The Evolution Of LGBT Labelling Words: Tracking The Interaction Of Semantics With Social And Cultural Changes Across 150 Years

While language change can be discovered at many different linguistic levels such as in the phonology,morphology,syntax,and semantics,the most common type of change is arguably semantic shifts.Semantic shifts are intricately interwoven with society since language is a product of society.On the one hand,society determines semantics,and societal changes will definitely result in semantic shifts.On the other hand,semantics reflects society,and semantic shifts thus reveal how the society has developed.Although previous studies show their support for the intricate relationship between semantics and society,few of them provided evidence for it by exploring the interaction of the semantics of a particular word with social and cultural changes over a long period.Furthermore,semantic shifts were usually noted with methods such as literature review or dictionary checking,which is much labour-intensive and time-consuming.Another weakness is that such methods cannot capture the whole picture of semantic shifts.Therefore,the present study aims to track the evolution of six labelling words of LGBT,i.e.,homosexual,lesbian,gay,bisexual,transgender,and queer,across a span of 150 years by observing their nearest neighbours extracted via the innovative technique of word embeddings.Then,it explores how such semantic shifts interact with the social and cultural changes of LGBT.The results show that the five LGBT labelling words,i.e.,homosexual,lesbian,gay,bisexual,and queer,have changed denotatively and/or connotatively.Gay and queer have experienced semantic shifts in denotation,i.e.,shifting from one meaning to another.The other three,homosexual,lesbian,and bisexual,have undergone semantic shifts in connotation,changing from negative to neutral or positive.Both shifts commenced around the 1970 s,probably resulting from two major events,i.e.,1)the exclusion of homosexual from the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders,and 2)the rise of homosexual liberation movement that leads to the decriminalisation of homosexual behaviours.It is found that both shifts and their turning point conform to the societal changes of LGBT.Such findings provide further evidence for the close relationship between semantics and society.In addition,the present thesis validates a new approach to semantic shifts,i.e.,capturing semantic shifts of words via their nearest neighbours,which may be of help to future studies on semantics research.