How does the following text demonstrate language change?
The text ‘a table alphabeticall’ is the front cover of a dictionary from the year 1604, with the purpose to inform a female reader on what the book is about.
The immediate thought when looking at the text is that it is very lexically dense for what we consider the front cover of a book to look like. The font used and the size of the font changes constantly within the text which could be a result of the printing press being a recent invention at the time and still being in working progress. The lexis is also set on the page centralised. There are, however, some similarities between the graphology on the text and the graphology we would see today. For instance, the use of capital letters at the beginning of names and places are still used. There is also evidence of a title and paragraphs used which is also used in today’s texts, as well as italics used to show lexis that is a foreign language.
There are many differences between the lexis used in 1604 and the lexis used today. Firstly is the way in which vowels are used within a word. A table alphabeticall shows u’s and v’s being swapped round in words, a vowel replacing letters, for example ‘containing’ in 2012 differs to ‘conteyning’ in 1604 where ‘ai’ has been changed ‘e’. There are other examples in the text of the vowel e being added on to the end of many words. Greek becomes ‘Greeke’, door becomes ‘doore’. This is a big difference when compared to the lexis used in todays language.
The Term Paper on Historical Changes in Language
Analysis Paper 1: Historical Changes in Language Throughout history, spoken and written language has changed as various countries and its people have invaded, migrated, and conquered other countries. By bringing different languages to other civilizations, language merged with the native tongues. For example, Old English was similar to Modern German, Middle English stemmed from the Norman Conquest ...
The text contains connotations of a lady. By using capital letters in front of the words ‘Ladies’ and ‘Gentlewomen’ but not ‘unskillful persons’, the reader can immediately see the differences in social class at the time of the text and how a woman at a higher class could be seen as being of higher importance. Although this is somewhat different in todays language, the term ‘lady’ is still in use and its connotation is still seen to be used for someone of importance, however this is rare as many people from different classes will now come under the same name.
Little phonology is found within the text, mainly due to its form and purpose. This may demonstrate language change as the purpose of a front cover of a book is to persuade the reader to read inside, therefore may contain alliteration, onomatopoeia etc.. In ‘a table alphabeticall’, alliteration is found on religious references such as ‘scriptures, sermons’, which could be to highlight the importance of religion in texts during that period of time.
There are many similarities between the text and todays grammar. Examples of this are the use of commas and connectives to break up clauses and capital letters for names, places and beginning of a new sentence. A main difference that can be seen for language change is the syntax. ‘A Table Alphabeticall’ would rearrange itself to become ‘A Alphabeticall Table’ is an example of this.
The discourse structure carries through the idea of learning throughout the text. Words used such as ‘teaching’, ‘understanding’ and ‘interpretation’. This shows the purpose of the book and its aims for the reader. It also carries religion throughout with ‘scriptures, sermons’ in the third paragraph and reference to ‘the great north doore of paules church’ in the fifth. This shows the importance of religion during the 17th century, compared to the 21st where even though religion is still evident within certain texts, it would not be key to texts such as dictionaries.
