Language and Society

We are all aware how much language is influenced by social changes. Any social change will authomatically produce changes in language either by including new words or giving a new meaning to the old ones.

A clear example are all the new legislations approved to outlaw discrimination on the grounds of religion, sexual orientation and sex-bias.


In the South Africa's Marriage Act the law changed last year following a court ruling which allowed same-sex couples to get married. As a result of that the language to define what it is meant by marriage had to change.

The existing Marriage Act defined a marriage as a "union between a man and a woman" while the new civil union bill describes marriage as a "voluntary union of two persons, which is solemnised and registered by either a marriage or civil union".