Paper 3 Question 1: Language Change Analysis on "Advice to a Young Man"

        Text A, a letter excerpt entitled Advice to a Young Man upon First Going to Oxford: In Ten Letters, From an Uncle to His Nephew (1832) by Edward Berens displays some similarities as well as many differences between the early part of Late Modern English, as seen in the excerpt, and Present Day English.  Within this text, it is easy to see how Late Modern English was changed by social and technological developments through time as well as how it differed from previous language periods.

Text A presents lexis that has become obsolete.  For example, Berens tells his nephew that if he constantly talks about himself, he will be seen as a bore and a “conceited coxcomb.”  Although the word “conceited” is still used in language today, “coxcomb” is not.  “Coxcomb” was used to refer to a person who was a fool, since the word originally described a jester’s cap.  Present Day society no longer includes jesters; we have clowns.  Because of this shift away from jesters, any words referring to it will become obsolete and eventually archaic.  Thus, it explains why the phrase “conceited coxcomb” is no longer used.

Text B is a collocate chart containing adjectives only for “taste” and “judgment” from the British National Corpus.  These adjectives were from the years 1980 through 1993, which is nearing the end of the Late Modern English period.  The word taste was used with adjectives such as “bad,” “good,” “personal,” “bitter,” and “first.”  From this list, two definitions apply to the word taste: the flavor of something or a person’s judgment.  Within Text A, the word taste was used in the phrase “good taste and correct judgment.”  Here, the second definition was used and described their judgment.  However, in previous language eras, “taste” only referred to the flavor of an item.  Therefore, the word “taste” underwent the process of semantic widening/broadening.

Also in Text B, the word “judgment” was used with words such as “clinical,” “professional,” “dissenting,” “better,” and “final.”  It is important to note that the word “judgment” was created through derivation.  For example, the word “judge” was borrowed from the Old French word “juger,” which roughly means to try in a court of law or to deem someone as something.  This borrowing of words supports the idea of colonialism and the Cultural Transmission by Bandura and others, as we received language ideas from other cultures and societies.  Also, with the added suffix of “-ment” at the end of the root word “judge,” it creates a new word from an existing word, which brings added meaning.  For example, the word “judgment” can mean a punishment or a penalty and it can also be defined as the ability to come to a conclusion or have common sense.  In Text A, it can be seen that Berens is discussing how his nephew should display “correct judgment.”  This demonstrates the definition of common sense, as Berens is giving advice to his nephew about how to not look foolish around his peers.

  Text C displays an n-gram graph containing the phrases “are apt to be,” “are likely to be,” and “tend to be.”  It shows their fluctuation of usage from the years 1800 to 2008, demonstrating the shift from Late Modern English to Present Day English.  The phrase “are apt to be” remained constant in usage at approximately 0.0001%, but saw a decline after the 1940s and reached nearly zero.  However, the phrases “are likely to be” and “tend to be” remained relatively constant until the 1930s and saw a large spike in usage, with “tend to be” being the most highly used.  These results are due to a decreasing rate of formality in writing.  Within Text A, Berens was writing in very formal language to his nephew, as this is what was socially acceptable at the time.  However, when progressing into Present Day English, formality is now not as widely used in writing, and thus writers tend to opt for more casual language.  This would be especially so in Present Day English when talking to a relative.  This idea supports Michael Halliday’s Functional Theory.  Functional Theory describes language change as being caused by social and technological advances.  Since the age of technology has facilitated a more casual environment when writing, casual language also saw an increase in usage, thus demonstrating why more informal language would skyrocket in usage.