Language Variation and Language Change

Language Variation and Language Change

Language is dynamic. It keeps on changing with time. Language as it exists in one age is different from the language existing in a different age. Old English is different from the medieval English and medieval English is different from the modern English. Even at one given time, language used by all the people on all the occasions and in all the regions is not uniform.

Two different terms are used in linguistics to refer to differences in language at a given time and differences in the language of two different periods.

Language change refers to the changes in language that take place diachronically over long periods of time. Language variation, on the other hand, refers to the synchronic differences of language – differences observed in the language spoken by different people on different occasions and in different regions at a given time.

The term language variation refers to differences in the language of the speakers at a given point in time. In other words, we may say that language variations refers to synchronic differences in the use of language by the members of a language community. 

Types of Language Variation

The following types of language variation are generally observed in a language at a given time.

1. Dialectal Variation: Dialectal variation is the most important kind of variation. Language used by people in different regions varies to a great extent. The greatest difference is that of accent and pronunciation. Some differences of vocabulary are also found. Grammatical differences are also there though they are very few.

2. Variation of Register: Language used to deal with different subjects also differs to some extent. Such variation is known as the variation of register. Every profession has its own jargon – a large set of terminology used by the people in that profession only and sometimes not understood by the people in other professions.

3. Stylistic Variation: Stylistic variation is another important variation. Language varies according to the relationship between the participants. Age and status gap too play a role in such variation. The occasion and the purpose of communication are also responsible for these differences. Formal, stiff and cold formal style may be used in some situations and informal, casual, warm style in others.

4. Age Based Variation: The age of the speaker is another factor that accounts for language variation. The language of the younger generation is different from that of the older generation.

5. Variation according to Gender:  Gender variation is also observable. The language of the females is different from the language of the males.

6. Race Based Variation: Race also has an important role in language variation. People of different races using the same language use different varieties of the language.

7. Individual Variation: Even the same individual may show some differences while speaking the same language at different times.

Language Change

Language change on the other hand is diachronic. Language is a dynamic entity. It keeps changing with the passage of time. English in the Middle Ages was not the same as it is today. Changes of several kinds are observed in language over time.

1. Change of Spelling: The spellings of many words also change as time passes. The word ‘sun’ was once spelt as ‘sunne’.

2. Changes of Pronunciation: Pronunciation of many words also undergoes changes with the passage of time.

3. Vocabulary Changes: As time passes, some words drop out of the language and many new words enter the language. The meaning of words also undergoes changes. Some words broaden their meaning while some others narrows down. Many words of English like thou, thee, thy, thine have gone out of use. A large number of new words has entered its lexicon. The meaning of some words has widened while that of others has narrowed down. Changes have also occurred in the connotative meaning of certain words.

 4. Changes of Grammar: Some grammatical changes also taken place as time passes although they are very few. The addition of st and th to verbs occurring with the second and third person singular subjects respectively is no longer found in English.

These changes occur not in one day or in a few years. They occur over centuries. And they are permanent in nature. English cannot go back to what it was in the Middle Ages. When variations existing at one time become permanently fixed with the passage of time, the phenomenon is known as language change

Language change cannot be treated as the corruption of language as some traditional linguists did. Modern linguists treat it as the response of the language to the changing demands necessitated by new developments in different fields of human activity. Barring a few changes, language changes should not be evaluated as good or bad.

Multiple causes are responsible for the diachronic changes in a language.

1. Economy – Speech communities want their utterances to be as efficient and effective with as little effort as possible. The principle of least effort tends to result in phonetic reduction in speech forms such as vowel reduction, cluster reduction and elision. After some time, the change form becomes widely accepted and may begin to be treated as the standard form. The desire for economy has resulted in changing ‘going to’ to gonna.

2. Expressiveness: Common or overused language tends to lose its emotional or rhetorical intensity over time. Therefore, new words and constructions are continuously employed to revive that intensity^.

3. False Analogy: Over time, speech communities unconsciously apply patterns of rules in certain words, sounds, etc. to unrelated other words, sounds, etc. because they appear to be similar. For example, by dropping er from the word laser, people have now started using the word lase as a verb thinking that er was the suffix added to the verb lase to derive a noun.

4. Language Contact: As speakers of a language come into contact with speakers of other languages, they words and constructions from their language. In this way, words and constructions travel from one language into another.

5. Geographic Separation: When people with one language move away from each other, their language gradually diverges into separate dialects due to different experiences and lack of contact with the original speakers.

6. Cultural Environment: As a culture evolves, new places, situations, and objects inevitably enter it. Languages evolve to deal with the demands of the changed circumstances.

7. Migration/Movement: When speech communities migrate to a new region with a new or more complex linguistic situation, their language influences and gets influenced by the language of the people of that area. They sometimes even end up with entirely new languages.

8. Imperfect Learning: According to one view, children regularly learn the adult forms imperfectly, and the changed forms then turn into a new standard. Alternatively, imperfect learning occurs regularly in one part of society such as an immigrant group, where the minority language forms a sub-stratum, and the changed forms can ultimately influence majority usage.

9. Social Prestige: Languages sometimes change in order to have features which enjoy greater prestige and to move away from forms which are considered less prestigious. It is due to this reason that Received Pronunciation of English has abandoned rhoticity.

So, it is clear that not one but many factors are responsible for the changes in a language with the passing of time.

We can conclude by saying that language variation is a synchronic phenomenon whereas language change is a diachronic phenomenon. The two should not be mistaken to refer to the same phenomenon.