LANGUAGE CHANGE

GROUP 9 :
MIFTAHUL JANNAH
NADILA NURSELA
RAHUL OKTADENDI
 LANGUAGE CHANGE
Speaker innovation is a more accurate description than
language change. Speakers innovate, sometimes
spontaneously, but more often by imitating speakers from
other communities. If their innovations are adopted by others
and diffuse through their local community and beyond into
other communities, then linguistic change is the result.
1. Variation and change

a. Post-vocalic [r] – its spread and its status

Accents with post-vocalic [r] are called ‘rhotic’. In large
areas of England, rhotic English accents are regarded as
rural and uneducated. In large parts of the USA, on the
other hand, post-vocalic [r] is alive and well and
extensively used.
So it appears that post-vocalic [r] appeared first in the
speech of upper-middle-class New Yorkers, and then
gradually filtered down through the different social classes
until it reached the speech of the lowest social class in the
community.
b. The spread of vernacular forms

It is easy to understand that a pronunciation which is considered

prestigious will be imitated, and will spread through a community. But
there are also many examples of vernacular pronunciations which have
spread throughout speech communities. It is possible for changes to
proceed from a variety of starting points in a variety of directions.

On Martha’s Vineyard, those who had lived on the island for generations,
and especially those men who fi shed for their livelihood, resented the fact
that the island has been invaded by more recent immigrants, and especially
by summer tourists. A 1960s linguistic survey by Labov suggested that
these attitudes were indicated by the way locals pronounced the (ay) and
(aw) sounds in words like light and house . Their pronunciation of the
vowels in these words had gradually become more and more centralised.
(The position of the tongue at the start of the vowel had moved towards the
centre of the mouth.) So light was pronounced [lait] (it sounds a bit like
layeet ) and house was pronounced [haus] (a bit like heyoose ).
c. Koines and koineisation
when people who speak different dialects come into contact in
monolingual communities a new dialect or variety emerges. This
language change process is called koineisation , and the result is
a koine , a variety which is the result of dialect contact.
2. How do changes spread?
a. from group to group
When the native-speaking community value system of a
language is adopted by other groups of people, changes in
language sounds related to these societal values will spread to
the adopting community groups.
b. From style to style
One theory of how a change spreads presents the process as a
very systematic one. In the speech of a particular individual, it
suggests the change spreads from one style to another (say from
more formal speech to more casual speech), while at the same
time it spreads from one individual to another within a social
group, and subsequently from one social group to another.
c. From word to word – lexical diffusion
Sound changes typically spread through different words one by
one. This is called lexical diffusion . When a sound change
begins, all the words with a particular vowel don’t change at
once in the speech of a community.
3. How do you we study
a. Apparent-time studies of language change
different age groups may reveal the direction of linguistic change
in a community. A great deal of linguistic variation is stable, but
some is an indication of linguistic change in progress.
It also seemed likely that it was spreading through the
community, because younger people were using more of it than
older people. At this point, it is important to compare this pattern
with the normal patterns of different ways of speaking at different
ages.

b. Language change in real time

4. Reasons for language change
a. Social status and language change
One answer seems to be that a linguistic change may enter a speech
community through any social group, but that different types of change are
associated with different groups. Members of the group with most social
status, for example, tend to introduce changes into a speech community from
neighbouring communities which have greater status and prestige in their eyes.
b. Gender and language change
Differences in women’s and men’s speech are another source of variation
which can result in linguistic change. Sometimes women are the innovators,
leading a linguistic change, and sometimes men. Women tend to be associated
with changes towards both prestige and vernacular norms, whereas men more
often introduce vernacular changes.
c. Interaction and language change
c. Interaction and language change
- Interaction among people is crucial in channeling
linguistic change
- Linguistic change in communities with little interaction with
the outside world progress slowly
- Isolation causes linguistic conservatism
- Eg: Iceland
EXAMPLE
Short "O" Long "Open O"

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