Archaisms and historicisms

When we consider the lexical system of a language as an adaptive system developing for many centuries and reflecting the changing needs of the communication process, we have to contrast the innovations with words that dropped from the language (obsolete words) or survive only in special contexts (archaisms and historisms).

Archaisms are words that were once common but are now replaced by synonyms. When these new synonymous words, whether borrowed or coined within the English language, introduce nothing conceptually new, the stylistic value of older words tends to be changed; on becoming rare they acquire a lofty poetic tinge due to their ancient flavour, and then they are associated with poetic diction.

Some examples will illustrate this statement: aught n ‘anything whatever’, betwixt prp ‘between’, billow n ‘wave’, chide v ‘scold’, damsel n ‘a noble girl’, ere prp ‘before’, even n ‘evening’, forbears n ‘ancestors’, hapless a ‘unlucky’, hark v ‘listen’, lone a ‘lonely’, morn n ‘morning’, perchance adv ‘perhaps’, save prp, cj ‘except’, woe n ‘sorrow’, etc.

When the causes of the word’s disappearance are extra-linguistic, e.g. when the thing named is no longer used, its name becomes an histоrism. Historisms are very numerous as names for social relations, institutions and objects of material culture of the past. The names of ancient transport means, such as types of boats or types of carriages, ancient clothes, weapons, musical instruments, etc. can offer many examples.

Before the appearance of motor-cars many different types of horse-drawn carriages were in use. The names of some of them are: brougham, berlin, calash, diligence, fly, gig, hansom, landeau, phaeton, etc. It is interesting to mention specially the romantically metaphoric prairie schooner ‘a canvas-covered wagon used by pioneers crossing the North American prairies’. There are still many sailing ships in use, and schooner in the meaning of ‘a sea-going vessel’ is not an historism, but a prairie schooner is. Many types of sailing craft belong to the past as caravels or galleons, so their names are historisms too.

The history of costume forms an interesting topic by itself. It is reflected in the history of corresponding terms. The corresponding glossaries may be very long. Only very few examples can be mentioned here. In W. Shakespeare’s plays, for instance, doublets are often mentioned. A doublet is a close-fitting jacket with or without sleeves worn by men in the 15th-17th centuries. It is interesting to note that descriptions of ancient garments given in dictionaries often include their social functions in this or that period. Thus, a tabard of the 15th century was a short surcoat open at the sides and with short sleeves, worn by a knight over his armour and emblazoned on the front, back and sides with his armorial bearings. Not all historisms refer to such distant periods. Thus, bloomers — an outfit designed for women in mid-nineteenth century. It consisted of Turkish-style trousers gathered at the ankles and worn by women as “a rational dress”. It was introduced by Mrs Bloomer, editor and social reformer, as a contribution to woman rights movement. Somewhat later bloomers were worn by girls and women for games and cycling, but then they became shorter and reached only to the knee.

A great many historisms denoting various types of weapons occur in historical novels, e. g. a battering ram ‘an ancient machine for breaking walls’; a blunderbuss ‘an old type of gun with a wide muzzle’; breastplate ‘a piece of metal armour worn by knights over the chest to protect it in battle’; a crossbow ‘a medieval weapon consisting of a bow fixed across a wooden stock’. Many words belonging to this semantic field remain in the vocabulary in some figurative meaning, e. g. arrow, shield, sword, vizor, etc.

Дата добавления: 2014-01-07