Language Change

FROM STYLE TO
STYLE
From more formal speech to more casual speech.

It spreads from one individual to another within a

social group, and subsequently from one social group
to another.

The change gradually spreads from style to style and

from group to group, till eventually almost everyone
uses the new form in all their speech styles

When a change is a prestigious one, it usually starts

at the top of the speech community in the most
formal style of the highest status group and spreads
downwards.

Younger people tend to adopt new forms more

quickly than older people do and they use them
more extensively.
 FROM WORD TO
WORD

Sound changes
A sound change may Change is more
spread through
take decades or accurately thought of
different words one
even centuries to as an accumulation of
by one, this is known
spread. changes in the
as lexical diffusion; it
speech of individuals,
first occurs in one
it isn't independent of
word, and then in
the languages'
another one and it
speakers.
goes on.
 FROM WORD TO WORD - LEXICAL
DIFUSSION

A change doesn’t
spread to all possible
words; some remain
East Anglia with their original
Belfast
pronuncia tion
Vowel in must before .
pull before put
vowel in come
put before
before vowel in English
should
uncle
trough tough

though bough
 APPARENT-TIME STUDIES OF LANGUAJE
CHANGE

The information on the language use of different age groups may reveal the
direction of linguistic change in a community.

A steady increase or steady decline in the frequency of a form by age group

suggests to a sociolinguist that a change may be in progress in the speech
community
.

Differences between the speech of older people and younger people are interpreted
as indications of changes in progress. Younger speakers tend to use more of the
newer or innovative forms, and the older speakers use more of the older, conservative
forms, the ones they adopted in their own teenage years.
 APPARENT-TIME STUDIES OF LANGUAJE
CHANGE

EXAMPLE
By the 1970s, the word radio had completely displaced the word wireless to refer
to the piece of equipment which broadcasts audio material.

At that time children had never heard the word wireless, while their
great- grandmothers had never heard the word radio.

Forty years later in the twenty-first century, wireless acquired a totally new
meaning and for a time, and young people began to use wireless or wifi to refer
to internet access.
 CONCLUSION

FROM STYLE TO STYLE

TOPIC - SOCIAL GROUP - AGE

FROM WORD TO WORD

PRONUNCIATION - GRAMMAR

APPARENT-TIME STUDIES OF LANGUAGE

CHANGES IN PROGRESS - AGE