History
This man and his 1476 invention led to the publication of thousands of books in English for the first time
What is William Caxton's printing press?
Let's settle this once and for all -- it's not an 'f'! Before 1800, texts used this symbol instead of 's'
What is the long s (f)?
You can't drive it, but word on the street is, it's the 'L' in SLOGG-T
What are Lexis?
No, it's not Child Lang, but this theorist is Functionally part of the Lang Change unit, too
Who is Michael Halliday?
It's the violent reason why English has so many French words in its vocabulary
What is the Battle of Hastings, 1066?
The 'Normans' invaded England and brought with them words in lexical fields such as: government, military, food, etc.
It's invention instantly connected people around the globe for the first time...but it also quite lowered the register of written communication
What is the Internet?
(texting/SMS and other similar responses are also acceptable)
'Awful' used to mean 'full of awe,' and thus got a more negative connotation over time, or this
What is semantic pejoration?
In a phrase, tell me, what Syntax is
What is word order?
This theory by Hockett might seem by chance, but it's explanation of how language changes is very intentional
What is Hockett's Random Fluctuation Theory?
The idea that language is unstable and changes due to effectively random variations in the environments and contexts in which it is used
His plays introduced a number of new words (neologisms) and iconic phrases that helped expand the English language
Who is William Shakespeare?
Not to be confused with a bowel movement, this event transformed the way English is spoken to the way it is today
What is the Great Vowel Shift?
1400s-1500s
Over time, this is the general trend of what has happened to the lexis used in written texts
What is, they have gotten increasingly informal and/or less sophisticated?
It's the 'OG' in SLOGG-T. The first refers to spelling, and the other refers to the layout and appearance of a text
What are Orthography and Graphology?
If your n-gram graph looks like an 'S,' with slow, then rapid acceleration as a new word is adopted, you have this theorist to thank!
Who is Matthew Chen?
This extremely popular book, republished for hundreds of years, kept around many older words that would otherwise now be archaic
What is the Bible?
The King James Version (KJV) in 1611 was particularly notable.
A problem with the spacing of letters on the printing press led to this nifty advancement that prevented letter collision
What is ligature?
No Tide required! This term (also in Paper 4B), refers to when a word which once had a strong intensity is gradually stripped of its meaning
What is semantic bleaching?
An old-fashioned word that has completely fallen out of use
What is an archaism?
An archaism is not used by anyone and would not be identifiable as an 'English' word nor in the dictionary
Perhaps Bailey and David Crystal hit the beach when they came up with these two theories of lang change
What are Bailey's 'wave' model and Crystal's 'tide' metaphor?
Languages evolve through local innovations that expand outwards in ‘waves’ from a point of origin; Language change is like the tide, which continually washes up new things as it takes other things away
In this year, Samuel Johnson published the British English dictionary that standardized spelling
What is 1755?
From 1760 to 1900, the Industrial Revolution led to the creation of many new words, for this reason
What are inventions and technological advancements?
Steam engine, steamboat, telegraph, railroad, light bulb, etc.
Are you the GOAT in the U.S.A.? Identify the names of the two terms for abbreviations pronounced altogether and abbreviations pronounced separately by letter
What are acronyms (GOAT) and initialisms (U.S.A.)?
On an n-gram graph, a word hovers slightly above 0% usage frequency, and thus is called, this
What is obsolete?
1.) Infectious Disease; 2.) Crumbling Castle; 3.) Damp Spoon
What are Aitchison’s three prescriptivist metaphors of language change?
This man's publication of a dictionary in 1828 firmly separated American English spelling from the British
Who was Noah Webster?