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particular speech community. These explanations below are the causes of language change and the types of language change.
a. The Causes of Language Change
As mentioned before that languages change because they are used by human beings not machines, it explains that as long as human beings exist the
language will keep changing as human are growing with many supporting factors not stable like a machine. Campbell 2004, p. 316 mentioned that the internal
causes include the physical and psychological factor. The physical factor is for example, the physiology of human speech organs. The psychological or cognitive
factor involves the perception, processing and learning of language. While, the external causes involve factors such as expressive uses of language, positive and
negative social evaluations prestige, stigma, the effects of literacy, prescriptive grammar, educational policies, political degree, language planning, language
contact, and so on.
Related to the theory, Fasold and Linton 2006, p. 277 state that the language change is motivated by the physiological, cognitive, and social forces
which can be attributed to articulatory simplification, regularization, and contact between the languages. They are explained as follow.
1 Articulatory Simplification
Fasold and Linton 2006, p. 277 express that many changes in the phonology of a language are motivated by the physiological goal of enhancing the
ease of articulation. It can be inferred that some people “simplify” the mechanism
of sound production when they found it difficult to be pronounced. Ur 1999, p.
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52 states that a particular sound may not exist in the mother tongue. Therefore, some non-native English speaker may substitute the nearest equivalence that the
speaker knows.
2 Regularization
A regular pattern is easier to learn than a pattern with lots of exception. Children acquiring their native languages prefer regular pattern too, and over time
languages tend to erase irregularities Fasold and Linton 2006, p. 278. 3
Language Contact
One of the main reasons why languages change is because they come into contact with other languages Schendl 2001, p. 55. It means, the contact of two
speakers may lead to the language change. According to Fasold and Linton 2006, p. 278, language change is a result of contacts between speakers of different
languages. b.
Types of Language Change
According to Fasold and Linton 2006 there are four types of language change, namely, morphological change, syntactic change, semantic change, and
phonological change. They are explained as follow.
