language attitudes Literature & Language Essay Paper (Essay Sample)

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Language Attitudes
Language change is the situation where lifelong modification is made to a language and its use over a period of time. The changes are unpredictable. One of the reasons why there is language is the analogy which is the attempt by people to shorten the word form by likening different meanings of the words to their origin. It is also caused by the borrowing of words from other languages. In situations where people are separated geographically, the language and words they formally used are altered and the vocabularies change. Therefore, geographical separation is also a cause for language change. Language tutors are different and come from different areas. As a result, their teaching methods, and pronunciations are different. Therefore, the students end up learning the same words in different ways and this causes a language change. As generations change, words tend to change their meaning easily. For example, the word wicked varies in meaning depending on the age bracket using it. Young people use the word to mean “wonderful” while the aged use it to mean “evil” in the next 100 years, this word will have completely lost its original meaning.
There are several types of language change including sound changes, lexical, semantic, syntactic changes. Sound change is the alteration of how a word is read or how it is pronounced. Words such as adultery, slavery, and nursery among others have changed their pronunciation over time. Lexical change is the addition of other words, letters or word patterns on the original words. For example, the word cat can be added an “s” at the end to signify plural. However, the same letter “s” added to eat will bring out a different meaning, that of an activity that is done regularly. Additional of a letter to a word could cause a change in the meaning and pronunciation of the same word. The syntax is the order in which words are organized in a sentence. It is what dictates which words come first and how the order flows in order for the words to make a complete sentence which is grammatically correct.