C.S. Lewis: The Vision of Language and Vocabulary Change in “Studies in Words”

This paper aims to highlight the vision about language and the evolution of word meanings in the volume of C.S. Lewis Studies in Words published by Cambridge University Press in 1960. The professor of Medieval and Renaissance English C.S. Lewis is concerned with the evolution of vocabulary, with the meaning of words, with the way in which a meaning assigned to a term can be preserved throughout history. His work Studies in Words is a collection of articles that examine how words evolve or change meaning. In this volume, the author discusses the meanings of several words such as nature, simple, free, wit, sad, sense, conscience and conscious. His concern is very complex. He is interested in the semantic development of that term in the English language, giving many examples from literature. C.S. Lewis also highlights a special feature of human language, that of communicating not only information but also emotions, namely the speaker’s attitude to what he is communicating. In this case, the speaker or writer not only communicates, but communicates himself, by conveying something about himself as well. This collection of essays, Studies in Words, remains a remarkable work by C.S. Lewis in which he outlines his vision of language and how changes in language should be viewed. Through this approach the English writer demonstrates a conscious concern for each term used and understands the role of language in communicating not just information but also a feeling. This view of language has shaped C.S. Lewis’s entire work.