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Causes of Change
7.2
Causes of Changes
We probably all agree whenever new meanings are added to old words, or
new words are created, it is in response to some need. For example, when
planes without propellers became important suddenly in our daily life,
jet quickly expanded to embrace that concept. There are generally
two major factors that cause changes in meaning.
●●● Extra-linguistic Factors
7.2.1
Extra-linguistic Factors
As time passes, changes keep taking place in society and our daily life
and new concepts, ideas and new things emerge continuously. Man has come
to know more and more about the world around. All this is reflected in
language.
1. Historical reason.
The well-known semanticist Ullmann notes, 'language is more conservative
than civilization, material as well as moral. Objects, institutions, ideas,
scientific concepts change in the course of time; yet in many cases the
name is retained and thus helps to ensure a sense of tradition and continuity.'
Indeed, it often happens that a word is retained for a name though the
meaning has changed because the referent has changed. Take pen
for example. Originally, it denoted 'feather', which was used in the west
as pen in old times, hence the present meaning. Now, the time when 'feather'
served as pen is long gone, and people are using ball-point pens and fountain
pens, yet the name is still kept. Car which used to be a 'two?wheel
cart drawn by horses and used in war' has taken on the meaning 'automobile'
with the development of modern car industry. This change has also occurred
to computer, which formerly meant a 'person who computes'. At present,
when we talk about computers, we would think of an `electronic machine'
rather than a person.
Increased scientific knowledge and discovery are also important factors
that account for the change of word meaning. For instance, before Copernicus,
the sun was thought to be 'the luminous heavenly body-one of the seven
planets revolving around the earth' and this meaning is still retained
in 'The sun rises and sets.' The Copernician theory tried to change the
historical point of view and now everyone knows that the sun is a 'star
around which the earth and other planets revolve...'(WTNID) The concept
of atom too has changed with the increase of scientific knowledge. The
word is derived from the Greek form atomos, which meant 'any of
the indivisible particles'. Now science has proved that atom is
not the smallest and can be divided into even smaller particles, hence
the abandonment of the original meaning.
2. Class reason
Language is just like a mirror, reflecting everything that exists in human
society. Naturally, it records the speech and attitude of different social
classes. As a result, different social varieties of language have come
into being. The so-called 'King's English' serves as a good illustration.
The attitudes of classes have also made inroads into lexical meaning in
the case of elevation or degradation. For instance, there
are quite a number of words that denote different sorts of working people
or their occupations. These words have largely acquired pejorative senses,
because in the eyes of the nobility, working people were badly brought
up and were ignorant and foolish , and rude and course in behaviour. Churl,
hussy, wench, villain as we already know were originally neutral in
colour but have all down-graded as 'ill-mannered or bad people'. Democracy,
revolution, liberalism, human rights, communism have certainly different
meanings in different societies and to different people.
3. Psychological reason
The associated transfer of meaning and euphemistic use of words, etc.
are often due to psychological factors. Take copperhead
for example. This word designates a venomous snake in North America. During
the American Civil War it was employed to refer to those northerners who
were secretly aiding and abetting the South. It is said that people in
the North had a deep hatred and contempt for such people. The editor of
one country newspaper was trying to find a suitable word. First, he thought
of 'rattlesnake' as it was the most poisonous but rejected the word because
it makes noise by the rattle in its tail, unlike those informers. Consequently,
copperhead was chosen and endowed with a new meaning.
People change word-meaning owing to various psychological motives: love,
respect, courtesy, suspicion, pessimism, sarcasm, irony, contempt, hatred,
etc. The meanings of slang are in general far from their standard meanings
because on the spur of the moment, a word suddenly occurred to the speaker's
mind to serve the purpose of expression. For example, in the Second World
War, prevalent in the Australian forces were peasant for 'soldier
of ordinary rank', squeak for 'sergeant', comedian for 'commando'
(pejorative), stewkeeper for 'cook'. In prison, it is particularly
common to use old words in new meanings: boob-head for 'one who
returns too often to jail', sucker, cock sucker for a 'toady',
shelf, chocolate frog, dog for an 'informer', arse for 'despised
prisoner', square-head for an 'honest man' and such like.
The fact that such low, humble and despised occupations as janitor and
garbage collector often take more appealing names is all due to psychological
reasons. Besides, religious influence is another kind of psychological
need. As Archbishop Trench once said, angel, martyr and paradise
have their meanings elevated because of the influence of Christianity.
●●● Linguistic Factor
7.2.2
Linguistic
Factors
The change of meaning may be caused by internal factors within the language
system. One type of such change occurs when a phrase is shortened to one
word which retains the meaning of the whole, e.g. gold is used
for 'gold medal', gas for 'coal gas', and bulb for 'light
bulb', and private for 'private soldier'. Under such circumstances,
whatever is left, whether a noun or an adjective, is all used as
a noun assuming the original meaning.
The influx of borrowings has caused some words to change in meaning. For
instance, deer formerly meant animal, and later animal from
Latin and beast from French found their way into English. As the
three terms were synonymous, animal retained the original meaning, the
meaning of deer was narrowed and beast changed in colour. In Old
English, animals and their meat shared the same name. With the Norman
Conquest and borrowing of corresponding French words, the English words
were kept only for live animals and the French words for the animals killed
and brought to the table, e.g. pig/pork, sheep/mutton, cattle/beef,
etc. In addition, the competition of native words eventually resulted
in the semantic division. For example, bird/fowl, dog/hound, boy/knave,
chair/stool were once synonyms. Now the former of each pair keeps
the original meaning and the latter has become specialized.
Finally, the change of meaning is brought about by analogy. Fortuitous
formerly denoted 'happening by chance', 'accidental' and later took on
the meaning 'fortunate' probably by analogy because the two words look
similar. It is the same with fruition, the original meaning being
'a pleasure obtained from using or possessing something', which had nothing
to do with fruit. Its meaning of `the bearing of fruit' was due
to the later association with the word fruit.
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