kimlee ezell

HISTORICAL CONTEXT OF LANGUAGE CHANGE

--SYNCHRONIC (sound changes) changes at same time

changes gives us language varieties, also history of language

variety

--DIACHRONIC changes over time

changes gives us language history

GREAT VOWEL SHIFT 1100-1600 (Illustrated on p272-273 Table 7.4)

--more of a southern England impact

--spelling of english is so inconsistent b/c pronunciation shifted when spelling didn't

--all of the vowels in Middle English moved up one, [e] moved to [I]

--one principle to remember: sound changes are regular, meaning all occurances are shifted

--lexical changes are individual, you must take the history of that word

NOTE: shift in pronunciation, all long vowels shifted, short vowels didn't shift as much, some

changes in dipthongs.

NORTHERN CITIES SHIFT (US ENGLISH) studied by ethnolinguist Labov

Feature-- merging of vowels in cot and caught in American English

(in class audio recording)

--sound changes not disappearing, but getting stronger and moving apart

--sound changes in age difference

Note: language variation persists b/c it is a way to identify w/ your group

social networks-- looser knits allow more changes

--tighter knits are more resistant