英语词义的演变.doc

Changes of Word Meaning in English
英语词义的演变
Abstract
With the flying development of human society, languages as tools for people to express and communicate their ideas changes constantly and frequently. English as a lively language is no exception. Among many elements of language, words changes faster and most obviously. In the course of the development of language old words die out, new words are added, and existing words change their meanings. It is obvious that the gradual change of meaning in words is a universal feature of human language.
Key words: word meaning; changes; cause; English.
摘要
随着人类社会的快速发展，语言作为人们表达思想和交流思想的工具也随着不断的变化。英语作为一门有活力的语言自然也不例外。在语言的众多因素中词汇的变幻最快，最明显。随着语言的变化发展，旧的词不断消亡，新的词汇不但出现，存在的词汇的意思也不断地发生改变。显而易见，词汇意思的不但变化是人类语言的主要特征。
关键词词义变化; 变化; 原因; 英语

Abstract……………………………………………….摘要……...……………………………………………...
Contents…………………………………………………
Introduction……………………………………………
1. Causes of changes ………………………………
1.1 Historical causes……………………………….
1.2social causes………………………………………
1.3 Psychological cause…………………………..
1.4 linguistic causes………………………………..
Conclusion…………………………………………

1. Causes of changes in meaning
While, changing in word meaning has close relationship with the society. Many factors may cause it to change, history, psychological, society factors and so on. We probably agree whenever new meanings are added to old words, or new words are created. It is in response to certain read. suddenly in our daily life. Let quickly expanded to embrace the concept. There are several major factors that cause changes in meaning.
1.1 History factor.
It can date from AD 5 century, when Anglo-Saxon speak, with changes and development of the social history, some borrowing words crowded in England. What influence the English words most was Renaissance studying old Greek and Roman culture provided many synonyms to the English. What’s more, after the England capital stage revolution and industrial revolution, English people began to expand and connect with other countries. Other languages were added into English. For example, bazzar is from Persia Meanwhile, England kept connection with France and French words constantly increase in English. Shakespeare was famous for his works and he is a master of language. He created many words by mixing France language and native language. He enriched the English words, and increased the power of English words. Although objects, the meaning changes, because the object which it describes has changed.
The word car, for instance, is a good example.
The word car was borrowed through the Anglo-French word carre and directly from the Latin word carra in 1301, plural of carrus, meaning ”two wheeled vehicle for carrying loads.” The word car was first applied to the automobile in 1895.
The word atom was borrowed form Greek. It has been regarded as the smallest indivisible of matter for a long time. The latest scientific discoveries have proved that an atom can be subdivided into a proton, neutron, and electron. The word is still retained to describe a different scientific concept.
1.2 Social causes

With the development of society, many new things and new thoughts appear. To meet the need of people to express new thoughts and describe new things, besides, it promote to new words and it give many old words new meanings. And these promote to the changes of meanings, for example, the development of civil movement and woman right movement bring old words new meanings. The word soul was used to representative black culture, and chair was used to refer to leaders the common word, black is original a kind of dark color, can used to representative black man, color-blind was used to describe that treating black and white equally. What’s more, social value plays an important role in word meaning change. In curtain notion or things that people try to avoid mentioning directly, though there are such term in language. With the widely use of internet, people in the internet create many new words, many information was spreaded. The switches between technical terms and common words also make word meaning change. For instance, salt in chemical term signifies chemical compound of a metal and an acid”. “Scene” originated from dramatic word designated “place represented on the stage of a theatre but has now come to mean “any casuals” “aloof” was originally an adverb in nautical use, meaning “away and
wing ward” but now changed to “cool and remote in character” or unconcerned”. The two examples are used to exemplify word meaning change from technical term to common words. Increased scientific knowledge and discovery and also important factors that account for the change of word meaning, for instance, atom is derived from the Greek from atoms, which means “any of the indivisible particles”. Now science has proved that atomis not the smallest and can be divided into even smaller pentacles, hence the abandonment of the original meaning. Language is just like a mirror, reflecting everything that exists in human society. Naturally, it records the speech and attitude of different social class. As a result, different social varieties of language have come into being. The attitudes of classes of language have come into being. The attitudes of classes have also made inroads into lexical meaning in the case of elevation or degradation.
1.3 Psychological causes
People change word meaning owing to various psychological motives: love, respect, courtesy, suspicious, pessimism, sarcasm, irony, contempt, hatred, etc. The fact that some low, humble and despised occupations often take on more appealing names is all due to psychological reasons. Religious influence is another kind of psychological need. He associated transfer of meaning and euphemistic use of words, etc. It takes three forms (1) euphemism (2) grandiloguence (3) cynicism
Take one example, we have such euphemistic expression in referring to death as “to pass away” “to be no more” “can’t breath any more” and many others. Since there too many we can go deep in psychological cause so I had to reduce a lot of things. Let’s move to the next cause.
1.4 Linguistic causes
There has been a tendency towards ellipsis in English. The main ellipsis are as follows.
Phrases containing ‘adjective + noun’ or ‘noun + noun’ may be shortened and one word is retained to represent the meaning of the phrases.
With the word general meaning ’completely or almost universal.’ It also has the meaning of the phrase General officer, that is, ‘an officer of very high rank in the army of American air force.’
It’s a particularly important cause of change. Sometimes a Saxon word which a general sense has been replaced by a French word or a Latin derivative, but the original word has survived with a restricted meaning. Just like the word “doer (“deer” in English)” meant a wild animal of any sort from a lion to a mouse. But when Middle Ages, the French word “beste” become the general word. So “deer” was change to refer a particular kind of animal.
In fact, science and technology also brings about changes of meaning. Take the word “engine” for example. Its origin is a Latin word “ingenium”.
But when stream power was developed in the first quarter of the 19thcentury, the term“engine” come to mean “a railroad locomative”, 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”
Conclusion
After all above the passage has introduced the causes of changes in word meaning, and how did they take effect on English words. This was very important for English major, when students study a language, they can’t just learn its grammar or vocabulary, students should know something more, like how did this come, how would this changed. The more we asked the more we got. Hold this attitude can make us be more professional on our major subject.