels than the modern RP speaker.

B.   Spelling

The national curriculum draws attention to many other features of written performance as well as spelling, but the social attitudes persist. Yet Chaucer, Shakespeare, and Milton (necessarily) wrote without regard to a standard, so standard spelling can hardly be measured.

C.   Lexical

In continual language change, we can create a standard lexicon at anytime. We can take this further and show how a given lexical item with a given meaning may be standard in a given context or within a variety but be n/s as regard the mainstream.

D.   Semantics  

Semantics change or drift may be culturally determined it may depend on some other thing ( a process or object) which ceases to be familiar, and so the word disappears or the meaning shifts. For example, wireless, telegram or terms from imperial measurement and predecimal currency (foot, inch, gallon, bushel, half penny)

            The development of English is divided into four stages: Old English, Middle English, Early Modern English and Modern or Present Day English. There are two reasons why people don’t always speak the same way all of the time:

1.     The children who are born without special needs are linguistically equal, that is, they are all born with the potential to learn any language.

2.     All normally developed human beings are born with the same articulator apparatus. So they are all potentially ale to make the same range of sounds.