Language Change

The phenomenon of language change PROBABLE attracts more public notice and more DISAPPROVE than any other linguistic issue. There is a widely held belief that change must mean deterioration and decay. Older people observe the casual speech of the young and conclude that standards have fallen APPRECIATE.

It is understandable that many people dislike change, but it is WISE to condemn all linguistic MODIFY. It is often felt that contemporary language illustrates the problem at its worst, but this belief is shared by every generation.

There are indeed cases where linguistic change can lead to problems of unintelligibility and AMBIGUOUS, and if change is too rapid there can be major communication problems. But as a rule, the parts of language which are GO change at any given time are relatively small in comparison to the vast, unchanging areas of language. It is because change is so FREQUENT that it is so distinctive and NOTICE. Some degree of caution and concern is therefore always desirable for the MAINTAIN of precision and EFFECT communication, but there are no grounds for the extremely pessimistic attitudes so often encountered.

Example: unpredictable is a derived adjective consisting of the free root morpheme predict and two derivational morphemes: the productive bound negative prefix of German origin un- and the productive bound adjective-forming suffix of Romanic origin –able.

Task 3. Classify the compounds given below according to:

1. the type of the linking element: butter-fingers, pepper-and-salt, speedometer, Stratford-on-Avon, bridesmaid, door-to-door, handicraft, stick-in-the-mud;

2. the type of the relationship between the components: lipstick, zig-zag, road-building, bittersweet, pink-and-white, wine-coloured, mumbo-jumbo, secretary-assistant;

3. the way of composition: smoke-filled, lady-killer, mill-owner, puffy-eyed, dining-room, cruel-hearted, soft-boiled, first-nighter, do-gooder, red-handed, dish-washer;

4. the reference to the head component: pickpocket, armchair, frying-pan, scatterbrain, sunrise, colour-blind, bigwig, redhead, sick-leave, writing-table, sugardaddy;

5. the semantic relations between the constituents: highbrow, fingerprint, wallflower, mill-owner, bookworm, screwdriver, greenroom, horse-marine, cutthroat, lawbreaker.

Task 4. Match the words on the left with their definitions on the right. Determine their original components.

1	gastrodrama	a.	an instrument for testing if a driver has drunk too much alcohol
2	televangelist	b.	a person actively involved in online communities
3	affluenza	c.	the term used to collectively refer to two universities in England, often with implications of perceived superior social status
4	emoticon	d.	irrelevant or inappropriate messages sent on the Internet to a large number of users
5	Chunnel	e.	an evangelical preacher who appears regularly on television to promote beliefs and appeal for funds
6	blog	f.	a set of social conventions that facilitate interaction over networks
7	breathalyzer	g.	a facial expression pictorially represented by punctuation and letters
8	netizen	h.	a theatrical production in which food plays a prominent role, especially one in which the audience participates by eating
9	Oxbridge	i.	any large-scale destruction of the natural environment or over-consumption of critical non-renewable resources
10	spam	j.	people who have no mind or free will of their own and go with the flow
11	webinar	k.	a person employed by charity organisations to solicit passers-by for donations
12	ecocide	l.	an underground rail tunnel that runs below the English Channel and connects Great Britain and France
13	chugger	m	the term used to describe a specific type of online conference
14	sheeple	n.	a Web site that contains an online personal journal with reflections, comments, and often hyperlinks provided by the writer
15	netiquette	o.	psychological disturbance arising from an excess of wealth

Task 5. Find cases of conversion in the proverbs below, define their parts of speech and types of semantic relations.

1. Wolf never wars against wolf.

2. Extremes meet.

3. Pride goes before a fall.

4. Criminals often return to the scene of the crime.

5. Fine words butter no parsnips.

6. Let bygones be bygones.

7. Fortunate favours the brave.

8. Two blacks do not make a white.

9. If ifs and ans were pots and pans.

10. Who has never tasted bitter, knows not what is sweet.

Task 6. Group the words below in accordance with the means in the words below and define their meaning:

F2F, laser, IMF, ibid., rep, WTO, bus, Sgt., Gr8, JIC, cf., Aug., OPEC, viz., CUL, cab, PC, Ltd., flu, UFO, i.e., CIS, op. ft., specs, TESOL, cit., MD, deli, v.v., DIY, apps, Xmas, Becky, JFK, Col., pro, TNX, scuba, TGIF, B&B, Jr., SOS, gents, Tue, t+.

Task 7. Explain what linguistic phenomenon the words below illustrate and define their meaning:

arms, colours, baker's, pictures, draughts, talks, honours, belongings, manners, attentions.

Task 8. Comment on the type of word-formation means in the words below and define their meaning:

to beg, sizzle, conduct (n., v.), in-the-face fact, to audit, flop, meow, to edit, haw-haw, to proofread, to feed – food, one-of-us, rat-a-tat, to headhunt, a-tishoo, frequent (adj., v.), a too-big-for-his-own-pants man, weet weet, to donate, snip-snap, to ush, drip-drop, to fingerprint, to speak – a speech.

Task 9. Read the extract from the article Net Gains on the Shop Front by G. Chadwick and do the tasks that follow.

Cyberspace is increasingly the location of choice for many retailers. It is not hard to see why: online retailing – or e-tailing – is big bucks. The e-tail market, worth £14bn (€21bn) a year in the UK alone, is growing at an annual rate of between 30 and 40 per cent. In the six weeks leading up to Xmas, over £3.5bn (€5bn) was spent online – almost 7 per cent of the total retail spend during the same period. Research shows that e-tail customers are more demanding, less forgiving and more fickle. The Web is fiercely competitive, and customers have access to unprecedented amounts of information. It takes more than a flashy website to convince them to part with their cash. An up-to-date and user-friendly website is taken as standard. The issues that are decisive in whether an online sales operation is a success – and which can create that vital competitive advantage – are around good old-fashioned customer service and other fulfilment.

1. List some simple and derived words employed in the text (no less than 10) providing linguistic evidence to your answer.

2. Which types of inflexional morphemes do you find in the extract?

3. Define the morphological composition of the word website and find more words of the similar structure in the fragment.

4. Find three words in the text the components of which are affixoids. Think of more words with the same elements. Use a dictionary if necessary.

5. Find examples of shortenings in the text and define their types.

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@Daria Kuznietsova