Because Meaning: Language Change through Iconicity in Internet Speak

SURF Conference Proceedings 2014 Because Meaning: Language Change through Iconicity in Internet Speak Anneliise Rehn ∣ Linguistics ∣ Session 7B Mentor: Professor Line Mikkelsen, Linguistics This thesis explores the meaning of a newly recognized usage of because, in which because is followed by a single word, such as meaning in the thesis title. Language observers have noticed that for English speakers, especially on the internet, the possibilities for because are expanding. Traditionally, we’ve understood two contexts for because to be grammatical. The first with because followed by an of-phrase such as The apple falls to the ground because of gravity and the second with because followed by a clause such as I’m going to the store because I need food. In the past four years, we see an increasing usage by people on the internet of sentences like The apple falls to the ground because science and I’m going to the store because hungry. All parts of the sentence after the word because are replaced by a single word. As demonstrated by these examples, that word can be a noun - like science here - or an adjective - like hungry. We also see examples with interjections such as because yay and because no, proper nouns such as because George Bush and adverbs: because honestly was an initially popular example. Authors have disagreed on how to definitively describe that pattern syntactically. Mark Liberman’s post on Language Log follows a common trend in labelling it “Because NOUN. ” Stan Cary on his blog Sentence First argues that this name is inaccurate since it fails to capture the variety of word classes which can follow because. He renames it “because as preposition. ” Due to this variety of options, the construction will be referred to as because X throughout this thesis. People are noticing and talking about this new grammatical construction. Dis- cussions of because X have popped up on internet forums and individual blogs, including some authored by professional linguists, dictionary staffs, and the general populace as well. The Urban Dictionary includes eleven distinct entries with the construction. So much excitement has been generated, in fact, that the American Dialect Society chose because as their 2013 Word of the Year. Simple, humble, old because beat out all of the year’s neologisms based on the excitement surrounding the new contexts of usage. People are clearly excited, and with good reason accord- ing to the research described in this thesis. The research focusses on how because is now being used, what the new construction means, and the impact of this case on our understanding of language as a whole. The research indicates quite interesting, significant, and new conclusions about language development. Specifically we see the role that meaning plays in that development, even in grammatical change. The popularity of because X has multiplied through the iconic meaning users of the construction have attached to it. This shows a function of iconicity with meaning drawing upon form as a means for language change. In order to examine the meanings of because X in real world contexts, a database of instances of the construction has been compiled. I find instances through google searches of common combinations, such as because science and because reasons. Any page that has one of these combinations is searched for other usages of because, since the author/site has