Prompt
Prompt
History has shown that English is not resistant to change, it will continue to change, and that this should be embraced. To what extent do you agree? (You should use metalanguage and refer to at least two of the subsystems in your response.)
Stimulus 1
“English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language, because of its history, meeting up with the Romans and then the Danes, the Vikings and then the French and then the Renaissance with all the Latin and Greek and Hebrew in the background” - David Crystal, The Story of English
Stimulus 2
An image of McJob, ‘one of the many recent additions to the Oxford English Dictionary’
“English speakers already have over a million words at our disposal - so do we really need to add 1,000 new ones a year to the lexicon?” - Andy Bodle, The Guardian, 2016
Stimulus 3
“People did not wake up in the morning and decide to use the word ‘beef’ instead of ‘ox meat’, or change their pronunciation of ‘mate’ to ‘meat’ or tell their wife how ‘nice’ she is (‘nice’ originally pejorative). No, indeed these changes to English took place over centuries and without any concern from its speakers” - Katie Lowe, Linguist and Philologer, University of Glasgow
Stimulus 4
“What is literally the most misused word in the English language? The word ‘literally’ has been used to mean its opposite for over 200 years.” The problem is that the word has a specific meaning, which is being diluted and devalued by its overuse in incorrect contexts. - John Lloyd (2015), The Third Book of General Ignorance
Plan
Prompt
- Throughout history, English has not been resistant to change
- English will continue to change
- This change should be embraced
Paragraphs
Paragraph 1 - not been resistant to change
- Throughout course of history, English has not been resistant to change.
- e.g. Old English was a highly inflected language Syntax: quite a flexible word order, somewhere during 12th century, transformed into Early Middle English where SVO structure settled.
- Change was largely due to Norman invasion of England in 1066 which brought the influence of the French Language. Use Stimulus 1
- Also influenced lexicology, new French-derived words introduced,
- “house” -> “mansion”
- “ask” -> “inquire”
- Use Stimulus 3 enriched the English Language lexicon
Paragraph 2 - English will continue to change
Language is changing right now and will continue to change.
- Consider rapid technological advancements recent decades, profoundly influenced language. Text messaging acronyms like ‘LOL’ for convenience which undergoing semantic shift right now.
- Now more of a way to signal that a comment is intended to be funny or to signal irony
- Changes depending on semantic/syntactic content of the message
- Conviviality: “I had a great time lol”
- Lighthearted: “lol okay I’ll see you soon”
- Self Deprecating Humour: “i’m drowning in bills fml lol”
- Nouns such as clipped and suffixed selfie + compound borrowed from Japanese, “emoji” become additions to lexicon
- Ongoing development of gender neutral pronouns demonstrates English’s willingness to adapt changing needs of individuals not in gen binary
- Recent changes to what was previously closed word class, pronouns. While not only being lexical change, pronouns such he/she -> they/them require syntactic change. When using they in reference to a singular subject, the verb conjugation does not take the singular form, e.g. not ‘They writes’ but ‘They write’, demonstrating an acceptable modern change to the syntax of the language.
Paragraph 3 - language change is good as long as it improves intelligibility
Use Stimulus 4: could be viewed as incorrect but so purpose of language is communication of thoughts/ideas so as long as mutual intelligibility maintained, it’s okay.
Language change should be embraced when these changes allow speakers to more effectively communicate ideas. Additions to the lexicon describe new technologies is beneficial, because previously not expressible, but unnecessary additions that harm intelligibility bad.
Stimulus 4 is fine because people understand what you mean.
Essay
The English Language has continually evolved throughout its history and will continue to do so for the foreseeable future. Modern English has seen significant change from its Old English counterpart both lexically and syntactically, demonstrating how the language has been far from resistant to change in the past. Modern English is subject to similar changes, as seen from the emergence of ‘e-language’ in online communities. Though these changes can temporarily harm intelligibility, they should ultimately be embraced as useful additions to the English Language if they improve the effectiveness with which language users can communicate. English has and will continue to evolve, changing to maintain its use as an effective communication tool throughout the world.
Throughout the course of history, English has not been resistant to change. Old English was a highly inflected language, containing an intricate system of inflections for its grammatical cases. Since then, there has been significant inflection reduction, namely during the Middle English period where the -a, -u and -e suffixes all merged into the ending -e. The nominative case also housed an extensive grammatical gender system, which fell out of favour after contact with other languages with simpler syntax. Notably, the syntax of Old English displayed a flexible word order, but throughout the 12th Century CE, the SVO structure was settled upon as the language entered the phase of Early Middle English. This change was largely driven by the 1066 Norman invasion of Great Britain, which brought the influence of the French Language to British English. “English has been this vacuum cleaner of a language because of its history,” (Stimulus 1) and the newfound rulers brought many French-derived lexemes to the language, such as ‘mansion’ and ‘inquire’ for the respective Old English synonyms ‘house’ and ‘ask’. “People did not wake up in the morning and decide to use the word ‘beef’ instead of ‘ox meat’, [but rather] these changes to English took place over centuries” (Stimulus 3) as the language changes and adapts to new needs and demands. Nonetheless, English has historically shown significant change and has been anything but resistant to adaptation.
Modern English is currently changing and will continue to do so. The rapid technological advancements throughout recent decades have profoundly influenced the English Language. Text messaging as a new medium for communication has created a need for the language to be short and succinct, pressuring native speakers to use acronyms, clipped lexemes and alternative syntax to express ideas faster. Text messaging acronyms such as ‘LOL’ have arisen from the needs for convenience. Even newfound additions to the language such as ‘LOL’ are undergoing rapid semantic shift; previously intended to express the literal action of laughing out loud, the acronym is now more of a way to signal irony or that a comment is intended to be funny. This changes depending on the semantic and syntactic content of the message, such as conviviality in ‘I had a great time lol’, lightheartedness in ‘lol okay I’ll see you soon’ and self deprecating humour in ‘i’m drowning in bills fml lol’. As such, the acronym ‘LOL’ has seen significant semantic shift throughout solely the last few decades. Nouns such as the clipped and suffixed ‘selfie’ along with the compound ‘emoji’ borrowed from Japanese are both relatively recent neologisms that have been added to the English lexicon, demonstrating how change is ever present. Further, the ongoing development of gender neutral pronouns demonstrates English’s willingness to adapt to the changing needs of individuals who do not identify within the traditional gender binary, shown by the recent changes to what was previously a closed word class, pronouns. Whilst not only being a lexical change, the change in pronouns from he/she to they/them requires a syntactic change of the language as well: when using they in reference to a singular subject, the verb conjugation does not take the singular form - not ‘They writes’ but ‘They write’ - demonstrating an acceptable modern change to the syntax of the language. Thus, Modern English continues to change, both lexically and syntactically, as it has done in the past.
Language change should be embraced so long as it improves the communication of ideas and maintains mutual intelligibility. There have been several neologisms added to the English lexicon due to the emergence of e-language, such as the above ‘LOL’, ‘emoji’ and ‘selfie’. “English speakers already have over a million words at our disposal [so it is fair to ask if] we really need to add 1,000 new ones a year to the lexicon” (Stimulus 2), but so long as these additions are mutually intelligible in the long run and allow language users to more effectively communicate otherwise foreign concepts, they are worthwhile additions to the rich lexicon of English. Modern e-language frequently brings jargon previously exclusive to the semantic field of gaming to a wider audience, such as the acronym turned lexeme ‘pog’. Originally being an acronym for the noun phrase ‘play of the game’, ‘pog’ has undergone semantic shift so that it is now used as an adjective to describe any ‘awesome’ person or moment, which has been adopted by the wider online community. This transformation from jargon to plain language demonstrates how groups of language users can adopt lexemes which aid in their communication of ideas or identity, a change that should be embraced. During adoption periods, it may be hard for other language users to understand the semantics behind a lexeme, but this stands true for the introduction of any new concept and is not harmful. Similarly, the use of they/them as a singular pronoun could be viewed as incorrect use of the language. “The problem is that the word has a specific meaning, which is being diluted and devalued by its overuse in incorrect contexts” (Stimulus 4). However, this semantic shift accommodates for a change in perception of concepts such as gender for the speakers of the language while maintaining mutual intelligibility. Therefore, change of this form should be embraced, as it allows for further expression through the language.
The English Language has seen great change throughout its history and continues to do so in the modern era. The purpose of language is to communicate ideas, and so long as language change aids in this process, it should be embraced as a beneficial feature of any living language. From Old English to Modern English, from archaisms to modern e-language, language change has been and will continue to be an integral feature of English that facilitates the effective communication of speakers around the world.