Definition and Examples of Colonial Lag in Language

Definition and Examples of Colonial Lag in Language In linguistics, colonial lag is the hypothesis that colonial varieties of a language  (such as American English) change less than the variety spoken in the mother country (British English). This hypothesis has been vigorously challenged ever since the term  colonial lag  was coined by  linguist Albert Marckwardt in his book  American English  (1958). For example, in an article in  The Cambridge History of the English Language,  Volume 6  (2001), Michael Montgomery concludes that in regard to American English, [t]he evidence cited for colonial lag is selective, often ambiguous or tendentious, and far from indicating that American English in any of its varieties is more archaic than innovative. Examples and Observations These post-colonial survivors of  earlier phases of mother-country culture, taken in conjunction with the retention of earlier linguistic features, have made what I should like to call a colonial lag. I mean to suggest by this term nothing more than that in a transplanted civilization, such as ours undeniably is, certain features which it possesses remain static over a period of time. Transplanting usually results in a time lag before the organism, be it a geranium or a brook trout, becomes adapted to its new environment. There is no reason why the same principle should not apply to a people, their language, and their culture. (Albert H. Marckwardt, American English. Oxford University Press,  1958) Colonial Lag in American English There was for a long time a popular belief that languages separated from their home countries, like a bud nipped from its stem, ceased to develop. This phenomenon was called colonial lag, and there were manyincluding, notably, Noah Websterwho argued in particular for its applicability to American English. But though the colonial languages in the New World might have been isolated from their homelands, these languages were not unaffected by their trip to the New World. Colonial lag is, as linguist David Crystal says, a considerable oversimplification. Language, even in isolation, continues to change. (Elizabeth Little,  Trip of the Tongue: Cross-Country Travels in Search of Americas Languages. Bloomsbury, 2012)With ongoing language changes, it is often argued that colonies follow the linguistic developments of the mother country with some delay because of the geographical distance. This conservatism is called colonial lag. In the case of American English it is witnessed, for instanc e, in changes that took place in the modal auxiliaries can and may. Can gained ground in uses previously associated with may earlier and more rapidly in England than in the American colonies (Kytà ¶ 1991).Colonial lag is not, however, in evidence with all linguistic changes. In the case of third-person singular present-tense suffixes, for instance, no such tendency can be observed. (Terttu Nevalainen, An Introduction to Early Modern English. Oxford University Press, 2006) Colonial Lag in New Zealand English Because of the fragmentation of transplanted speech communities, the children of colonial founding populations may lack well-defined peer groups and the models they provide; in such an event, the influence of the dialects of the parents generation would be stronger than in more typical linguistic situations. This is especially true of more isolated settlers children. As a result, the dialect that develops in such situations largely reflects the speech of the previous generation, thus lagging behind.[P]arental origin is often an important predictor of aspects of individuals speech. This provides some support for the notion of colonial lag. (Elizabeth Gordon, New Zealand English: Its Origins and Evolution. Cambridge University Press, 2004)[T]here are a number of grammatical features in the New Zealand archive which can be described as archaic in that we assume that they were more typical of mid-nineteenth-century English than of later periods. One reservation, however, is that a number of grammatical changes which have affected English in the British Isles in the last 200 years have started in the south of England and spread out from there, arriving later in the English north and southwestand then in Scotland and Ireland, if at allwith some considerable time lag. There are a number of conservative features on the ONZE tapes [Origins of  New Zealand  English project] which may therefore be either archaic, or English regional, or Scottish, or Irish, or all four. One such is the use of for-to infinitives, as in They had for to gather the crops. (Peter Trudgill,  New-Dialect Formation: The Inevitability of Colonial Englishes. Oxford University Press, 2004)

How to Kill Your Darlings

How to Kill Your Darlings How to Kill Your Darlings This August, Simon Woodward published his fifth book, Dead Weapons. During the writing process, Simon faced a struggle familiar to many writers: should he follow his creative instincts or tailor his novel to enhance its marketability? In this article, Simon talks about the act Faulkner’s coined â€Å"killing your darlings,†   and discerning the difference between making clever marketing decisions and self-censorship.Where do you get your ideas from?Most writers have been on the receiving end of this question; the go-to question from friends and family when discussing their writing career. I admit I've never been able to answer this because, well... I don't know.The idea for my novelMy new novel, Dead Weapons, emerged from a soup of ideas and influences that had bubbled away in the back of my brain for a year. One of the main influences was Blur's song, â€Å"Kids With Guns,† and its haunting chorus: â€Å"They're turning us into monsters.† In my mind, it evokes the frightening statistics around the rise in teenage knife and gun crime in London - quoted, adjusted and recalculated in the media, then used by some right-wing commentators to create a public image of a feral generation.  Both of these contributed to the idea for a dystopian novel based around an aging society that has collapsed into a  terminal suspicion of the youth, leading to a permanent child curfew. Finally, the book’s original title had been on my mind from the get-go: And This Boy Loved His Gun. This title was the piton I used to hammer into the rock face, and to haul myself up that 80,000-word edifice. The title is the piton that hammers into the rock face, and hauls you up the 80,000-word edifice. As soon as I had this title, I knew I wanted to write a story for this 'feral generation' of teenage boys. I wanted it to be a dark, contemporary adventure, powered by a cinematic narrative (accompanied by an imaginary thumping bass), and I wanted it to be from their viewpoint. I wanted to return society's suspicious and fearful gaze from the teenagers’ perspective.Writing for a challenging demographicFrom the outset, I felt I was taking on a challenging project: the presence of the words boy and gun in a YA book title was likely to elicit knee-jerk reactions from  some,  and although I wanted to write this story for the teen demographic, there was no guarantee they'd want to read it.Highlighting the second issue was a 2016 Neilson Book Research investigation that reported a decline in teenagers who regularly read for pleasure - in particular amongst boys.  The report identified the battle for attention with social media, YouTube, the gaming industry and even good old-f ashioned television. When interviewed, boys of all ages named video game/app integrated books as the key thing that would encourage them to read more.I don't own the rights to any video games or killer apps, and so I resolved to give them the closest thing I could. Dead Weapons’ hero is Ciaran Richards, a sixteen-year-old boy framed for murder. On the run from the police, a powerful gangster, and a secret government department, Ciaran has a malfunctioning, intelligent revolver stuck to his hand - making him the literary version of a first-person shooter from computer games.  However, the last he wants to do is use the gun. He wants to let it go so he can go back to his life, but he can’t.Determining the marketability of my bookWhen my agent approached publishers with the book, several editorial directors were keen to take it on, but in each case marketing departments squashed its chances  at the acquisitions stage. I suspect that this had something to do with the subject matter and those two words sitting close together in the title. Perhaps it wasn't self-censorship after all, but a classic case of a writer refusing to cut or change something that didn't serve the story. Maybe I'd forgotten an essential piece of writing advice. As Stephen King said in On Writing (paraphrasing William Faulkner): â€Å"Kill your darlings, kill your darlings, even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.† "Even when it breaks your egocentric little scribbler's heart, kill your darlings.† - Stephen King Please share your thoughts, experiences, or any questions for Simon Woodward in the comments below!Dead Weapons is available in paperback and on Amazon Kindle.