Republic of the Philippines

BATANGAS STATE UNIVERSITY

Gov. Pablo Borbon Campus I, Batangas City, Philippines 4200
COLLEGE OF ARTS AND SCIENCES
Tel. No. 980-0385 local 1125

Name: ESTRELLA H. PICCIO Date: SEPTEMBER 20,2020

Course:PHD ENGLISH PROFESSOR: MYRNA O.
MEDRANO

REFLECTION 3
Social and Linguistic Change: Social Change, Factors Stimulating
Change
Invention, Borrowing, Diffusion,Resistance to Change

SUMMARY:
The discussant started with the study of (Penalosa, 1981) which
connotes that “Language and society are both typically in constant change. It
is clear that any kind of linguistic change involves the interplay of universal
linguistic forces and culture-specific forces.” It has two Principal Types of
Dependence of Linguistic on Social Change. Social change has resulted in
linguistic change from culture contact, urbanization, industrialization, etc.
Linguistic change is not the result of social change but is partially associated
with certain social variables. There are three stages of Linguistic according to
Changeby Sturtevant (1947). The first one is the origin of the change in one
of the variations already present in the speech of some people, next is
Propagation of the change as it is adopted by more people and begins to
compete with the old form and lastly, Completion of the change with the
elimination of the competing variant.
Social Change according to Penalosa, 1981 stated that “Linguistic
change is slower than social change.” Both culture contact and social
isolation can influence the rate of linguistic change. When people from
different cultures come into contact, each will at least, adopt a few words from
the other language for new cultural items or concepts.Social and Linguistic
change may result from rural-urban migration or the arrival of colonists,
immigrants or slaves.
What happens linguistically under conditions of culture contact greatly
depends on the nature of the relationship between the two societies in
question (neighboring countries, colony and mother country, majority and
minority groups and the degree of political and economic equality). The
influence of those social groups whose behavior is defined as deviant or
divergent from the normal and whose lifestyles give rise to slang, criminal
argot, occupational jargons etc.
Different social classes or groups may have strong opinions which may
influence the development of a language. In the social thinking, the prestige
of the culture of other society is seen as important for survival. A further
source of linguistic change is the frequency of use of certain forms because of
certain culturally determined forms of social interaction. Traditional and
historical linguistics concerned with tracing the origin and spread of lexical
items and phonological changes. Consider not only the changes spreading to
a different geographical area but also to different social groups within the
same geographical area. The most important in the spread of innovation
would be the prestige. We may say that a particular group has prestige is
proven by the fact that others imitate them. Tautology means the people are
more likely to imitate the speech and habits of prestigious people .
There are factors in the resistance to change. Factors other than
prestige are involved, for example, nationalism or xenophobia. Writers or
scientists may prefer to coin words from pre-existing roots in their own
language rather than adopt words from other languages. A number of social
psychological factors such as fear that new unstandardized verbal symbols
might jeopardize understanding in the process of communication. Another one
is a number of social psychological factors such as fear that new
unstandardized verbal symbols might jeopardize understanding in the process
of communication. Next factor is the educated persons do not wish to sacrifice
the advantages they have gained by displaying “incorrect” usage but rather
prefer to speak “correctly” so as to validate their social status. Lastly,
conservatives consider linguistic deviations as symptomatic of moral license
or social disorganizations.
Furthermore, personal characteristics are inferences about the
speaking ability of the individuals. Like for example, is the voice high-pitched
or low? Nasal or open? Does the pitch move up and down the scale or is it
relatively monotonal? Does the speaker lisp? Is their speech fluent or
hesitant? Is it articulate or vague? Is the person’s vocabulary current and
slang-inflected or ornate and careful? Linguistic style is often included as an
independent variable, styles in the conventional way using self-explanatory
terms: word list (WL) style - is elicited by the reading of a list of words;
minimal pairs (MP) - is the more self-conscious variant elicited by arranging
the words based on their phonological similarities; reading passage (RP) - is
elicited by recording a prepared text; interview style (IS) - is free discussion of
topics ; lastly, the casual style (CS) - is unmonitored natural vernacular .
Moreover, Social class imposes some norms of behavior and
reinforces them by the strength of the example of the people with whom we
associate. Language is the way everyone communicates, whether it be
through verbal language, body language, written or sign language we all need
to communicate in some way with the people around us. Sometimes language
gets tricky and we may misunderstand people who don't share the same
language we do, or if there are cultural or regional differences in the language
we use. Society and social aspects have a great effect on language.

REFLECTION:

When we learn languages at school, even our own native language, the

rules of grammar that we are taught may seem rigid and permanent. However,

while languages do of course have rules and grammars, the study of linguistics

is based on the premise that these rules actually emerge from people’s
everyday use of language, rather than being imposed by authors of textbooks

and teachers. Consider the oft-recited ‘rule’ of English that orbids ending a

sentence with a preposition, a rule many English speakers seldom adhere to

(pun intended). Since there are subfield of linguistics, sociolinguistics, has been

examining language with three extra insights in mind. The first is that many

grammatical rules are variable rules. I may say that not all members of a

speech community speak the same all of the time, and even individual speakers

say the same things differently in different situations and to different people. My

second insight follows from the first, namely that language changes over time.

Today’s speakers of English do not speak like their predecessors in the past

century or in the old times. And in most families, people of different generations

exhibit different features in their language that distinguish, say, grandparents

from their grandchildren. The third is that in addition to language-internal factors

of some sounds and words are ‘easier’ to pronounce than others. There are

social factors as well that shape the way our grammars are constructed.