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It is a well-established fact of linguistics that language varieties change over time. No language, no matter how standardized, "guarded" or isolated from outside influences, is exempt from this. British English (and its varieties) is also undergoing constant linguistic change. While more obvious changes affecting vocabulary and pronunciation are often noticed by journalists or the general public, certain types of changes, such as those affecting the syntactic and morphological domains, are usually more subtle and require careful empirical study to even be detected.
In this seminar, we will devote ourselves to the study of recent linguistic changes in British English and its varieties. The seminar begins with an introduction into core concepts of language change and the agents and processes involved. This is followed by a very concise history of the English language from its very beginnings up to the late 20th century. Our seminar then focuses on the most recent changes affecting British Englishes, covering the domains of pronunciation, morphology, syntax, and others. We will also look at the role of youth language and the influence of social media as drivers of linguistic innovation, and investigate potential processes proposed to be at work, including Americanization and colloquialization.
Knowing about language change is relevant because it fosters an understanding of linguistic variation and enables one to adapt to changes in the language as they happen. This is a crucial competence to have for anyone who seeks to work with language in the long term, especially teachers.
Participants will learn what language change is, why it happens, and how it can be observed. They will learn methods of linguistic analysis that can be used to study language change, and will further develop their skills in their own empirical projects. |
