Prace komisji nauk.pdf - Instytut Filologii Angielskiej Uniwersytetu ...

educed form of language a new, fully fledged language, a creole, can develop.
Special circumstances are needed for that, in particular that the pidgin in
question must become the mother tongue of the slaves’ children. (About pidgins
and creoles see e.g. Hudson 1996, sections 2.5.4 and 2.5.5.).
Summary 3
We discovered the following sources of language change: language use (mostly
of adult speakers), first language learning, second language learning. We also
discovered the following factors of language change: communication (think of
avoidance of homonymy; in the broadest sense: socially successful acting),
economy (think of ease of articulation and semantic extension), speakers’ or
hearers’ hypotheses about regularity (think of analogy) or about the relation
between form and meaning (think of semantic differentiation and folk
etymology) and the degree of consciousness of the elements in question (think
of borrowing and substrate influence). Once more I want to stress the
importance of the factor of communication or socially successful acting: this
factor is also responsible for language preservation. If we leave aside the
possibility of drastic changes in exceptional situations, we can say that changes
are only allowed as far as communication or social success are not hindered. 8
The socio-linguistic aspect
When a new language element comes into being, this is always followed by a
period of variation within the linguistic society in which the new and the old
element exist side by side.
8 Maybe other factors can be mentioned, e.g. the need of expressiveness. Think of calling
names, cursing and swearing, uttering contempt or hate, or the need of sparing one’s
feelings. The negative needs lead to dysphemisms, the positive ones to euphemisms.
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