No description available.

This paper analyses and discusses the present-day use of the noun bitch, as the term in contemporary usage seems to have started to deviate from the lexical definition. Traditionally considered an insult when applied to a woman, bitch has recently started being used as a self-imposed label rather than an applied one. Such a phenomenon indicates reappropriation, a negotiation of the meaning and semantics of a word. The purpose of this study is to investigate the origin and semantics of the term, as well as its historical usage and developments. Of particular interest and significance regarding the semantic development of bitch are social and extra-linguistic factors such as political movements, as will be evident from the results presented. Additionally, the present-day use of the term is analysed using lexical semantics and corpus linguistics, with the adjective collocates of the term retrieved from two corpora. Further, contemporary music lyrics are quoted and analysed to lend further support to the corpus findings regarding the present-day use, as well as the indicated semantic change and reappropriation. The results indicate that the term bitch is undergoing a reappropriation and is currently used both as a derogatory and self-empowering term. It is hoped that this paper will give insight to the phenomenon of reappropriation and the connection between social and linguistic change, as well as the importance of context in determining the meaning of a term.

The lexical semantics of a language is an area of linguistics that has many important implications for the life of modern society. It is important to understand how language change works and why this change occurs. Thus the aim of the work described in the thesis was to examine how six Swedish words, fett, fräsch, fräck, grym, häftig, and tajt are used by five different age groups of Swedish people in Uppsala region. To accomplish the aim of the study an appropriate questionnaire was compiled and used by the author. The questionnaire asked for information about the respondents as well as about the usage of each studied word. Analogous previous studies of the ongoing semantic change are reported in literature, frequently in regard to the words from English language. My results show that most of the chosen words are used differently by different age groups. Some words change their usage only slightly while other words experience larger metamorphose. The investigated words do not change their meaning completely, however some meanings do become more or less frequent. The results also show that the usage of the words does not always correlate to their dictionary definitions. Overall it can be concluded that semantic change for the considered words is a gradual ongoing process. / Den lexikala semantiken i ett språk är ett område inom lingvistik som har många viktiga konsekvenser för livet i det moderna samhället. Det är viktigt att förstå hur språkförändring fungerar och varför denna förändring sker. Därför var syftet med det arbete som beskrivs i uppsatsen att undersöka hur sex svenska ord fett, fräsch, fräck, grym, häftig och tajt användes av fem olika åldersgrupper av infödda talare av svenska i Uppsalaregionen. För att uppnå syftet med studien sammanställdes en enkät. Enkäten innehöll frågor om respondenterna samt om användningen av vart och ett av de studerade orden. Liknande tidigare studier av pågående semantisk förändring rapporteras i litteraturen, ofta i fråga om orden från engelska. Resultaten visar att de flesta av de valda ord användes på olika sätt av olika åldersgrupper. Vissa ord har ändrat sin användning något medan andra ord har genomgått en större förändring. De undersökta orden ändrade inte sin betydelse helt och hållet, men vissa betydelser blev mer eller mindre frekventa. Resultaten visade också att användningen av orden inte alltid korrelerar med deras ordboksdefinitioner. Sammantaget kan man dra slutsatsen att semantisk förändring för dessa ord var en gradvis process.

The purpose of this essay is to identify functional shifts and semantic changes in the Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game Lord of the Rings Online. The focus is on new uses of established terms in Standard English and the intent is to see how the word formation processes work in an online gaming environment, and identify the possible reasons behind them. Due to the lack of previous studies of language in Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Games, the aim is to provide some insight into some of the language developments that occur in such an environment. A quantitative method has been utilised in order to distinguish patterns, and the material, in the form of chat logs, has been gathered from Lord of the Rings Online. The chat logs have then been used to create a corpus, and, from this point, a qualitative method has been employed. The corpus has been thoroughly analysed for the words which have undergone functional shifts and/or semantic changes, and a selection of these words are presented and discussed based on word formation process. The findings in this study seem to confirm that language changes in a Massively Multiplayer Online Role-Playing Game follow the same patterns as in other environments.

No description available.

This study used a combination of historical and contemporary corpora to investigate semantic change within the contemporary American English slang words swag, flex, and swole. This study involved two parts. First, it analyzed each slang term’s earlier morphological form through collocate and contextual analysis within the Corpus of Historical American English (COHA). Second, it examined each slang term’s contemporary use in context within the News on the Web (NOW) corpus. After a comparison of the conclusions drawn from each analysis, it was found that the word swag underwent the process of semantic change known as amelioration and the words flex and swole experienced metaphorization.

With diachronic corpus over the time periods, I selected a word that might be suitable for this type of study for detecting if potential semantic changes have occurred. In this study, I explored the lexical semantics of the word viral to see if the World Wide Web (WWW) has influenced the word. This essay explores how the WWW influences word meaning within a language. The present study has been done in two parts. The first part was done by collecting and comparing definitions from four different dictionaries: The Oxford English Dictionary 1933/1961, The Oxford Dictionary of English Etymology 1966, Compact Oxford Dictionary of Current English 2002, and Longman Dictionary of Contemporary English, 2018. Four different dictionaries were used to collect definitions that occurred during different periods; for example, two were used before the appearance of the WWW, one was used after the appearance of WWW, and the last dictionary was used to display the definition of contemporary English. The second part was done by corpus analysis. Two different corpora were used for this study: The Corpus of Contemporary American English (COCA) and the Corpus of Historical American English (COCA). Corpora were used to look through the word viral and to provide a useful source of how a particular word is used within language. The results showed that the principal definition of the word viral had obtained additional definitions within language, a definition related to Internet terminology.

Jede lebendige Sprache ist durch ihren Gebrauch ständigem Wandel unterworfen, der jede Ebene der Sprache betreffen kann – von der Phonologie über die Semantik bis hin zur Grammatik. Die vorliegende Arbeit hat es sich zur Aufgabe gemacht, den semantischen und lexikalischen Wandel des Ägyptischen zu beleuchten. Das Ägyptische ist in seinen verschiedenen Sprachstufen über mehr als vier Jahrtausende hinweg zu verfolgen, und gehört damit zu den am längsten bezeugten Einzelsprachen der Menschheitsgeschichte. Dies und die gute Quellenlage des Ägyptischen machen es zu einem prädestinierten Gegenstand für diachrone Untersuchungen. Nach einer quantitativen Erhebung der Lexeme eines ausgewählten Textkorpus’, der die Grundlage der Arbeit liefert, wurden im zweiten Teil der Dissertation vier Wortfelder exemplarisch auf ihr Wandelverhalten hin untersucht. Diese Wortfelder, Verwandtschafts- und Körperteilbezeichnungen sowie Wahrnehmungsverben und kognitive Verben, gehören zum Grundvokabular einer jeden Sprache, was die Vergleichbarkeit der Ergebnisse garantieren soll. Neben der Beschreibung konkreter Wandelphänomene wurde dabei Fragen nach dem Ablauf, dem Umfang und den Typen von semantischem und lexikalischem Wandel im Ägyptischen nachgegangen. Ziel war es unter anderem, generalisierbare Aussagen zu treffen, die für die allgemeinen Fragestellungen der Sprachwandelforschung, der Diachronen Semantik und der Historischen Linguistik von Relevanz sind, indem sie mit Ergebnissen früherer Untersuchungen zu den verschiedensten Sprachen verglichen bzw. zu ihrer Überprüfung herangezogen werden können. Als Ergebnis der Untersuchung konnten neben der Beschreibung interessanter Einzelbeobachtungen schließlich einige Regularitäten des semantischen und lexikalischen Wandels des Ägyptischen aufgestellt werden. Diese wurden zum Teil bereits durch andere Sprachen bestätigt und können nach weiterer Überprüfung möglicherweise als universale Tendenzen des semantischen Wandels formuliert werden. / Every spoken language is subject to constant change due to its use. This change can affect every level of the language, from phonology to semantics to grammar. The present dissertation is set out to illuminate the semantic and lexical change of the Egyptian language, which can be followed over four thousand years and is therefore one of the longest attested languages of mankind. This and its excellent state of sources make it the ideal subject of a diachronic study. After a quantitative analysis of the lexemes of a carefully chosen set of texts, which provides the foundation of the study, the main part of the dissertation examines four semantic fields with regard to its mode of change. These semantic fields, kinship terms and terms for body parts as well as verbs for cognition and perception, are part of the basic vocabulary of every language, which guarantees the comparability of the results. In addition to the description of individual processes of change, the paper pursues questions of the course, the range, and the types of semantic and lexical change of the Egyptian language. The intention was to form general statements which are of relevance to questions of the study of language change, the Diachronic Semantics as well as the Historical Linguistics, by serving as comparison as well as verification to studies of other languages. As a result of the present paper, some general regularities of the semantic and lexical change of the Egyptian language were established, in addition to the observation of some interesting individual processes of language change. These regularities were already partially confirmed by observations made in other languages and could, after further examination, turn out to be universal tendencies of semantic change.

<p>Based on current research in historical and cognitive linguistics this thesis examines the German semantic field <fromm> (<pious>), partly contrasting it with its Swedish correspondent <from>. Starting at the time of Old High German the analysis follows the historical development of word and concept, exploring how attitudes to the Christian religion are verbalised in different ages. One important assumption is that ideas and attitudes are accessible to us through the lexicalised items of a language.</p><p>The thesis is part of the interlingual research project “Ethical concepts and mental cultures”, which, by applying a pluralistic method, examines various ethical fields, and assumes as central the oppositions a/o (action directed to others vs. to oneself), right/wrong (virtues vs. vices) and too much/too little vs. the ideal mean.</p><p>This study shows that true piety, in order to be classified as a virtue, has to include both trust and critical thinking in equal proportions and that if either of the two outweighs the other the virtue will become a vice. Furthermore, it is shown that a shift in meaning has taken place from ‘profitable’ or ‘advantageous’ in Old High German, through ‘excellent’, ‘righteous’, ‘virtuous’ into ‘religious’, with Luther’s usage as the critical factor in giving the word its religious meaning. As a result of Secularisation and Individualisation negative connotations have developed in modern German usage which do not seem to exist to the same extent in modern Swedish. This is confirmed by two corpus studies, evaluating the usage of <i>fromm/from</i> in German and Swedish newspaper texts, according to which <i>fromm</i> tends to be transferred to profane contexts, meaning for example ‘hypocritical’, ‘uncritically credulous’ and ‘uncritically obedient’ more frequently than its Swedish equivalent.</p><p>Based on results from socio-psychological research the study also identifies some strategies that speakers employ in order to mark distance or adherence to a group of believers or non-believers, for example metaphors (i.a. GOOD IS UP ÷ BAD IS DOWN) or stereotypes, which are often used to ridicule, criticise or insult a member of another group in order to strengthen the speaker’s own social identity.</p>

Based on current research in historical and cognitive linguistics this thesis examines the German semantic field &lt;fromm&gt; (&lt;pious&gt;), partly contrasting it with its Swedish correspondent &lt;from&gt;. Starting at the time of Old High German the analysis follows the historical development of word and concept, exploring how attitudes to the Christian religion are verbalised in different ages. One important assumption is that ideas and attitudes are accessible to us through the lexicalised items of a language. The thesis is part of the interlingual research project “Ethical concepts and mental cultures”, which, by applying a pluralistic method, examines various ethical fields, and assumes as central the oppositions a/o (action directed to others vs. to oneself), right/wrong (virtues vs. vices) and too much/too little vs. the ideal mean. This study shows that true piety, in order to be classified as a virtue, has to include both trust and critical thinking in equal proportions and that if either of the two outweighs the other the virtue will become a vice. Furthermore, it is shown that a shift in meaning has taken place from ‘profitable’ or ‘advantageous’ in Old High German, through ‘excellent’, ‘righteous’, ‘virtuous’ into ‘religious’, with Luther’s usage as the critical factor in giving the word its religious meaning. As a result of Secularisation and Individualisation negative connotations have developed in modern German usage which do not seem to exist to the same extent in modern Swedish. This is confirmed by two corpus studies, evaluating the usage of fromm/from in German and Swedish newspaper texts, according to which fromm tends to be transferred to profane contexts, meaning for example ‘hypocritical’, ‘uncritically credulous’ and ‘uncritically obedient’ more frequently than its Swedish equivalent. Based on results from socio-psychological research the study also identifies some strategies that speakers employ in order to mark distance or adherence to a group of believers or non-believers, for example metaphors (i.a. GOOD IS UP ÷ BAD IS DOWN) or stereotypes, which are often used to ridicule, criticise or insult a member of another group in order to strengthen the speaker’s own social identity.