The-Extra-linguistic-Factors-of-Change-in-Word-Meaning.doc

The Extra-linguistic Factors of Change in Word MeaningAbstract: There are generally two major factors that cause changes in meaning: Extra-linguistic factors and linguistic factors. This paper tries to explore the extra-linguistic factors of change in word meaning from the following three aspects: historical, social and psychological reason, esp. from the historical perspective. Therefore, the extra-linguistic factors play the key role of change in word meaning. Keywords: Extra-linguistic factors; historical; social; psychological; change of word meaning1. IntroductionWhen we describe someone is good, we often use the word “nice” or “smart”. But many years ago, the words “nice” and “smart”, their original meanings are “foolish” and “causing illness”. Why did its origin meaning transferred to its present meaning? How did this process take place? This is what this paper wants to discussthe cause of changes in word meaning. When a word loses its old meaning and comes to refer to something altogether different, the result is a change of word meaning. Almost every word we use today has a slightly different meaning from the one it hah a century ago. The change of meaning can be very complicated, but generally speaking, we can divided them into two main causes of semantic changethe extra-linguistic factors and linguistic factors. Usually there are historical, social and psychological reasons in the extra-linguistic factors. To analyze these three reasons, this paper tries to embody the importance of the extra-linguistic factors of change in word meaning.2. The extra-linguistic factors of change As time elapses, changes keep taking place in society and our daily life and new concepts, ideas and new things emerge continuously. Man has come to know about the world around him all the more. All this will certainly be reflected in language. This accounts partly for the semantic change.2.1 Historical reasonLanguage is a social phenomenon that is influenced by the changes of society. Observed from the development of language system itself, an important notion, matter, relation or system could be changed into terms that can carry certain unique semantic meaning, which is a tendency. So, society influences on the variation of English vocabulary. Only language is put into the developing society, the dynamic nature of language can be revealed. It often happens that though a word retains its original form, its meaning has changed because the object which it denotes has changed. Take a word “pencil”, for instance, is from a Latin word meaning “a little tail” or “a fine brush”, like our Chinese “pen”. Later, when it was made of wood and graphite, it was still called a “pencil”. In fact, science and technology also brings about changes of meaning. Take the word “engine” for example. Its origin is a Latin word “natural ability”. But when stream power was developed in the first quarter of the 19th century, the term “engine” comes to mean “a railroad locomotive”, and in contemporary English it means “any machine that uses energy to develop mechanical power, esp., a machine for starting motion in some other machine”.2.2 Social reasonLanguage is greatly influenced by social culture, which enables language to possess national and historical characteristics. Word is the smallest, independent, meaningful linguistic unit of language. It can well reflect the national and historical characteristics. From synchronic aspect, the social and historical influence on word meaning is mainly embodied in conceptual and associative meanings of word. From diachronic aspect, the development of social and historical causes some changes of word meaning to some extent.Language is also 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 “Kings English” serves as good illustration. The attitudes of classes have also made inroads into lexical meaning, particularly in the case of elevation or degradation. For instance, quite a number of words that denote different sorts of working people or their occupations have deteriorated and now have taken on a pejorative sense, for in the eyes of the nobility, working people were badly brought up and were “ignorant and foolish”, and “rude” and “coarse” in behavior. Many words have certainly different meanings in different societies and to different people.Furthermore, change in word meaning resulting from a constant verbal traffic between common words and various technical words is referred to as social cause of semantic change. The word “feedback” it original meaning is “the transfer of part of the output of an active circuit or device back to the input”. But now it can mean “response” as in “the company welcomes feedback from customers”.2.3 Psychological reasonThe associated transfer of meaning and euphemistic use of words, etc., is often due to psychological factors. People change word meaning owing to various psychological motives: love, respect, courtesy, irony, 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 speakers mind to serve the purpose of expression. Take one example, we have such euphemistic expression in referring to death as “to pass away”, “to be no more”, “cant breathe any more” and so on. 3. ConclusionAs the world change greatly and the changed meanings of words flourish nowadays, it is reasonable to assume that whenever new meanings are added to old words, or new words are created, it is response to some need. From the discussion above, this paper focuses on the role of the extra-linguistic factors of change in word meaning and reveals the important role of it. It assumes that whenever new meanings are added to old words, or new words are created, it is response to some need. Then this paper has learned the extra-linguistic cause of changes in word meaning and how did they take effect on. Howeve