Research School Network: ‘Shifting Sands’: Language Change and Vocabulary Knowledge

‘Brit-pop’, ​‘cowabunga’, ​‘Doodlebug’, ​‘fin de siecle’: words that served a particular function for particular times. As you read these words your mind may well have performed an impressive act of time travel to take in a whole host of associated information from different eras. This is because words and time are intrinsically linked as language provides the documentation for the past.

But what do we do when the meaning of a word shifts through time? When we try and take our meaning of a word from 2017 and apply it to circumstances hundreds of years ago we may find that word has slipped its meaning. Rather than an inconvenience though this can be a powerful teaching tool.

When thinking about developing pupils’ vocabulary we might talk about word consciousness, or word depth, this notion that a word does not exist separately from other words, or from the world around it. Clearly placing a word into its correct timeframe can therefore foster a strengthening of that word in a pupil’s mind.

Let’s take the word ​‘government’.

Immediately on reading that parts of your brain would have begun firing, perhaps including some of the following: voting, the Houses of Parliament, Theresa May, democracy, Brexit.

Willingham talks about words having an energy, and once activated they start vibrating and knocking against other associated words in your long-term memory. Right now your brain will be holding some of those in the starting blocks, wondering where the reference to government is going next. If this article suddenly shifts into a comment on the current plight of the Conservative party, your brain will bring forth some of that key information about our current Prime Minister and the 2017 election. If it goes in a different direction, Theresa May’s energy will wane and she will retreat back into your mind (this is no attempt at a political prophecy).

The aspect of government that concerns us here is its abstract meaning, something we might describe as ​‘the person(s) elected to rule over and direct others, most often through a process of people voting in an election’. Its etymology is the Greek ​‘kybernan’ meaning to steer or pilot a ship, giving us this sense of directing another entity.

In a developed Western democracy in 2017 this is hopefully a description that people would understand and relate to. Rewind 700 years and the very same word becomes something altogether different, becoming focused on a King making whatever decisions he wants. Around 400 years ago we get a muddled and ultimately unsustainable model featuring input from the monarch, but also an ​‘elected’ parliament. However, at this juncture, to our modern ideals we are still hardly looking at a government that truly represents its people as it excludes most men who are not of the right social standing, and of course all women. Perhaps our own idea of government might change again if the voting age is ever lowered to 16.

What does all this mean? Well providing a GCSE history student with a definition of government at the start of her course is only going to achieve so much. Assume that pupil learns that definition wonderfully for her exams, but the definition itself is never directly mentioned again. Every time government is mentioned throughout the thousand year scope that GCSE history pupils now have to study, her understanding is going to be constrained by the definition because it will not consider the nuances of who is doing the governing at various points.

It seems essential then to move vocabulary teaching away from rigid definitions. Instead, perhaps we need more working descriptions that can be revisited, altered and added to, so that when the word ​‘government’ is heard or read, words are activated in the schema which will sit within their own specific time period. Vocabulary timelines (a simple version is shown here for the word ​‘government’) could be a practical solution to this, or perhaps visual or numerical representations that demonstrate who was part of the government at a certain period in history.

Considering language within timeframes could be useful in other subjects too: studying the ​‘love’ between Mr and Mrs Birling in An Inspector Calls would be informed by a consideration of the driving forces behind marriages in the Edwardian era when the play is set. The schema related to love in the early 20^th century might therefore have the energy to set off connections to ​‘wealth, social status and duty.’

The energy words possess seem to give them a capacity to move and shift, and if our descriptions do not shift with them we can be working from rigid definitions that are out of time.

To give pupils a start in understanding how language shifts through time, try these resources;

• A wonderfully detailed resource from the British Library
• A more light hearted (requiring the odd bit of editing) approach from the Open University

Upcoming events from Huntington Research School include:

Evidence in Education on October 20^th2017. This programme for school leaders features Sean Harford from OFSTED and Roger Pope from the National College of Teaching and Leadership, as well as representatives from the EEF and the IEE, Alex Quigley, Jo Pearson, James Siddle, John Tomsett, Megan Dixon and more. Topics include accessing the ​‘funding pipeline’, performance management, measuring success and getting started with evidence.

Building Confident Research Leads starting on 29^th November 2017. This innovative programme is for school leaders who are looking to solve issues in their school, MAT or TSA. From establishing evidence-based teaching and learning; knowing your OFSTED ​‘story’, responding to changing curriculum and assessment, as well as undertaking inquiry in your setting.