In historical (or diachronic) linguistics, subjectification (also known as subjectivization or subjectivisation) is a language change process in which a linguistic expression acquires meanings that convey the speaker's attitude or viewpoint. An English example is the word while, which, in Middle English, had only the sense of 'at the same time that'. It later acquired the meaning of 'although', indicating a concession on the part of the speaker ("While it could use a tune-up, it's a good bike.").[1]
This is a pragmatic-semantic process, which means that inherent as well as contextual meanings of the given expression are considered. Subjectification is realized in lexical and grammatical change. It is also of interest to cognitive linguistics and pragmatics.