http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bristol-news/can-you-pass-year-six-52615.amp

http://www.bristolpost.co.uk/news/bedmo-backlash-bedminsters-nickname-traditional-53751

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/may/10/bad-grammar-gove-english-killing-children-love-language-adverbials-digraphs

John McWhorter: Txtng is killing language. JK!!! (TED Talk)

https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk

• 150000 years - language
• started as speech
• writing came along much later
• writing is a conscious process
• word packets 7-10 words during speech
• write like we speak- texting
• loose structure
• fingered speech
• LOL-marker of accommodation-pragmatic particle

Descriptivism Vs Prescriptivism

Prescriptivism -The notion that language should be fixed, prescribing to a set standard of rules for language uses, with any shift away from these rules/standards being seen as incorrect.


Descriptivism - Where no judgement or negative attitude is imposed on language change, but an examination of language as it is and how it is used.

Student response Paper 2

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77022-CEX.PDF

Lanuage Change Questions

What are the main reasons for language change?
Young women - Michael Rosen
Semantic change:

• pejoration (negative connotation) - e.g., awful used to mean full of awe
• amelioration (positive connotation) - e.g., bad or phat in the '90s
• narrowing - e.g., meat used to mean any food, then animal flesh, then now is more for red meat
• widening - e.g., xerox and the like, or guy, which was a man's name, then a term for generic man, and now means person
• metonymy (part for whole, whole for part) - e.g., the White House to mean the entire executive branch, saying Boston when you're referring specifically to the baseball team, or an older example, cheek is from the old English for jawbone, or couple used to only refer the thing holding two beasts of burden together
• euphemistic, e.g., loo or john, or things like not using gay for happy
• grammaticalization, e.g., literally, or going to/gonna
• meiosis (change from strong to weak), e.g., awesome, and one of my favorites, epic, as in that's was an epic McDonald's order. (Really? That McDonald's order was on par with Homer's Odyssey?)
•  
• hyperbole (change from weak to strong), e.g., curvy to mean fat
• metaphor, e.g., ring to mean call, broadcast formerly meaning to cast broadly

Young Women as Linguistic Innovators

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b05tl3jm

The 'Apostrophiser'

Possession/omission of letters
Correcting poor punctuation on shop fronts and signs
Bristol man- North Bristol
Unidentified


http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08kys4c

Sociolect Theorists

William Labov - 1966 New York Study

• Speech of sales assistants in three Manhattan stores- Saks(1), Macy's(2) and Klein's(3) in order of price and fashion scale.
• Each unaware assistant approached with an enquiry designed to elicit the answer 'Fourth floor' then asked to repeat
• In order to study the variable (r)
• Sales assistants from Sak's used it most and Kleins least
• Macys showed the greatest upward shift when they were asked to repeat
• Upper middle class changed the way they spoke less than any other social class when asked to repeat

William Labov- Martha's Vineyard study

• Island on the east coast of the USA with permanent population of about 6000
• Summer people(tourists)- over 40000 every summer
• 
  
• 
  

Michael Rosen: Like, Totally Awesome: The Americanisation of English (LC)

• 'Can i get?'
• 'Awesome'
• 'black friday'
• Technology
• Journalism-Political terminology
• America dominating world through language
• larger population and economy
• 'vetting' - 'extreme vetting' in the states
• British english/american english
• 'nappy' used in uk not in america( baby topic)
• 'hike' broadening
• informality in spoken language
• preposition with verbs and nouns as verbs especially in american English 'meet up'
• telegraph article complain about Americanisms on the BBC, only four were Americanisms some were Australian
• cultural relationship- power of american film and television
• historical-1930's many recorded material and movies- huge influx of Americanisms
• speed of communication
• euphemisms change anyway
• british are not making words
• slangs and jargons making new words
• harvard buisness school - 'going forward'
• critisize management speak- 1/4 are British in origin 'outside the box'
• popular music-rap-younger generation-phase
• slow excresion of american words and uses
• research- use of 'fortnight'- university of lancester -use it less and use two weeks more- suggests the cultural influences from america, younger generations arent using as films arent
• general process-less opaque phrases
• america fought for linguistic independence
• britain used to be culturally dominant
• we now have to fight to preserve our language
• nation building
• specific terminology
• american english - come from immigrants e.g italian
• loss of biodiversity