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EnglandEnglish Language

Language Change

3 dot points across 3 inquiry questions. Click any dot point for a focused answer with worked past exam questions where available.

Why do people react so strongly to language change, and how do you evaluate the prescriptivism-descriptivism debate?

Attitudes to language change: prescriptivism and descriptivism, the metaphors used to describe change, and the debate over decline versus evolution.
An Edexcel A-Level English Language (9EN0) answer on attitudes to language change: prescriptivism and descriptivism, Aitchison's metaphors of decline, Crystal's defence of change, the social and ideological basis of complaint, and how to analyse and evaluate emotive attitude texts.
13 min answer →

How has English changed across time at every language level, and what drove the change?

Historical language change: lexical, semantic, grammatical, phonological and orthographic change in English from Early Modern English to the present.
An Edexcel A-Level English Language (9EN0) answer on historical language change: lexical, semantic, grammatical, phonological and orthographic change from Early Modern English to the present, the influence of the printing press, Johnson's dictionary and standardisation, and how to analyse change in older texts.
13 min answer →

What theories explain how and why language change spreads, and what processes generate new words?

Theories and processes of change: the wave, S-curve and random fluctuation models, the influence of technology and society, and the functional and lexical processes of change.
An Edexcel A-Level English Language (9EN0) answer on theories and processes of language change: the wave, S-curve and random fluctuation models, functional and substratum theory, the influence of technology, and the word-formation processes (borrowing, affixation, compounding, blending, clipping, acronyms, initialisms, conversion, eponyms).
13 min answer →