LING 320 Lecture Notes - Lecture 10: Sociolinguistics, Geoffrey Chaucer, Language Change
9 Mar 2016
School
Department
Course
Professor
Document Summary
Increasing interest in studying sociolinguistics below the social class characteristics of the individual (as opposed to labov and trudgill) Is social class really the factor that leads a person to pronounce words a certain way? , etc. One of the central facts about language is that languages change (all languages change all of the time) change is a central part of the nature of language. Historical linguistics is concerned pretty much exclusively with how languages change over time. In 1000 years, a language can change beyond recognition (e. g. , old english vs. Earliest record of the english language is in the 8th century (beowulf poem) Rhyming schemes were different from today not necessarily rhyming, but alliteration within the lines and poetic feet. Canterbury tales (geoffrey chaucer) in 1387 much more recognizable that. Beowulf, but strange to modern english speakers nonetheless. This english is full of french loan words. We call this middle english (as opposed to old english)
