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1、changes of word meaning in Englishchanges of word meaning in 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，词汇的额变幻最快、最明显，而此意在一定时期内是相对稳定的，但多年时间过去，有些词变化很大，甚至彻底改变原意。与此同时，词义的变化自然与人类社会有着密切的联系，很多因素引起此意改变，比如历史因素，心理因素，社会因素等。这篇文章将会探讨词义变化的原因。 关键词：词义变化 变化原因 I Introduction With
2、 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. Meanings of English words are rela
3、tively stable in certain time, but years passed, some changed a lot even completely. cause of changing of word 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. The paper will discu
4、ss in some detail the cause of changes. We probably agree whenever new meanings are added to old words, or new words are created. It is in response to certain read. For example, when plans without propellers became important suddenly in our daily life. Let quickly expanded to embrace the concept. Th
5、ere are several major factors that cause changes in meaning. 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
6、and Roman culture provided many synonyms to the English. Whats 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 k
7、ept 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, show the flex
8、ibility and adaptability. Will all great Neptunes ocean wash this blood clean from my hand? No, this my hand will rat her. This multitudinous seas incarnadine. Making the green one red:” Here adjective words multitudinous and verb incarnadine are both foreign and make, green, red are native words. T
9、he words help him express vividly History attribute to the enrichment of English words. 2 Society factors 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
10、 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 o
11、riginal a kind of dark color, can used to representative black man, color-blind was used to describe that treating black and white equally. Whats 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
12、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
13、 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 ex
14、amples 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 part
15、icles”. 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 so
16、cial 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. 3. Psychological cause People change word mea
17、ning 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 p
18、sychological need. he associated transfer of meaning and euphemistic use of words,etc.,are often due to psychological factors. 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 mo
19、re” “cant 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. Lets move to the next cause. 4. Foreign influences Its a particularly important cause of change. Sometimes a Saxon word which a general sense has been replaced by
20、 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 (“beast” in English)” become the general word. So “de
21、er” 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 ,natural ability”. But when stream power was developed in the first quarter of the 19th century, the ter
22、m “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” 5 internal factors The internal factors within the language system consist of: One type of such cha
23、nge occurs when a phrase is shortened to one word which retains the meaning of the whole. The influx of borrowings has caused some words to change in meaning. (deer, animal, beast) The competition of native words eventually yields the semantic division. The change of meaning is brought about by anal
24、ogy. The change of meaning may be caused by internal factors within the language system. Especially when a phrase is shortened to one word which retains the meaning of the whole. The influx of borrowings has caused some words to change in meaning. The competition of native words eventually resulted
25、in the semantic division. 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 cant 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.
