Part four changes and comparisons

Change and decay in all around we see. But not all

change is decay, and some decay turns into new life.

d.j. ENRIGHT

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12

Language change

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All languages are continually changing - their sounds, their syntax, and their meaning. This gradual alteration is mostly unnoticed by the speakers of a language, since the sounds and syntax in particular give a superficial impression of being static. Yet one glance at the works of Chaucer or Shakespeare shows how much English has changed in a relatively short time.

A closer look at the English of today reveals several sounds and constructions in the process of changing. [j], they-like sound which occurs before [u:] in words such as tune, muse, duty seems to be drop­ping out. It has already disappeared in words such as rule, lute. Soon, it may have dropped out entirely, as it has in Kast Anglia.

Meanwhile, a change in syntax is occurring in the use of the pronouns I and me. It used to be considered correct to say It's I. Nowadays, the majority of people say It's me. Me tends to be used after the verb, and I before it. And there are signs that this rule is being extended so that / occurs only in a position directly preceding the verb. The line in the popular song, 'Me and the elephant, we still remember you', is only partially a joke. Such sentences possibly encapsulate this changing rule of grammar.

People working on this branch of linguistics are interested above all in how and why language changes. They are also interested in recon­structing an earlier state of affairs in cases where we have no written records of the previous stages of the language.

How language changes

Until relatively recently, language change was considered to be a

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mysterious, unobservable phenomenon which crept up on one unawares. Like the movement of the planets, it was regarded as unde-tectable by the unaided human senses. However, advances in socio-linguistics have led to a growing understanding of the mechanisms behind both the spread of change from person to person, and its dis­semination through a language.

The American sociolinguist William Labov was one of the first people to examine in detail how a change spreads through a population. He found a new pronunciation creeping in among the permanent inhabi­tants on the island of Martha's Vineyard, a popular holiday resort off the coast of Massachusetts. Judging by previous accounts of the islanders' speech, the vowel sounds in words such as /, my and out, about were altering their character, being produced with the mouth considerably less wide open than the standard American pronunciation. Labov did a survey of these vowel sounds, interviewing the islanders, and asking them to read passages containing the crucial words.

He found that the change seemed to be radiating out from a group of fishermen who were regarded as typifying the old true values of the island, in contrast to the despised summer visitors. The fishermen's speech had always been somewhat different from the standard American pronunciation, though in recent years, it appeared to have become more extreme. The non-standard vowels were being picked up and imitated in particular by people aged 30-45 who had made a firm decision to stay permanently on the island.

The fishermen's strange vowels, then, were not a totally new inven­tion, they were simply an exaggeration of existing vowels. Other inhabitants who came into contact with these respected old fishermen perhaps subconsciously imitated aspects of their speech in an effort to sound like 'true' islanders. At first, the adopted fisherman-type vowels fluctuated with their existing more standard vowels, then gradually the new ones took over. At this point, the change started to spread to others who came into contact with this second group, and so on.

There is some truth, therefore, in the notion that changes are infec­tious. Parents sometimes complain that their children 'pick up' dread­ful accents at school. But children are not infected against their will. Subconsciously at least, humans imitate those they admire, or desire to be associated with. It is as impossible to stop children acquiring the accents of their friends as it is to stop them wanting to wear the same clothes, or admiring the same pop stars.

Some changes occur 'from above', meaning 'from above the level of consciousness', when people consciously imitate the accent of oth­ers. For example, in British English, someone who comes from an

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area where [h] is omitted at the beginning of words such as hot, high, might make a decision to gradually incorporate it, to fit in with the more usual pronunciation. Other changes are 'from below', meaning 'from below the level of consciousness', as with the Martha's Vineyard changes, where those involved might have been unaware of which parts of their speech were changing.

But whether the changes are 'from above', or 'from below', the mechanism of spread from person to person appears to be the same: alternatives creep in, usually copied from those around, then gradu­ally replace the existing pronunciation. Change inevitably involves variant forms while it is in progress, so speech variation is often a sign that a change is taking place.