Extralinguistic causes of semantic change

The extralinguistic causes are determined by the social nature of the language: they are observed in changes of meaning resulting from the development of the notion expressed and the thing named and by the appearance of new notions and things. In other words, extralinguis­tic causes of semantic change are connected with the development of the human mind as it moulds reality to conform with its needs.

Languages are powerfully influenced by social, political, economic, cultural and technical change. The effect of those factors upon lin­guistic phenomena is studied by sociolinguistics. It shows that social factors can influence even structural features of linguistic units: terms of science, for instance, have a number of specific features as compared to words used in other spheres of human activity.

The word being a linguistic realization of notion, it changes with the progress of human consciousness. This process is reflected in the de­velopment of lexical meaning. As the human mind achieves an ever more exact understanding of the world of reality and the objective relation­ships that characterize it, the notions become more and more exact re­flections of real things. The history of the social, economic and political life of the people, the progress of culture and science bring about changes in notions and things influencing the semantic aspect of language. For instance, OE eorde meant 'the ground under people's feet', 'the soil' and 'the world of man' as opposed to heaven that was supposed to be inhabited first by Gods and later on, with the spread of Christianity, by God, his angels, saints and the souls of the dead. With the progress of science earth came to mean the third planet from the sun and the know­ledge is constantly enriched. With the development of electrical engineer­ing earth n means 'a connection of a wire conductor with the earth', either accidental (with the result of leakage of current) or intentional (as for the purpose of providing a return path). There is also a corresponding verb earth. E.g.: With earthed appliances the continuity of the earth wire ought to be checked.

The word space meant 'extent of time or distance' or 'intervening distance'. Alongside this meaning a new meaning developed 'the lim­itless and indefinitely great expanse in which all material objects are located'. The phrase outer space was quickly ellipted into space. C f. spacecraft, space-suit, space travel, etc.

The extra-linguistic motivation is sometimes obvious, but some cases are not as straightforward as they may look. The word bikini may be taken as an example. Bikini, a very scanty two-piece bathing suit worn by women, is named after Bikini atoll in the Western Pacific but not because it was first introduced on some fashionable beach there. Bikini appeared at the time when the atomic bomb tests by the US in the Bikini atoll were fresh in everybody's memory. The associa­tive field is emotional referring to the "atomic" shock the first bikinis produced.

The tendency to use technical imagery is increasing in every language, thus the expression to chain reaction is almost international. Live wire ' one carrying electric current' used figuratively about a person of intense energy seems purely English, though.

Other international expressions are black box and feedback. Black box formerly a term of aviation and electrical engineering is now used figuratively to denote any mechanism performing intricate functions or any unit of which we know the effect but not the components or principles of action.

Feedback a cybernetical term meaning 'the return of a sample of the output of a system or process to the input, especially with the pur­pose of automatic adjustment and control' is now widely used figuratively meaning 'response'.

Some technical expressions that were used in the first half of the 19th century tend to become obsolete: the English used to talk of people being galvanized into activity, or going full steam ahead but the phrases sound dated now.

Sociolinguistics also teaches that power relationships are reflected in vocabulary changes. In all the cases of pejoration that were mentioned above, such as boor, churl, villain, etc., it was the ruling class that imposed evaluation. The opposite is rarely the case. One example de­serves attention though: sir + -ly used to mean 'masterful' and now surly means 'rude in a bad-tempered way'.

Lots of scientists nowadays think that pow­er relationships in English are not confined to class stratification, that male domination is reflected in the history of English vocabulary, in the ways in which women are talked about. There is a rich vocabulary of affective words denigrating women, who do not conform to the male ideal. A few examples may be mentioned. Hussy is a reduction of ME huswif (housewife), it means now 'a woman of low morals' or 'a bold saucy girl'; doll is not only a toy but is also used about a kept mistress or about a pretty and silly woman; wench formerly referred to a female child, later a girl of the rustic or working class and then acquired de­rogatory connotations. At the end of the 20^th century, though, due to the feminist movement, the opposite tendency is being observed when handsome is no longer rendered just to men, and the words like steward-person (instead of stewardess), barperson (instead of barman) and business-person (instead of businessman or businesswoman) came into use. The main motivation of such-like transformations lies in shifting the accent from the sex of the named person to his/her occupation.

The phenomenon of euphemism (Gr euphemismos < eu 'good' and pheme 'voice') or politically correct language with peoples of developed culture and civilization is dictated by social usage, etiquette, adver­tising, tact, diplomatic considerations and political reasons.

From the semasiological point of view euphemism is important, because meanings with unpleasant connotations appear in words for­merly neutral as a result of their repeated use instead of words that are for some reason unmentionable, cf. deceased 'dead', deranged 'mad', intellectually challenged ‘stupid’, pupils with special needs ‘retarded’, etc.

In terms of politics, it is decidedly less emotional to call countries with a low standard of living underdeveloped, but it seemed more tactful to call them devel­oping. The latest term is Third World countries. Lots of euphemisms appeared because of the vast migration processes in the world and growth of people’s self-respect. Thus e.g. negro, gipsy, etc. are considered taboo, giving way to Afro-American, Roman or Rom.

Other euphemisms are dictated by a wish to give more dignity to a profession. Some barbers called themselves hair stylists and even hairologists, airline stewards and stewardesses become flight attendants, maids become house workers, foremen become supervisors, etc.

Euphemisms may be dictated by publicity needs, hence ready-tail­ored and ready-to-wear clothes instead of ready-made. The fist-class air tickets are called business and the second economy class.

If we now turn to the history of the language, we see economic causes are obviously at work in the semantic develop­ment of the word wealth. It first meant 'well-being', 'happiness' from weal from OE wela whence well. This original meaning is preserved in the compounds commonwealth and commonweal. The present meaning became possible due to the role played by money both in feudal and bour­geois society. The chief wealth of the early inhabitants of Europe being the cattle, OE feoh means both 'cattle' and 'money', likewise Goth faihu; Lat pecus meant 'cattle' and pecunia meant 'money'. ME fee-house is both a cattle-shed and a treasury. The present-day English fee most frequently means the price paid for services to a lawyer or a physician. It appears to develop jointly from the above-mentioned OE feoh and the Anglo-French fee, fie, probably of the same origin, meaning 'a re­compense' and 'a feudal tenure'. This modern meaning is obvious in the following example: Physicians of the utmost fame were called at once, but when they came they answered as they took their fees, "There is no cure for this disease." (Belloc)

The constant development of industry, agriculture, trade and trans­port bring into being new objects and new notions. Words to name them are either borrowed or created from material already existing in the lan­guage and it often happens that new meanings are thus acquired by old words. One of the most influential factors, which crucially changed the semantics of a vast range of English words, is the revolution on informational technologies. Such words as boost, download, file, folder, site, on-/off-line, cash, compact, worm, virus, spy, log etc. in computing have acquired new meanings.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-11