Welcome to Language Change: Evaluating Attitudes

Hello! Welcome to one of the most fascinating topics in your OCR A Level English Language (H470) course: Critically Evaluating Attitudes Towards Language Change. This topic belongs directly to Component 02 (Section C: Language change).

In this section of the exam, you will encounter two texts from different centuries (for example, one from the 18th century and one from the 21st century) and explore how language has evolved. You will also need to demonstrate an understanding of how people react to these shifts. Whether people view change as decay or progress, understanding these attitudes allows you to write high-scoring, critical essays.

Don't worry if this seems tricky at first—by breaking down the key concepts, theories, and models step by step, you will be fully prepared to tackle Section C with confidence!


1. The Core Clash: Prescriptivism vs. Descriptivism

Whenever language changes, society divides into two main camps: those who want to control and fix it, and those who observe and record how it is actually used.

What is Prescriptivism?

Prescriptivism is the ideological stance that language has an absolute, correct, and standard form. Prescriptivists view any deviation, new slang, or grammatical shift as decay, corruption, carelessness, or error. They aim to "prescribe" strict rules telling people how they ought to speak and write.

  • Historical Example 1: Jonathan Swift (1712) — Proposed the creation of an English Academy to "fix" English permanently, believing that language was degenerating and needed strict rules to prevent further decay.
  • Historical Example 2: Robert Lowth (1762) — Published Short Introduction to English Grammar, which laid down strict grammatical rules (often based on classical Latin), condemning things like double negatives and split infinitives.

What is Descriptivism?

Descriptivism is the evidence-based, objective approach used by modern linguists. Descriptivists do not pass moral judgments on language; instead, they observe, record, and analyse how language naturally evolves and adapts to meet the social and communicative needs of its speakers.

Analogy to remember the difference: Think of a prescriptivist as a traffic police officer giving out tickets for breaking arbitrary rules, whereas a descriptivist is a wildlife documentary maker observing and explaining how animals behave in their natural habitat without interfering.

Key Takeaway: In your OCR H470 exam, you must always maintain an objective, descriptivist stance. Never write that historical English was "better" or that modern features are "lazy" or "wrong".


2. Jean Aitchison's Metaphors of Language Change

In her famous 1996/2013 BBC Reith Lectures and book Language Change: Progress or Decay?, linguist Jean Aitchison categorised three common, unscientific prescriptivist myths and systematically refuted each one.

1. The Damp Spoon Syndrome

  • The Prescriptivist Myth: Language change is caused by sheer laziness, sloppiness, or carelessness (just like leaving a wet, damp spoon in the sugar bowl). Examples often cited include dropping sounds, using glottal stops, and using contractions.
  • The Linguistic Refutation: The human vocal tract naturally seeks articulatory ease and communicative efficiency. Making speech faster or smoother is an intelligent physiological adaptation, not a sign of laziness.

2. The Crumbling Castle View

  • The Prescriptivist Myth: The English language is a magnificent, stately historical building that was once crafted to absolute perfection, but is now gradually crumbling into ruin due to modern misuse.
  • The Linguistic Refutation: There has never been a single point in history when English reached absolute "perfection." Language is not a static museum piece; it is a flexible tool that must constantly adapt to survive.

3. The Infectious Disease Assumption

  • The Prescriptivist Myth: "Bad" language habits and non-standard usages spread like a contagious illness, infecting clean speakers who catch these errors from their peers.
  • The Linguistic Refutation: People do not catch language passively. Speakers consciously or sub-consciously adopt linguistic features to express social identity, group membership, and solidarity.

Memory Trick: Remember the acronym DCI (Damp Spoon, Crumbling Castle, Infectious Disease) to recall Aitchison's three metaphors quickly during your exam planning!


3. Processes and Models of Language Change

How does language become standardised, and how do new linguistic features spread across society? Linguists have created clear models to explain these processes.

Einar Haugen's Four Stages of Standardisation

Standardising a language is a four-step historical process:

  1. Selection: A particular dialect or regional variety is chosen as the standard form. In England, the East Midlands/London variety was selected due to the political and economic power of the capital.
  2. Acceptance: The chosen variety is adopted and endorsed by key institutions, such as the government, legal system, education, and the social elite.
  3. Elaboration: The language expands its functions, developing sophisticated vocabulary and structures so it can be used for science, law, politics, and literature.
  4. Codification: Explicit rules, definitions, and spelling norms are permanently established in reference texts, such as Samuel Johnson’s dictionary (1755) and prescriptive grammar guides.

How Innovations Spread Across Society

  • The S-Curve Model (Chen / Bailey): Change begins very slowly with just a few early adopters. It then reaches a tipping point, accelerating rapidly through the population, before eventually levelling off as it becomes the established, standard norm.
  • The Wave Model (Bailey): Language innovations spread outwards like ripples from a stone dropped in a pond. The innovation is strongest near the central epicentre (social or geographical) and becomes weaker the further away a speaker is.
  • Substratum Theory: Language changes when it comes into direct contact with other languages and dialects through trade, colonial expansion, and migration, leading to lexical borrowing and grammatical shifting.
  • Functional Theory (Michael Halliday): Language changes out of pure necessity. As society invents new technologies, ideas, and cultural practices, language adapts and expands to meet the functional needs of its users.

Key Takeaway: Language change is never random. Models like Haugen's stages and the S-Curve demonstrate that changes follow structured, predictable socio-historical pathways.


4. Core Linguistic Levels for Text Analysis

In Section C, you must analyse variations between Text C (historical, c. 1600 onwards) and Text D (contemporary, 21st century) using precise linguistic frameworks across all key levels.

1. Lexis and Semantics

  • Archaisms: Words that have fallen out of common modern usage.
  • Neologisms: Newly coined words created to describe modern phenomena.
  • Semantic Shifts:
    • Broadening: A word expands its meaning to cover more concepts.
    • Narrowing: A word becomes more specific in meaning over time.
    • Amelioration: A word takes on a more positive meaning.
    • Pejoration: A word takes on a more negative meaning.

2. Grammar and Morphology

  • Syntax and Clause Complexity: Older texts often feature dense, multi-clausal, periodic sentences, whereas modern texts frequently employ simpler, shorter sentences.
  • Archaic Inflections: Historical grammatical endings such as the -eth verb ending (e.g., knoweth).
  • Passivisation vs. Synthetic Personalisation: Older formal texts often use passive voice constructions to create objective distance, while modern texts frequently use synthetic personalisation (addressing a mass audience with direct pronouns like you to simulate intimacy).

3. Orthography, Punctuation, and Graphology

  • Capitalisation: 17th and 18th-century texts frequently capitalised common nouns for emphasis before standardisation fully locked in rules.
  • Archaic Typographical Glyphs: The long-s (ſ), ligatures, and frequent ampersands.
  • Punctuation: Extensive use of semi-colons, colons, and heavy commas in historical texts compared to the streamlined, communicative punctuation of the 21st century.

4. Pragmatics and Register

  • Formality & Tenor: Shifts from rigid, hierarchical politeness strategies to modern informalisation and conversationalisation.

5. OCR H470 Component 02 Section C: Exam Strategy & Assessment Objectives

To secure top marks in Question 3, you need to understand how the paper is structured and what the examiners are looking for.

Exam Blueprint at a Glance

  • Component: Component 02 (Dimensions of linguistic variation), Paper code H470/02.
  • Total Exam Duration: 2 hours 30 minutes (Section C counts for 36 marks out of 80 total paper marks; 40% of full A Level).
  • Suggested Section C Timing: 1 hour 5 minutes (15 minutes reading/annotating/planning + 50 minutes writing).

The Three Assessment Objectives (12 Marks Each / 36 Marks Total)

Section C awards marks equally across three assessment objectives:

\(\text{Total Marks} = 12\,(\text{AO1}) + 12\,(\text{AO3}) + 12\,(\text{AO4}) = 36\)

  • AO1 (12 Marks): Apply appropriate linguistic terminology accurately and write in a clear, academic style.
  • AO3 (12 Marks): Analyse and evaluate how contextual factors (historical period, genre, purpose, audience, social hierarchies, technology) influence the construction of meaning.
  • AO4 (12 Marks): Explore explicit linguistic connections and comparisons between Text C and Text D, supported by linguistic concepts and models.

6. Common Exam Pitfalls and How to Avoid Them

OCR Principal Examiner reports highlight recurring mistakes that cost students marks in Section C. Make sure you avoid these common traps:

  • Pitfall 1: Separate Text Treatment (The "Block" Essay)
    The Error: Writing half your essay on Text C, then writing the other half on Text D, with a weak comparative sentence at the end.
    The Fix: Integrate both texts across every paragraph! Use a triangulated approach: introduce a linguistic framework $\rightarrow$ analyse Text C with context $\rightarrow$ contrast directly with Text D and its context.
  • Pitfall 2: Feature-Spotting Without Context (AO3/AO4 Failure)
    The Error: Simply pointing out that "Text C has long-s characters and Text D has bullet points" without explaining why.
    The Fix: Link every linguistic feature to socio-historical drivers such as literacy rates, standardisation, printing technology, or democratisation.
  • Pitfall 3: Slipping into a Prescriptivist Tone
    The Error: Claiming historical writers were "more articulate" or that modern internet language represents a "decline in standards."
    The Fix: Maintain absolute descriptive neutrality. Treat all changes as functional adaptations to changing social contexts.
  • Pitfall 4: Mechanical Buzzword Dropping
    The Error: Forcing terms like "synthetic personalisation" into an essay where they do not genuinely explain the stylistic choices of the texts.
    The Fix: Only apply theoretical terms and models when they directly illuminate why the text producer structured the text in that specific way.

Quick Review Checklist

Before moving on, verify that you can:

  • Define prescriptivism and descriptivism using historical examples (e.g., Swift, Lowth).
  • Explain and refute Jean Aitchison’s three metaphors: Damp Spoon, Crumbling Castle, and Infectious Disease.
  • Recite Einar Haugen’s 4 stages of standardisation: Selection $\rightarrow$ Acceptance $\rightarrow$ Elaboration $\rightarrow$ Codification.
  • Identify the spread of change via the S-Curve and Wave Model, and explain changes via Functional Theory.
  • Plan an integrated, comparative essay covering AO1, AO3, and AO4 simultaneously.