Language Change - Good/ Bad?

Following our discussion of more recent examples of language change, looking at neologisms/popular slang words from 2001, many of which may have already failed to survive the test of time, I would like you to consider the following for your next blog entry:

- Summarise the arguments for/against language change 

For:

• To accomodate for technological advancements
• Keeps the language interesting, fresh and current
• Help to forge personal and group identity
• Multicultural/ Ethnic
• Change is good- Embrace it
• To reflect fashion, lifestyle, music of the time

Against:

• Not everyone can keep up- to- date - creates boundries between generations
• Socially inappropriate behaviour?
• Words can gain negative connotations due to societal views
• English should resist change to protect its history and tradition - Diluting
• ESOL - difficult to keep up with constant change

- What is your view on language change? 

Personally i think language change is a good thing, it is interesting to see how language has changed and think about what it might be like in the future. I think it would be very difficult for language not change as it is spoken every day.

 

- What do you think are the most important influences on language change? And why might this be the case?

There are many things that influence language change, for instants historical events, geographical issues such as immigration, politcs like political correction. I think the most influencal factor is social factors or social needs, similarly media as it has universal appear. As music and television is changing everyday this has a large impact of language. As people hear new songs or new programmes if they like it a lot they may reuse phrases from it, or make inside jokes from it where the language is changed creating new words.

 

- Do you think some of the more recent additions to the language will survive? (e.g. peng, bare, butterz, mandem, bbm, cba, lol, i-phone, i-pad, smart phones, fraped ....etc). 

I think that most words from recent slang is not likely to last for very long, just like when we looked at the words from 2001 not many of them had stayed in current language. Although things like the i-pad and smartphone are more likely to stay around because they are used to describe a new piece of technology and cannot be renamed but other slang words are always replaced with newer versions of the same word.

Also, don't forget to read each others! (And comment if it will let you..  :S )