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Change From Above
In linguistics, change from above refers to conscious change to a language. That is, speakers are generally aware of the linguistic change and use it to sound more dominant, as a result of social pressure. It stands in contrast to change from below Change from below is linguistic change that occurs from below the level of consciousness. It is language change that occurs from social, cognitive, or physiological pressures from within the system. This is in opposition to change from above, where .... Change from above usually enters the speech of educated people, not the vernacular dialects. This change usually begins with speakers in higher social classes and diffuses down into the lower classes. Upper classes use these new linguistic forms to differentiate themselves from the lower classes, while lower classes use these forms to sound more educated and similar to the upper class. However, the concepts of change from above and below refer to consciousness and not social class. Diffu ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Change From Below
Change from below is linguistic change that occurs from below the level of consciousness. It is language change that occurs from social, cognitive, or physiological pressures from within the system. This is in opposition to change from above, wherein language change is a result of elements imported from other systems.Labov, William. "Transmission and Diffusion". ''Language''. Volume 83, Number 2, June 2007, 344–387. Linguistic Society of America.Ash, Sharon. "Social Class". ''The Handbook of Language Variation and Change'', 402–422. Malden, Mass: Blackwell. Change from below first enters the language from below the level of consciousness; that is, speakers are generally unaware of the linguistic change. These linguistic changes enter language primarily through the vernacular and spread throughout the community without speakers' conscious awareness. Since change from below is initially non-salient, the changing features are not marked characteristics and are difficult for speaker ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Non-standard Dialect
A nonstandard dialect or vernacular dialect is a dialect or language Variety (linguistics), variety that has not historically benefited from the institutional support or sanction that a standard language, standard dialect has. Like any dialect, a nonstandard dialect has an internally coherent system of grammar. It may be associated with a particular set of vocabulary, and spoken using a variety of Accent (dialect), accents, style (sociolinguistics), styles, and register (sociolinguistics), registers. As American linguist John McWhorter describes about a number of dialects spoken in the American South in earlier U.S. history, including older African-American Vernacular English, "the often Southern American English, nonstandard speech of Southern white planters, nonstandard British English, British dialects of indentured servants, and Jamaican Patois, West Indian patois, [...] were ''non''standard but not ''sub''standard." In other words, the adjective "nonstandard" should not be ta ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Historical Linguistics
Historical linguistics, also termed diachronic linguistics, is the scientific study of language change over time. Principal concerns of historical linguistics include: # to describe and account for observed changes in particular languages # to reconstruct the pre-history of languages and to determine their relatedness, grouping them into language families ( comparative linguistics) # to develop general theories about how and why language changes # to describe the history of speech communities # to study the history of words, i.e. etymology Historical linguistics is founded on the Uniformitarian Principle, which is defined by linguist Donald Ringe as: History and development Western modern historical linguistics dates from the late-18th century. It grew out of the earlier discipline of philology, the study of ancient texts and documents dating back to antiquity. At first, historical linguistics served as the cornerstone of comparative linguistics, primarily as a t ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
