Steven Pinker: What our language habits reveal

Link to Steven Pinker's talk on 'What our language habits reveal'

THINGS TO INCLUDE IN CLA EXAM RESPONSE

PHONOLOGY
-Deletion of a final consonant
-Consonant cluster reduction
-Deletion of unstressed syllable
-Substitution
-Redublication of sounds
-Assimilation
-Use of intonation or stress for meaning and understanding of intonation
-Addition of sound to facilitate CVCV pattern

LEXIS/SEMANTICS
-Quantity of words produced/understood
-Concrete/abstract - hypothetical meaning, references to time, past, present, future.
-Overextension - categorical, analogical, statement
-Making new words - compounding, conversion, suffixes and prefixes
-Kinds of words - social, labelling, actions, modifying
-Attributes of objects - hot, cold, big, small.
-Meaning relations - put/give/take.
-Semantic field

GRAMMAR
-One word, two word, telegraphic, post telegraphic, holophrases
-Verb tense forms. Auxillary verbs.
-Asking questions - intonation, question words, inversion of subject and verb, use of auxillaries
-Negative forms - No at the beginning or end, no in the middle
-Tag questions
-Aquisiton of inflections
-Over generalisation
-Correction of irregular forms.
-Plurals

PRAGMATICS
-Conversational functions of language
-Indirect requests
-Speech interaction
-Conventions (turn taking etc)

THEORISTS
-Halliday (instrumental, regulatory, interactional, personal, heuristic, imaginitive, representational)
-Skinner (Nurture)
-Chomsky  (Nature, LAD)
-Piaget

LANGUAGE CHANGE EXAM GOLD

APOSTROPHE NOW: Bad grammar and the people who hate it

TERMINOLOGY LANGUAGE CHANGE

PEJORATION
When  words increasingly acquire negative meanings; gay now means homosexual, opposed to happy.

DIALECT LEVELLING
The belief that language is becoming standardized - decrease in dialect differences.

PRESCRIPTIVISM
The study of language with the intention of controlling it - by dictating rules of usage. Samuel Johnson published the first dictionary in 1755.
  
JARGON
Technical language or highly field-specific vocabulary.

AMELIORATION
A process in which words become more socially acceptable e.g. spastic, pretty.

ETYMOLOGICAL FALLACY
The mistaken belief that earliest historical meaning of a word is it's only true meaning. The word hound originally simply meant "dog" in general. This usage is now archaic or poetic only, and hound now almost exclusively refers to dogs bred for hunting in particular.

'The Great Vowel Shift'
Caused the phonological changes in pronouncing lexis like team to time.

BIDLIALECTALISM
The ability to use two dialects of the same language.

PRINTING PRESS
Intorduced by William Caxton in 1476


ACCOMODATION THEORY (Howard Giles)
 suggests people adjust their body language and accent/speech according to the person they are addressing.

SAPIR WHORF HYPOTHESIS
The idea that language controls or determines the way we think; "A hypothesis holding that the structure of a language affects the perceptions of reality of its speakers and thus influences their thought patterns and worldviews."

Funny clip of attempt of English Accent

French man learning to speak in English accent

CLA Notes Further Research

• Children’s ability to pronounce words and to use the English sound system develops much slower than comprehension: a one-year-old child, for example, can recognise perhaps 50 words but pronounce only about 3 consonants and a vowel.
•  Children’s acquisition of phonology is gradual and occurs step by step:  they start with a restricted set of words and gradually increase their repertoire, just as they start with one-word utterances and slowly build up longer sentences.   
• One feature of child language aquisition is that children master language by making mistakes until they fully aquire the skills.
• REDUBLICATION - something which caregivers often hear around the second year. Turning words like 'water', 'bottle' and 'window' into WO-WO, BO-BO and MU-MU. CRYSTAL ssuggests that the repetition and simplified pronunciation in these words helps children to recognise and learn bit by bit.
•  CONSONANT CLUSTERS - caregivers notice around the age of four. When children fail to speak words with several consonants next to each other. 
•  INTONATION - one of the first strategies to be used to make up for a lack of grammar. children of about 12 months quickly pick up the formal patterns of intonation (e.g rising intonation to form a question). However it still take until the early teens to grasp all the meanings behind these patterns. SHOWN BY ALLAN CRUTTENDEN who found that adults could judge how voice affects meaning whereas seven year olds were hardly able to do this at all. Intonation is important because it gives a listener clues to the meanings of a speaker’s message.
•  MISMATCH - choosing an unrelated meaning (labelling a phone as a tractor)
•  SEMANTIC ERRORS show that children do not learn a word complete with meaning (as we might when learning a different language) but actively negotiate it's usage through trail, error and observation.
   

CLA Terminology

Language Change Terminology

Borrowings 
English has absorbed thousands of words from other cultures throughout its history. From 597AD Latin loan words were used in law (‘conviction', ‘legitimate'), science (‘abacus', ‘mechanical') and religion (‘infinite', ‘limbo').

The Norman Conquest in 1066 resulted in a huge influx of French borrowings such as ‘mister', ‘mistress', and ‘blue', and ‘brown'. Old English archaisms were replaced by newly borrowed French words. ‘People' replaced ‘leod', ‘beautiful' supplanted ‘wlitig'. 
Trade and travel overseas brought thousands more lexical items including tea from Chinese (‘te' and ‘cha'), ‘ski' from Norwegian, ‘coach' from Hungarian, ‘khaki' from Urdu and ‘robot' from Czech.

Back Formation
The removal of a real or assumed affix from a word results in the formation of new words. The word ‘surreal' is a back formation of ‘surrealist'; ‘beefburger' and ‘vegeburger' are back formations of hamburger, originally derived from the name of a German town! ‘Pease' was originally singular, but because it sounded plural a process of back formation resulted in the formation of a new singular form ‘pea'!
The -er affix is often removed in this process. Examples include swindle from swindler and stoke from stoker.

Compounding
 Two or more words become bonded together. Examples include ‘woodland', ‘sunbeam' and ‘boyfriend'. Window is a compound formed from the Scandinavian ‘vindr' (wind) and ‘augr' (eye). Lady originated from an OE compound of ‘loaf' (half) and ‘dige' (digger) which denoted ‘bread kneader'!
Familiar examples today include ‘megastore', ‘laptop', ‘videocam', ‘skinhead', ‘houseboat', ‘paperback' and ‘daredevil'

 

Blends
Two or more words are merged into a new word. There is a less distinctive ‘join' between the words as in compounding. Examples include:
‘smog' (smoke + fog)
‘chunnel' (channel + tunnel)
‘docudrama' (documentary + drama)
‘vegeburger' (vegetarian + hamburger)
‘bash' (bang + smash)

 

Shortening
There is a natural tendency for words to be shortened for ease of articulation and simplicity. Clipping is one such process. Examples include ‘exam(ination)', ‘(omni)bus' and ‘gym(nasium)'. Another form of shortening is abbreviation: ‘bike' (bicycle), ‘fave' (favourite) and ‘flu' (influenza). Words are frequently shortened into acronyms: ‘UN' (United Nations), ‘EU' (European Union). Finally there is the process of derivation. Here words are created from the initial letters of other words, for example, ‘yuppie' (Young Urban Professional), ‘dinkies' (Double Income No Kids), ‘laser' (Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation).

Archaism
Language reflects changes in society. Just as words are continually entering the English language, so words are gradually becoming redundant and disappearing. We are all familiar with the archaic pronouns of Shakespeare's time: ‘ye', ‘thee', ‘thou', and words such as ‘varlet', ‘forsooth' and ‘yonder' which are no longer in use. In the C19th, words such as ‘rantipole' (to behave rudely) ‘wittles' (food), ‘gaole' (prison) and ‘bobbish' (to be in good health) were all widely known yet are archaic today. We can already detect words that are dating and in some cases close to becoming extinct: ‘wireless' (radio), ‘breeches' (trousers) and ‘luncheon'. Slang often falls in and out of currency and can very quickly become dated. Words such as ‘square', ‘fab' and ‘groovy' are associated with the hippy era of the 60s and hardly used today.

Is dumb the new cool?

We all know, in one way or another, that the two reality television shows of Made in Chelsea and The Only Way Is Essex have escalated massively in the past year in the lives of teenage TV lovers. It’s the topic of conversation of their everyday lives, sometimes a little too much. But how much do these programmes influence everyday language of Great Britain?

The phrase ‘dumb blonde’ is an understatement for the Essex television celebrities as they strut the streets in their ten inch heels and mile-long cheesy puff legs. The way they speak in a slow moving strong Essex accent creates an image of the audience which either they can relate too or laugh at, but for most, the programme is just a hilarious sitcom whereby people can laugh at the misfortune of the Essex stars. The light, fun and exciting television show allows us to escape into the lives of the airy-fairy Essex characters.

Introducing the ‘vajazzle’ and ‘glamping’ to the English vocabulary, the reality TV stars of ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ have created a buzz of new language to the teenage population all around Britain. It is very peculiar how the contemporary culture of the programme has such a strong influence on modern day slang of young adults. Not to mention the latest addition of ‘reem’, a term of endearment meaning ‘cool’  created by Joey Essex. His input to the teenage terminology system is tremendous, his catch phrase being ‘Don’t be jel, be reem.’ I suppose it doesn’t help with his charming good looks and warm personality. You will be surprised at the amount of us who use this phrase after it was leaked on television just months ago. 

Made in Chelsea is the latest addition to the reality TV soap opera collection and seems to be one of the most popular. Including over ten twenty something’s frolicking around in the high society of Chelsea’s embankment, they enjoy wining and dining each other to the highest of standards. The wealthy lives of the Made in Chelsea participants are only ones we dream of. Endless parties, holidays, dates and shopping trips are all they seem to do in their spare time whilst having moments of trouble with relationships on the way. In comparison to The Only Way is Essex, this programme contains a larger drama element, with ideology of what the highest point of life could be like if we lived in a society like theirs. This entertainment is supposedly ‘reality’ TV with undoubtedly a pinch of salt thrown into the mix.

The Only Way Is Essex cast aren’t the only victims of having contributions to the English language.  A donation of the word ‘wa*h’ (*add extra ‘As’ for emphasis) has been given to us by MIC star Jamie Laing. Meaning ‘good-looking’, the Chelsea boys often use this phrase to describe a girl they look for in a sexual partner. A very popular one given by the Made in Chelsea cast is ‘totes’, meaning ‘totally’. This contraction is said in a strong English accent and adds a hint of arrogance to the conversations within the Chelsea characters.

The interesting thing is, is that the language of Made in Chelsea characters does not seem to rub off on us television lovers as much as the language of TOWIE. Why is it that the working class dialogue is more influential than the higher class dialogue? Why is the RP accent, the language of power, rejected by young people? That’s what I would like to know. It’s almost as if we don’t want to sound intelligent or use a powerful and dominant accent but would rather speak in a way that familiarises ourselves with the middle class language, as if we don’t want to be anything but ordinary.

It is clear that the media influences contemporary slang in a way that no other popular culture can. It has become socially acceptable to dumb ourselves down in the language which we chose to speak. Surely we should all be aiming to be the best we can be, instead of laughing at those who are supposedly in a ‘higher’ class. It is strange that we chose to adopt the language of those who are less intelligent. In my opinion, the media is to blame. Why is it that the language of the higher class society is made fun of in the media? The emphasis on the stereotyping of higher class language users is tremendous. They play polo and drink tea whilst talking about splashing out money on useless and unnecessary items. We ‘make fun’ at those who are more successful.

What does this say about our society?

 

Useful Blogs

Other useful blogs for revision of English Language A Level:
http://matt-stinson.blogspot.co.uk/
http://amyjonesenglishlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/
http://natasharaffill.blogspot.co.uk/
http://scribble-spot.blogspot.co.uk/?view=classic
http://pheaventenglish.blogspot.co.uk/
http://graycharlotte4.blogspot.co.uk/
http://ellebenthamsorohan.blogspot.co.uk/
http://annaenglishlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.a2englishlanguagejottings.blogspot.co.uk/
www.sianacaine.blogspot.com
http://sixteensecondsbeforesunrise.blogspot.co.uk
http://jamest-english.blogspot.co.uk/