Language change, accents and dialects

English has changed enormously over 1,500 years, and it is still changing. It also varies from place to place and from group to group. At A level you study how and why language changes, and what accents, dialects and other varieties tell us about speakers.

Key facts

  • Periods: Old English (about 450 to 1150), Middle English (about 1150 to 1500, Chaucer), Early Modern English (about 1500 to 1700, Shakespeare and the first printed books) and Modern English.
  • New words are made by borrowing from other languages (⟦safari⟧, ⟦karaoke⟧), compounding (⟦laptop⟧), blending (⟦brunch⟧), clipping (⟦exam⟧) and acronyms (⟦NASA⟧).
  • Meanings change: broadening (⟦holiday⟧ once meant a holy day), narrowing (⟦meat⟧ once meant any food), amelioration (⟦nice⟧ once meant foolish) and pejoration (⟦silly⟧ once meant blessed).
  • An accent is the way words are pronounced; a dialect is the words and grammar of a region (⟦bairn⟧ for child, ⟦we was⟧).
  • A sociolect is the language of a social group (teenagers, gamers, doctors); an idiolect is one person's own way of speaking.

Worked examples

Example 1

How was ⟦smog⟧ formed?

  1. ⟦smog⟧ = ⟦smoke⟧ + ⟦fog⟧.
  2. Parts of two words joined into one is blending.

Answer: blending

Example 2

⟦villain⟧ once meant a farm worker; now it means a wicked person. What kind of change is this?

  1. The meaning has become more negative.
  2. A meaning that becomes more negative shows pejoration.

Answer: pejoration

Example 3

In South Africa a traffic light is called a ⟦robot⟧. Accent or dialect?

  1. This is about a word, not about how a word is pronounced.
  2. Words and grammar used in a region make up a dialect.

Answer: dialect