Language Change

Discuss reasons for lyric poem potpourri in both write and spoken face, and analyse recent changes.

One of the three linguistic habitual truths of Buddhism is impermanence, the notion that all things change. Language is no exception to this customary principle, and is always in flux. Every generation has its commentators who bemoan the pooh-pooh of proper side, despite the fact that there is no universal agreement of what is proper. Where attempts have been made to define Standard English it has usually been in terms of the language used by the powerful. When Samuel Johnson wrote his English Dictionary, he chose to represent the written and spoken language of the upper classes (Aitchison (2001), p 10) and David vitreous silica defined Standard English as:

a minority variety (identified chiefly by its vocabulary, grammar and authography) which carries most prestige and is most widely understood (Crystal, 1995, p110).

Crystal has added understandability as an additional criterion, a sort of applauder franca which transcends all local dialects. Thus most people in England will be able to understand Standard English, though few will use it as their natural formula of communication.





Often, however, critics of declining standards are basing their dismay at the demise of what they regard as proper English on personal preferences. Aitchison (2001, p. 13) says, the puristic attitude toward language, - the intellection that there is an absolute standard of correctness which should be hold has its origin in a natural nostalgic tendency, supplemented and step up by social pressures.
Aitchison calls the belief that language is in a process of decay the Crumbling Castle hypothesis. She argues against the idea that language change is a process of inexorable destruction, pointing out that language tends to acquire towards greater consistency. For example the word chicken was originally spell cicen in the singular and cicenu in the plural. Its evolution to the present singular...If you expect to get a full essay, order it on our website: Orderessay



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