Language Change- recipe analysis 

In the first recipe from 1747, there is grammatical differences compared to the recipe written in 1998. The "s" and "f" are used interchangeably, for example "fmall" instead they replaced the "s" with and "f". This could be due to the era the recipe was written in. The recipe was written before standardisation of the English language, this means that there was not a wrong or right way to spell or write particular words- before the printing press started producing dictionaries. This shows that society in the 18th century was not prescriptivist. 

In terms of Lexis and semantics, there are many words in the 1852 recipe that have now been broadened in the English language today. For example; "scum" in the 19th century it meant the juices from the food cooking, however, it has been broadened today to mean an unpleasant person. This shows that some words stays in our language throughout hundreds of years however, ,any have changed their meanings over this time. In the 1998 recipe the writer uses a lot more adjectives "gentle" and "fresh" this shows that food has become more "fashionable" and people take pride in their cooking as if it now more of an art and the method you use to cook. Furthermore, in the 1998 recipe they use more in-formalised imperatives "heat", "add" and "stir" this shows that the language used is more chatty and that recipes are not formal texts any more, the get straight to the point.

In terms of discourse structure, the 1998 recipe uses more minor sentences when listing the ingredients. "1 tablespoon sunflower" and "1 onion, thinly sliced" the context of this recipe is during a busy society, therefore, the simple sentences may represent being quick and simple as people are busy and rushing around they want quicker and easy meals to do as they have lots of other things to be doing. Compared to the 1852 recipe which uses compound sentences throughout the whole recipe "A thrifty housewife will not require that I should tell her to save the liquor in which the beef has been boiled; I will therefore take it for granted that the next day she carefully moves the grease." however, during this time women were seen to be the one who prepared all the meals, hence the reference "housewife", and therefore, she wasn't seen to be out working so she had more time to read recipes and make long meals compared to today's society.