What can studying contemporary language tell us about how people's attitudes have changed for example in using taboo language or dropping sounds from the ends of words as in 'goin'?
From studying contemporary language and asking family members (Grandparents and Parents) how their attitudes to language has changed I have found that the common feel is that contemporary language is very informal and lazy.
Speaking to family members they agreed that language is a lot more relaxed and informal than what it was in the past, however, the amount of taboo language and slang words that are used in today's contemporary language is a negative side to how language has become modern due to it making people seem very uneducated and illiterate due to filling spaces with such words when more formal words would be much more appropriate.
I feel that language has changed with society and the modern world; as the world has become more contemporary so has language; this makes language ever changing, interesting and exciting. New words are being developed to describe new creations (technology) and these words are now household words that majority of people know, whereas before only a few would perhaps know.
I feel that people's attitudes have changed drastically and that taboo language is no longer seen as taboo or something that should be frowned upon, but more of a common dialect that is said to emphasise an emotion/action/situation. Phonology has also changed over the years and now many people are dropping letters from words and no longer pronouncing them. e.g What becoming wha or wot. Through the dropping of letters and pronunciation, it shows that people have become lazy with language and are making it much more formal, this could be an aspect of dialect/sociolect, but the informality of language is becoming more and more widespread.
