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Language Change
Year 1 / ASYear 2 / A-LevelAQA, OCR, WJEC/Eduqas
A* revision for AQA 7702/2 Section A and OCR H470/02 Section C: internal and external change, semantic shift, lexis processes, standardisation chronology, the prescriptivism debate, and the methods that win the 30- and 36-mark questions.
🎯 Learning Objectives
Distinguish internal change (analogy and regularisation, phonological erosion) from external change (borrowing, contact, technology) and illustrate both with dated examples (AO1/AO2).
Apply the lexis processes of change - borrowing, coinage, compounding, blending, clipping, backformation, conversion - and recognise archaisms and their discourse uses (AO1).
Analyse semantic shift through broadening, narrowing, amelioration and pejoration, with ready-made example pairs (AO2).
Trace the standardisation chronology - Caxton 1476, Johnson 1755, Lowth 1762, Alford 1864, the 1870 Education Act, the BBC and OED - and evaluate Johnson's prescriptivism in aims and practice (AO2).
Evaluate the prescriptivism vs descriptivism debate - Aitchison's models, Cameron's verbal hygiene, the Beale/Partridge prescriptive tradition - and avoid nostalgia arguments (AO2).
Analyse change data: the OCR H470/02 Section C two-text comparison (36 marks) and the AQA 7702/2 evaluative essay (30 marks, AO1 10 + AO2 20).
📋 Key Definitions and Core Concepts
Internal change: Change generated within the language system itself - analogy and regularisation (holp to helped, kine to cows), phonological erosion of unstressed inflections - independent of external contact.
External change: Change driven by contact with other languages and societies - invasion, trade, colonialism, technology - most visibly through borrowing: Norse 'skirt', Norman French 'beef', modern 'sushi'.
Semantic broadening: A word's meaning widens over time: 'dog' once named a specific breed, 'holiday' once meant a holy day; now both cover far wider ranges.
Semantic narrowing: A word's meaning contracts: 'meat' once meant food of any kind, 'deer' any wild animal; both now name a specific category.
Amelioration: A word acquires more positive meaning: 'pretty' moved from crafty or cunning to attractive; 'sophisticated' from adulterated to cultured.
Pejoration: A word acquires more negative meaning: 'silly' moved from blessed to foolish; 'villain' from farm worker to criminal; 'notorious' from simply famous to infamous.
Borrowing: Adopting words from other languages; English borrowing is layered by historical contact - Norse, Norman French, Latin and Greek, colonial and global loans.
Backformation: Creating a new word by removing a supposed affix from an existing one: 'edit' from 'editor', 'burgle' from 'burglar'.
Archaism: A word or form no longer in ordinary use ('thou', 'prithee', 'anon'); in modern discourse texts archaisms build mock-formal or nostalgic registers.
Prescriptivism: The view that language should conform to fixed rules of correctness, promoted through grammars, usage guides and public comment (Lowth, Alford, Beale); opposed by descriptivism.
📌 Key Points
AQA 7702/2 Section A = 30 marks: a choice of two evaluative essays - language diversity or language change - marked AO1 10 + AO2 20 (June 2023 mark scheme).
OCR H470/02 Section C = 36 marks: two texts from different periods (1600s to present), analysing variations and how contextual factors construct meaning; roughly 15 minutes preparation plus 50 minutes writing.
Johnson (1755) was prescriptive in ambition - to 'fix' and 'ascertain' the language - but descriptive in practice: his Dictionary records usage with literary citations and 'offers no law'.
Aitchison's three models (damp spoon, crumbling castle, infectious disease) are straw men to dismantle, not theories to accept - each fallacy has a named counter-argument.
Every change needs a cause (internal or external), a route (S-curve diffusion, lexical diffusion, waves) and an attitude (prescriptivist or descriptivist) - structure essays around that triad.
The semantic-shift quadrants - broadening/narrowing crossed with amelioration/pejoration - supply dateable examples: 'silly', 'pretty', 'meat', 'dog', 'villain'.
Standardisation and prescriptivism: Johnson and the chronology
Standardisation is the process by which one variety is selected, codified and accepted as the norm - Milroy & Milroy (1999) stress it is an ongoing ideological process, not a single event. The chronology is the backbone of any AQA 7702/2 essay or OCR H470/02 Section C answer that discusses attitudes to change, because dated anchors separate top-band evaluation from assertion.
Date
Event
Exam anchor
1476
Caxton sets up the printing press in Westminster.
Selection: the East Midlands dialect of the London area becomes the print standard; Caxton's own prefaces complain of spelling variety - orthography is still unstable.
1755
Johnson publishes his Dictionary of the English Language.
Codification: prescriptive in ambition ('fix' and 'ascertain' the language), descriptive in practice - entries record usage with literary citations.
1762
Lowth publishes his Short Introduction to English Grammar.
Prescriptive rules fossilise in schools: double negatives condemned, 'between you and I' policed - rules born as style advice become 'correctness'.
1864
Alford publishes A Plea for the Queen's English.
Victorian prescriptivism at its most censorious - the register of complaint later satirised by descriptivists.
1870
Forster's Education Act.
Mass literacy entrenches the standard and spreads prescriptive norms through schooling.
1922-28
BBC founded; first edition of the OED completed.
RP becomes the broadcast standard (accent, not grammar); the OED records rather than legislates - descriptive lexicography.
Johnson in detail: his 1747 Plan promised to 'ascertain' the language; his preface admits the futility of trying 'to enchain syllables, and to lash the wind' - the tension between prescriptive aim and descriptive practice is a ready-made evaluation point, and his letter refusing Chesterfield's patronage marks the lexicographer's independence.
Lowth in detail: he aimed at errors, not elegance, and did not invent the split-infinitive ban (that is Alford, 1864) - correcting a common misattribution earns credit.
Deployment: when a question targets prescriptivism, date the anxiety: the schoolroom grammar tradition (Lowth 1762, Murray's later grammars, Alford 1864, the Beale-revised Partridge usage guides) is a different phenomenon from institutional standardisation (Caxton, Johnson, the OED).
Standard language ideology is the attitude that survives after codification: the belief that the standard variety is inherently 'correct' and 'proper' while regional and social varieties are deficient. Distinguish the two in every essay - standardisation is an institutional achievement (a shared print and educational norm), while the ideology is a social belief with real consequences (accent and dialect judgement, educational gatekeeping). AQA essay questions about attitudes to change are usually testing whether you can separate the achievement from the belief - and evaluate the belief with evidence rather than accepting or mocking it.
Internal and external change - and Aitchison's models
Internal change is generated by the system itself: analogy and regularisation sweep irregular forms - 'holp' yields to 'helped', 'kine' to 'cows', and English verbs continue to regularise in speech ('strived' alongside 'strove'); phonological erosion wears away unstressed inflections once word stress fixed to the word-initial syllable, collapsing the case system that Old English carried. External change is driven by contact, and English borrowing is layered by it: Norse loans in the Danelaw ('skirt'/'shirt' doublets, the pronouns 'they', 'them'), Norman French after 1066 (law, government and cuisine registers - the 'beef'/'cow' prestige split), Latin and Greek scholarly borrowings in the Renaissance inkhorn controversy, colonial loans ('shampoo', 'bungalow'), and modern global and technological coinage ('sushi', 'karaoke', 'selfie').
Jean Aitchison's contribution is less a theory of why change happens than a demolition of the myths around it (Language Change: Progress or Decay?, 1981; her 1996 Reith lectures The Language Web). Each model is a metaphor to dismantle, with a counter-argument ready to hand:
Damp spoon (slovenliness): the claim that change comes from laziness. Counter: change is systematic and rule-governed - nobody accuses speakers of sloppiness for pronouncing 'sandwich' as 'samwich' when the process is regular assimilation.
Crumbling castle (golden-age fallacy): the claim that English was once at a peak and is decaying. Counter: there never was a golden age - older forms were neither more logical nor more expressive, and the Old English case system was its own burden.
Infectious disease (catching change): the claim that change spreads contagiously through peer pressure. Counter: speakers adopt changes selectively and knowingly, like fashion - exposure does not guarantee uptake.
Alongside the models sit the routes of change: the S-curve (a change starts slowly, accelerates, then completes - lexical diffusion, Chen 1972; Aitchison), the waves model (Bailey - innovations spread outward from centres like ripples), functional theory (language changes to fill a need - 'brexit' exists because the concept did) and random fluctuation (Hockett, 1958) - the weakest explanation, useful mainly as a contrast to strike down in an evaluation.
Change in progress is examinable: contemporary examples - 'th' fronting in London ('fink' for think), 'whom' retreating to fixed registers, intensifier bleaching ('literally'), regularisation in speech ('strived') - let an answer argue that change is observable now, not just in the archive. Substratum theory (contact between varieties reshaping the incoming language - multi-ethnic London English as the textbook case) bridges the internal/external divide: contact supplies the trigger, but the changes follow regular internal patterns.
Lexis and semantic shift
The lexis-level toolkit supplies the AO1 evidence in every essay, and the semantic-shift categories supply the most dateable examples.
Word-formation processes:borrowing (layered by contact: Norse, Norman, Latin, global - 'sushi'); coinage or neologism ('selfie' - OED Word of the Year 2013); compounding (two free morphemes: 'laptop', 'deadline', 'brexit'); blending (fused fragments: 'brunch', 'infotainment', 'chillax'); clipping ('blog' from weblog, 'fridge', 'exam'); backformation ('edit' from editor, 'burgle' from burglar); conversion (a brand name becomes a verb: 'to google'); affixation with productive suffixes ('-gate' generating scandal terms, '-core' generating aesthetic labels).
Archaisms: 'thou', 'thee', 'prithee', 'anon' survive in fixed registers - prayer, wedding vows, fantasy - and in modern discourse texts they build mock-formal or nostalgic voices; archaic grammar (second-person inflections, 'ye') is a quick spot in OCR's historical texts.
Broadening: 'dog' once named a specific (now extinct) breed; 'holiday' moved from holy day to any break; 'butcher' from one who slaughters goats to any meat-seller.
Narrowing: 'meat' from any food to animal flesh; 'deer' from any wild animal to one species; 'hound' from any dog to a hunting breed.
Amelioration: 'pretty' from crafty or cunning to attractive; 'knight' from boy or servant to noble rank; 'sophisticated' from adulterated to cultured.
Pejoration: 'silly' from blessed to innocent to foolish; 'villain' from farm worker to criminal; 'notorious' from simply well-known to infamous; 'hussy' from mistress of a household to its dismissive opposite.
Also useful: semantic weakening or bleaching ('very' from 'veray' true to a bare intensifier; 'literally' losing literal force), euphemism ('pass away', 'let go'), and metaphor as a change mechanism (grasp an idea, run a meeting).
Causes to cite: social prestige (borrowing from high-status contact - Norman French loans survive because the conquerors held power), taboo avoidance (euphemism cycles: each replacement weakens and is replaced in turn), functional need (new concepts demand new words - functional theory), metaphorical extension, and institutional standardisation itself (which slows some changes and fixes others). In the AQA essay, each process should appear with a dated example and an etymological note - precision is the AO1 currency. In the OCR comparison, the processes are the fastest route to level-by-level differences: quote a clipped or blended coinage in the modern text against an archaism in the earlier one and the lexis paragraph writes itself.
The debate, and analysing change data
The prescriptivism vs descriptivism debate is where AO2 marks concentrate. The descriptivist case: change is natural, systematic and ongoing (Aitchison's demolition of the three myths); dictionaries and corpora record rather than legislate (the OED tradition); 'all living languages change' (Crystal). The prescriptivist case: a shared standard aids clarity, education and social mobility; institutional standardisation was deliberate policy, not accident. Deborah Cameron (Verbal Hygiene, 1995) reframes the debate: prescriptivism is a real social practice worth studying - the question is not 'is it wrong to police language?' but 'why do people care, and whose interests do the rules serve?'. The prescriptive tradition has its own voice: Paul Beale, editor of Partridge's Usage and Abusage (1994), guards 'correct' usage; media prescriptivists - Kingsley Amis (The King's English), John Humphrys, Lynne Truss (Eats, Shoots & Leaves, 2003), Nevile Gwynne (Gwynne's Grammar, 2013) - supply quotable alarmism, and each is a straw man for Aitchison's crumbling castle. A top answer holds both truths: standardisation is real and useful; purist nostalgia is false.
Change data analysis - the AQA essay (7702/2 Section A, 30 marks = AO1 10 + AO2 20):
Define the key term in the question ('contact', 'change', 'decay') - the evaluation cannot start until the claim is precise.
Evaluate in two movements: support the claim with external-contact or internal examples, then challenge with counter-causes - each example dated, each linguist named.
Judge: contact is a powerful but partial cause; internal forces (analogy, erosion), functional need and S-curve diffusion operate regardless; standardisation reshapes the outcome.
Avoid the two common traps: nostalgia (the crumbling-castle fallacy - there was no golden age) and descriptivist dismissal (mocking prescriptivists without engaging their claims - Cameron's point is that the anxiety is worth studying). Both sides evaluated is what AO2 20 looks like.
OCR H470/02 Section C (36 marks, June 2024: two texts from the early 20th and 21st centuries; 15 minutes preparation, about 50 minutes writing): compare level by level - lexis (archaisms vs neologisms; clipped, blended modern coinage), semantics (shifted meanings of shared words - the semantic-shift quadrants in action), grammar (inflections and spelling variance in the earlier text; modal density and sentence complexity), orthography (capitalisation, long 's' in older eras), discourse conventions (period genres and structures). Attribute each difference to contextual factors - the progress of standardisation, mass education, technology, media era - and integrate: point of comparison, Text C evidence, Text D evidence, explicit link. Use the 15-minute preparation to build the comparison grid before writing a word.
💡 Worked Example
Exam-style: Evaluate the idea that language change is caused by contact between different social groups. [30 marks] (AQA 7702/2, June 2023, Question 2 - Section A)
Mark-scheme logic: Mark-scheme logic (AQA 7702/2 Section A: 30 marks = AO1 10 + AO2 20, per the June 2023 mark scheme):<br><br><strong>AO1 - language examples with accurate methods (10):</strong> the evaluation runs on precise, dated evidence: borrowing layers (Norse 'skirt'/'shirt' and 'they/them'; Norman French 'beef'/'cow' register split; colonial 'shampoo'; global 'sushi'); coinage and word formation from contact and technology ('selfie', 'brexit'); semantic shift where contact drives meaning (amelioration and pejoration following prestige contact); etymology and word-formation terminology applied accurately throughout.<br><br><strong>AO2 - critical understanding of concepts and issues (20):</strong> the claim must be evaluated, not described. <em>Support:</em> contact is the best-documented route of external change - invasion, trade and migration demonstrably reshaped English lexis (the Norman Conquest is the textbook case); substratum and prestige explanations explain <em>which</em> loans survive; globalisation and digital contact accelerate 21st-century borrowing. <em>Challenge:</em> substantial change happens without contact - internal analogy and regularisation ('holp' to 'helped', kine to cows), phonological erosion of inflections, and the Great Vowel Shift whose causes are debated and internal; other explanations - functional theory (need), S-curve diffusion (internal mechanics of spread), random fluctuation (Hockett) - cover what contact cannot. <em>Judgement:</em> contact is a major cause, but a partial one: internal forces and standardisation also shape change, so the claim holds for lexis more than for grammar and phonology.<br><br><strong>Essay craft:</strong> define 'contact' and 'change' first; evaluate both sides with named linguists (Aitchison, Crystal, Hockett, Chen) and dated examples; reach an explicit judgement. The same logic answers the diversity option (Question 1): evaluate the claim about varieties with code-switching research and standard-language ideology, then judge.
❓ Practice Questions & Mark Schemes
By detailed analysis of the writing in both passages, discuss and illustrate variations in language between the early years of the 20th and the 21st centuries. In your answer you should explore the ways language is used in each text as well as how contextual factors influence the way meaning is constructed. [36 marks] (OCR H470/02, June 2024, Question 3)
Answer: Method: 15 minutes preparation (build a comparison grid by language level), then about 50 minutes writing; AO1, AO3 and AO4 each carry roughly 12 marks.<br><br>Model hits: (1) <strong>Lexis:</strong> archaic or period lexis in the earlier text vs clipped, blended, borrowed modern coinage - quote from both. (2) <strong>Semantics:</strong> shared words with shifted meanings - the semantic-shift quadrants in action. (3) <strong>Grammar:</strong> fuller inflections and longer, subordinated sentences in the earlier text vs shorter, looser modern syntax; modal density differences. (4) <strong>Orthography:</strong> capitalisation, spelling variance, older punctuation conventions. (5) <strong>Discourse:</strong> period genre conventions vs modern media structures. (6) <strong>Context (AO3):</strong> attribute each difference - standardisation, mass education after 1870, technology, media era - explaining <em>why</em> the language differs, not just that it does. (7) <strong>Integration (AO4):</strong> each paragraph organised by a point of comparison with explicit links ('whereas', 'similarly'). The comparison grid from preparation time is what stops the answer sliding into two disconnected analyses.
Evaluate the idea that the English language is in decline. [30 marks] (AQA 7702/2 Section A style)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO1 10 + AO2 20):<br><br><strong>AO2 frame:</strong> the claim is Aitchison's 'crumbling castle' - the golden-age fallacy - so the essay dismantles it with named evidence.<br><br><strong>AO1 evidence:</strong> dateable examples of change in both directions: pejoration and amelioration in progress ('literally' weakening; 'wicked' ameliorating in youth sociolect), regularisation continuing ('strived' alongside 'strove'), new coinage ('selfie', 'brexit'), archaisms dying ('whom' retreating to fixed registers - if 'decline' means loss, name precisely what is lost).<br><br><strong>AO2 evaluation:</strong> <em>Support:</em> some prescriptive anxieties have substance - register loss in formal writing, erosion of distinctions ('disinterested'/'uninterested'); the perceived loss of 'whom' and the subjunctive is real and documentable. <em>Challenge:</em> Aitchison - there was no golden age; older forms were not more logical (the Old English case system); change is systematic, not decay; expressive power does not diminish - new processes (blending, borrowing, semantic shift) replace old; the 'decline' claim conflates change with deterioration and serves social gatekeeping (Cameron's verbal hygiene - whose interests do the rules serve?). <em>Judgement:</em> the language is changing, not declining - the claim is an attitude, not a description.<br><br><strong>Craft:</strong> define 'decline' first; date every example; name the fallacy; conclude with the attitude/description distinction.
Evaluate the idea that new words entering the language weaken it. [30 marks] (AQA 7702/2 Section A style)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO1 10 + AO2 20):<br><br><strong>AO1 evidence:</strong> word-formation processes with dated examples - borrowing (global loans: 'sushi', 'karaoke'), coinage ('selfie', OED Word of the Year 2013), compounding ('brexit'), blending ('chillax'), clipping ('blog' from weblog), backformation ('burgle'), conversion ('to google') - each named and dated; historical parallels: the Renaissance inkhorn controversy attacked new Latin borrowings that are now unremarkable core vocabulary.<br><br><strong>AO2 evaluation:</strong> <em>Support:</em> semantic bleaching is a real cost - intensifiers weaken ('very', 'literally'), and overuse can blur precision; some loans displace native alternatives. <em>Challenge:</em> the inkhorn precedent shows hostility to new words ages badly - rejected borrowings became essential; borrowing has enriched English for a millennium without measurable loss of expressive power; functional theory - new concepts demand new words, so the lexicon <em>must</em> grow; Aitchison - speakers adopt selectively, so the lexicon is self-editing; dictionaries and corpora (OED) record rather than legislate. <em>Judgement:</em> new words diversify the lexicon; weakening is confined to individual items (bleaching), not the language.<br><br><strong>Craft:</strong> evaluate with dated examples on both sides; the inkhorn parallel is the strongest single move - a 16th-century complaint refuted by four centuries of use.
By detailed analysis of the writing in both passages, discuss and illustrate variations in language between the 17th and 21st centuries. In your answer you should explore the ways language is used in each text as well as how contextual factors influence the way meaning is constructed. [36 marks] (OCR H470/02 Section C style)
Answer: Method: identical to the June 2024 task but with a wider period gap - the earlier text will show more archaic features, so prepare a richer grid.<br><br>Model hits: (1) <strong>Orthography first:</strong> the 17th-century text will show inconsistent spelling (pre-standardisation), variable capitalisation and possibly the long 's' - name the standardisation gap (Caxton 1476 selection, but codification incomplete until Johnson 1755 and after). (2) <strong>Grammar:</strong> second-person forms ('thou/thee' with inflections), subjunctive and fuller inflectional morphology, longer periodic sentences. (3) <strong>Lexis and semantics:</strong> archaisms ('prithee'), and shared words with shifted meanings - check the semantic-shift quadrants for each candidate word. (4) <strong>Discourse:</strong> period genre conventions (petition, sermon, letter) vs modern media structures. (5) <strong>Context attribution:</strong> standardisation, printing, education, the OED's descriptive record - each difference explained. (6) <strong>Integration:</strong> comparative connectives throughout; differences explained, not just observed. The 17th-century text rewards candidates who date the standardisation timeline precisely - that is the AO3 engine of this question.
Evaluate the idea that it is an advantage to be able to switch between different varieties of language. [30 marks] (AQA 7702/2, June 2023, Question 1 - Section A diversity option)
Answer: Mark-scheme logic (AO1 10 + AO2 20) - the diversity option, tested by the same evaluative essay method:<br><br><strong>AO1 evidence:</strong> named varieties and switching contexts - regional dialect and RP, occupational repertoires (medical, legal, gaming), code-switching between home and school varieties, style-shifting within a single conversation; examples of hybrid and blended usage in electronic texts.<br><br><strong>AO2 evaluation:</strong> <em>Support:</em> repertoire is an asset - audience design (choosing the right variety for the addressee), Giles' communication accommodation theory (converging to gain approval, diverging to mark identity), Gumperz's situational and metaphorical code-switching, Bernstein's elaborated/restricted codes (criticise carefully - the deficit reading is outdated); occupational and educational mobility reward standard command. <em>Challenge:</em> standard language ideology pressures speakers away from home varieties - switching is sometimes survival, not advantage; diglossia can entrench inequality; the 'advantage' claim assumes choice where many speakers face judgement regardless (accent-based discrimination persists). <em>Judgement:</em> switching is an advantage where the speaker controls it and a burden where the standard enforces it - the evaluation must distinguish choice from pressure.<br><br><strong>Craft:</strong> same structure as the change essay - define, evaluate both sides with named linguists and examples, judge. Same AO split, same 30 marks.
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