Americanisation of English

https://www.theguardian.com/science/shortcuts/2017/may/16/ill-gotten-gains-why-americanisms-are-a-boon-for-the-british?CMP=fb_gu

Language Change and Issues

1. ‘Perjoration’ is a process by which b) words increasingly acquire negative meanings
    
2. ‘Ethnic cleansing’, ‘collateral damage’ and ‘nuclear deterrent’ are examples of: c) euphemism
    
3. ‘Dialect levelling’ is: a) a decrease in dialect differences (HSBC they predicted less differences between dialect)
    
4. ‘Prescriptivism’ is: a) the study of language with the intention of controlling it – by dictating rules of usage
    
5. 1755 is significant for the development of the English Language because: b) Samuel Johnson published his dictionary
    
6. ‘Jargon’ is: a) technical language or highly-specific vocabulary
    
7. ‘Amelioration’ is a process by which: c) words become more socially accepted or prestigious
    
8. Which one of the following processes could the word ‘cupboard’ not be used as an example of: b) borrowing
    
9. The ‘etymological fallacy’ is: a) the mistaken belief that the earliest historical meaning of a word is its only true meaning  
    
10. Time was once pronounced more like team, see like say, now like noo and so like saw; and are all examples of the phonological differences brought about by: c) the Great Vowel Shift
     
11. ‘Fax’, ‘flu’, ‘celeb’, ‘bike’, ‘gym’ and ‘memo’ are all examples of: d) abbreviations or shortening
     
12. The use, in the USA, of phrases such as ‘I guess’(for ‘I think’) and ‘gotten’ are example of: b) Americans retaining an earlier English form after its use has largely died out in Britain
     
13. ‘Biadilectalism’ is a term used, by David Crystal and others, to describe: a) the ability to use two dialects of the same language
     
14. ‘Government’, ‘peasant’, ‘crime’, ‘justice’, ‘fashion’, ‘biscuit’ and ‘leisure’ are words loaned from: c) French
     
15. The prescriptive ‘Short Introduction to English Grammar’ (1762) was written by: a) Bishop Robert Lowth
     
16. The printing press was introduced into England by: c) William Caxton in 1476
     
17. ‘Accommodation theory’ was developed by Howard Giles to suggest: b) we adjust our accent/speech in response to the person we are addressing
     
18. The words ‘children’, ‘oxen’ and ‘men’ are among a handful of now irregular plurals that are a hangover from a time when English had a greater number of: a) inflections
     
19. What is Jonathon Green describing as ‘the counter language… the language of the rebel, the outlaw, the despised, the marginal, the young’? b) slang
     
20. ‘The Sapir-Whorf hypothesis’ put forward the theory that: b) language controls or determines the way we think

Ted Talks - Language Change

Txting is killing language. JK!!!

- Speech is much looser, much more telegraphic and its much less reflective than writing
- Speech used to be much more formal (people spoke like they wrote) 
- Texting is more like how we speak - it is very loose in its structure, no one thinks about 
   capital letters or punctuation (but we also don't when we speak)
- Texting allows us to write how we speak
- Texting is 'fingered speech' - decline in standard English (emergent complexity)
- 'LOL' is a marker of empathy
- 'Slash' is used to change the topic in texting (new information marker)

Go ahead, make up new words!

- Language is just a group of people who agree to understand each other 
- Grammar is the unconscious rules that you follow (Jean Berko Gleason: Wug Test)
- Borrowing from other languages ('Caramel' from French, 'Ninja' from Japan)
- Compounding (putting two words together - e.g. bookworm, heartbroken)
- Blend (e.g. motel, brunch, electrocute) 
- Back formation (e.g. we had the word editor before we had the word edit) 
- Acronyms (e.g. NASA, OMG) 

What makes a word "real"?

- 'Adorkable' 'Hangry' 
- Less people refer to dictionaries now
- 

Word Of Mouth - Michael Rosen

Emoji: The Future of Language?
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ffvp6  

- The fastest growing language
- Enable us to express emotion and empathy in digital communication 
- On average, adults spend 22 hours online per week (we write now more than we speak on 
   some days)
- Texts alone take the empathy out of the message
- Texts don't show intonation, tone or expression
- Use emojis to add personality 
- 'Crying with laughter' biggest usage - anointed 2015 word of the year by Oxford 
   Dictionary 
- Emojis allow us to be more effective communicators in the digital age
- Invented in 1999 in Japan ('emoji' means picture/character)
- 176 originally created in 1999 and now there is over 1800 (expanding language)
- Average 6 year old in the UK is more text savvy than the average 45 year old

Frenchified: The Influence of French on English
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08lh6r1  


Like, Totally Awesome: The Americanisation of English
http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g5533  

- 19th Century American language started to influence our language (post war - English 
   soldiers learnt words from American soldiers and then brought them back to the UK)
- America has a strong influence throughout the world both technologically and culturally
- Films, TV programmes such as 'Friends', the media and journalism has a big influence 

Allow me to womansplain the problem with gendered language - Arwa Mahdawi

https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2017/apr/23/allow-me-to-womansplain-the-problem-with-gendered-language

A level Paper 2 - Student Responses and Examiner Commentary

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77022-CEX.PDF

Language Change - Useful Revision

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08g5533 Like, Totally Awesome: The Americanisation of English, Word of Mouth - BBC Radio 4 www.bbc.co.uk Michael Rosen on the Americanisation of English, with Lynne Murphy and Matthew Engel. http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b08ffvp6 Emoji: The Future of Language?, Word of Mouth - BBC Radio 4 www.bbc.co.uk Is emoji really the world's fastest-growing language? Michael Rosen finds out.