A2 Language comments on Language invesrigations and Children's language

Children's Language:

After reading some articles on children's language on emagazine, I have read about reasons why children struggle with the past tense. One reason is that the child can remember the word as a single utterance. However, because the child doesn't subconsciously know about the language rules or hasn't learned about them yet in their language development, the child does not apply the rules of the past tense to the words so ends up saying utterances like "goed" and "runned". Also the reason to why children use language is to express a particular need, form relationships, tell people what to do etc. They learn to use language from watching others and imitating people talking about them as well as the theory by Noam Chomsky which states that children have an innate ability to speak and learn language very quickly early on in life. These articles were very interesting to read and gave me more information about children's language and how it develops as the child progresses from each language stage of their development.

Language investigation

On the articles about how to approach language investigations, it states that you need to have a subject which you can analyze and enjoy in order to get the best grade. However didn't entirely find these articles useful in conducting an investigation.

Robin Lakoff Research

Robin Lakoff wrote a study based on Language and the way in which Women use language. It was called, "Language and Woman's place." It points out how women tend to hedge a lot more in their language and use very vague language but in polite forms such as, "Would you mind?" and "sort of" , "maybe" so they want you to do something but are saying it in a very polite and vague form. It is also said that women give indirect commands such as "its cold in here" meaning they want you to do something about how cold it is. Females also use modal verbs to suggest and hint to people what they want to happen such as "shouldn't we turn up the heat?" etc. The way in which this compares to men's language is that men tend to just ask directly what they want and are not so polite in the way they go about it compared to women. This makes the women seem more weak and shy compared to the men are are confident when asking for things and are not as polite.

The study also outlines how women use lots of adjectives to describe things but they have no meaning because of how often they are used. For example, it is said that the word "adorable" is used often by women and because they call lots of things adorable, it has no meaning behind the word and they in fact do not think it is adorable because the adjective is in fact empty. Women tend to put more emotion into their language as well by adding intensifiers and adjectives into their language to show how happy or sad they are feeling.
Whereas men tend to paraphrase more and if they use an adjective it tends to have more meaning behind it because they do not go into detail about things as regularly as women do. Men tend to get to the point more instead of showing emotion through their language. Men also tend to create more punchlines and find them more funny compared to women who apparently lack a sense of humor and apparently do not tell as great jokes as men do.

Peter Trudgill’s Norwich Study (1970s Study)

Peter Trudgill’s Norwich Study (1970s Study)

- The study took place in Norwich in the 1970s.

·   -  The point in the study was to find out why people speak differently and why certain sounds were ignored in words due to the person’s accent.

 n  -Trudgill noted that this way of speaking (saying “talkin” instead of “talking”) was not unique to Norwich. "Nearly everywhere in the Eng-speaking world we find this alternation between higher-class/formal ng and lower class/informal n. It goes back to the fact that in Old English (and later) there were two forms, a gerund ending in -ing(walking is good for you) and a present participle ending in -end (he was walking). The -end form was the ancestor of -n' and -ing (obviously) of -ing.”

·    -  He noted also that it depended on what class you were in whether you mispronounced these words or not and were more careful with your speech.

·    -   He also says that it was mainly common in the lower working class for these changes in the way they speak to be more common.

·     -  He also finds out that it is more common for men to use these variations in speech compared to women. “When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.  When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.”

·     - When conducting the study he split people into groups depending on their gender and social class. 

 - He found that women wanted to sound more standard whereas the men wanted to sound more non-standard.

Language and Gender: Differences between men and women in their language

Language and Gender

http://www.sciencedaily.com/releases/2008/03/080303120346.htm  - Article on biological reasons for differences in boys and girls' language. 

When it comes to language and gender I do believe that there is a difference between how men use language and how women use language. Women are stereo typically said to speak more in detail about topics they are talking about, whereas men are stereo typically known to get to the point quickly and not say as much in many words. These are the stereotypes of men and women using language but I do think it depends on the person whether these assumptions of language use are true or not.  

There are certain aspects of language which is seen to be more masculine, for example swearing is seen to be a more masculine form of language because of the stereotype that women are elegant and "lady-like" and so it is seen for it to be a more male dominated form of language. However, I do not believe that nowadays this is true. It may have been true once upon a time but nowadays since men and women have been given an equal status at the latest, swearing is a very gender equal form of language now.

Personally, it is a very female dominated form of language to use acronyms. In my personal experience I see more females saying acronyms like "lol" or "omg" than males. This goes back to the saying that women talk more and go into more detail than men in conversations. Using acronyms is also seen as not a very masculine thing to say and is more associated with the female gender. Then again, this may depend on the person because I do know personally of a few men that do use acronyms. 

It is said that girls have a larger vocabulary than boys even from a young age due to their more "talkative" natures so expand their vocabulary more quickly than boys do, this gives girls an advantage when it comes to starting school maybe due to them knowing what more words mean than boys as well. It is said that at the age of 10 months a baby girl will have twice the vocabulary of a 20 month year old boy. There was research done on this very topic to suggest that there are biological reasons to why girls seem to have a "superior language" from birth to boys. Girls apparently have a more active part of their brain which alerts them to more forms of language than boys at a young age leading to them wanting to talk more and learn more and more words than boys.  

Boys are known for "getting to the point" of conversations when talking to someone instead of explaining what happened and dragging things out. I personally agree with this as when I was younger I remember joking with my parents about how when my brother was on the phone to his friend, it was the same conversation every time. It consisted of "Hey" "Yeah you?" "Okay. Bye" and that was it. Whereas when I am on the phone to my friends, we can talk for ages on the phone and go completely off topic to why we were on the phone to each other in the first place. There is a difference in the way boys and girls talk which is definite because that is the nature of our language. But our language could also depend on how we have been nurtured instead of it being nature. You could have a very talkative boy and a very abstract girl which is different to the stereotype I just mentioned. I think if you are nurtured to talk in a way that boys stereo-typically talk like then you will have that kind of abstract language of getting to the point of things very quickly. It is the same with girls, it could also however depend on your age, my language use has changed since I was 7 years old completely. i talk a lot more now than I did back then due to my personality changing from being shy to being more confident in what I talk about in front of people.  

Gordon Brown Acceptance Speech

Gordon Brown Acceptance Speech Review:

- There is lots of reptition of personal pronouns such as "we" and "I" used through out the speech in order to emphasise that he is talking to the people about what he and his government will do for the country and its people. This use of personal pronouns also suggests that because it is what he is promising that it is him who has the power: "As I have travelled round the country and as I have listened and I have learnt from the British people"

- The modal verb "will" suggests that Gordon Brown is certain of the ideas he is promising will be done and this certainty gives him the power in this speech since it is all about what he personally will do for the country. "This will be a new government"

- When he says that he has accepted the power from the Queen of England, this suggests that in fact he does not have as much power as he is portraying in his speech because he had to accept this job from the Queen herself. "I have just accepted the invitation of Her Majesty the Queen to form a government."

- Convergence is a theory that could be related to this speech due to the fact that he is trying to gain in favour of the british people now that he is Prime Minister and is saying all the things he will do to "improve" Britain now that he was Prime Minister. As the theory says, he shifts his speech to include the nation in his speech by using personal pronouns like "we" and repeats after each idea that he will make Britain a great nation. This shows his need of social approval from everyone because this opening speech to his career as Prime Minister is the speech that everyone will judge him on and refer back to as his time as Prime Minister continues. "that if we can fulfil the potential and realise the talents of all our people, then I am absolutely sure that Britain can be the great global success story of this century."

- This speech is written in a very positive manner and is always refering back to Britain as a nation and how great it will be once again with new policies etc. There is useage of positive lexis and with this positive lexis comes lots of certainty in what is being said. He states what he says as facts by using words such as "cannot" and "convinced" to make the previous Prime Minister Tony Blair seem like a worse Prime Minister than him to make him look more fresh and good for the countries politics. "This change cannot be met by the old politics."

Advert Analysis

Advert analysis

http://i.ebayimg.com/t/CADBURY-Nations-Favourite-CHOCOLATE-2013-Magazine-PRESS-Advert-TRADE-Poster-/00/s/MTYwMFgxMTUy/z/N~kAAOxy7rdRE7qI/$(KGrHqJHJEEFENuU3LltBRE7qI!NNQ~~60_35.JPG

In this advert there are lots of features which can suggest who has the power within the lexis of the advert as well as the graphological features. The mode of this advert is written and is very clearly aimed at people who like to eat chocolate which leads onto the purpose of this advert which is to persuade people to buy the chocolate being advertised. The way in which they persuade the audience to buy their chocolate is mainly through the connotations to the images presented and the imperatives used in the text on the advert. It is written in a formal manner to make it seem like it is a real company and correct english is used as well as different sentence types. 

There isn’t much text on this advert since it’s main form of persuasion is through the images displayed of the product, however the text that is on there shows that they have the power of knowledge over the reader. There are lots of facts used in this advert which help promote how popular this product actually is. For example, when it says “The Nation’s Favorite” they are selling this as a fact. That there is no other chocolate brand which as good or as popular as cadburys dairy milk chocolate. This fact gives the reader certainty and relies on the people writing these adverts to tell them this information that it is the nation’s favorite chocolate bar.  Due to the lots of facts used in this advert this suggests that the power of having knowledge over the reader because they do not have the knowledge therefore have to be informed that this is in fact the nations favorite chocolate bar. Another feature of this advert is the use of imperatives such as “Give it pride of place in your depot” the use of “give it” shows that the writer are giving orders for the  person reading the advert go get some dairy milk. This suggests that the author has the power in this text due to the fact that they are giving orders to the people reading the picture.

The graphology of this advert also shows that the author has the power because they highlight what they think is important in big and bold writing to make it stand out so when people see the advert this is what they see and remember when they look at the advert. For example, when it says “The Nation’s Favorite” that is made really big and bold right in the centre of the advert meaning it is the first thing that you see when you look at the advert.  This is an important part of the graphology as it is a form of persuasion and again because it is a fact that they want to emphasize so they made it stand out as much as possible. The background color is purpose because purpose is the color of the company and everyone recognizes that this is an advert from cadburys. The connotations to the image of melted chocolate at the bottom of the page are smooth, delicious and temptations because if you see an image of chocolate like that it suggests temptation and this whole advert is about tempting you to buy the chocolate and appealing to peoples desires. The color purple is now associated with purple and a desire so has connotations to chocolate. 

Misha Sandham-Bains

Is text speech taking over our English language?

Texting, taking over the world? Really?

Lots of different people have their own opinions on texting. Some people like me and many people I know like it because it's quick, easy and simple. It also costs less money than having to call someone and saves time. However, some people like in the 'I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language' article think it is stupid and destroying our English language as now words associated with 'text speech' are now in the dictionary like 'yolo' and it has even changed the way in which we spell certain words.

John Humpreys (author of the article 'I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language') starts off by stating his love for dictionaries and how much more useful and interesting they are than being able to look up something on the internet.

Then he starts ranting about how texting has changed the way in which we spell certain words, making it more effort to write instead of less which he says is the whole point in text speech in the first place. To a certain extent I agree with what he is saying, because certain words have had hyphens removed from words, but the majority of words have stayed the same. Personally I don't actually know that many people apart from my mum that use text speech, most of the people I know still use proper words using their proper spelling. Also is the removal of things like hyphens in words really the end of the world? So what if we have to write two words instead of one, not many people will really start a riot over this simple change in our language.

He also goes on to say that 'texters' are 'raping our vocabulary' which I think is a little bit overboard as people still use standard English when talking and only change the way in which words are spelled to make texting easier and faster. In essays or letters or anything written that is not a text message, people still spell correctly and use standard English. There are not that many words out of the whole of the English language that have changed due to text speech becoming more and more common. However, I do have to say even in spoken language, text speech is used. For example, many people when they find something funny do now tend to say 'lol' which means laugh out loud. This may only be a thing from my generation of people, but instead of laughing people say lol. It is also used when you have nothing else to say.

Texting has formed new slang words and created words with double meanings. For example, some people say instead of 'that's amazing!' they now can say 'that's sick!' which means the same thing. However, the word sick is normally associated with someone vomiting, not something being amazing. This is when I can understand John Humpreys claim that texting is wrecking our language.

However, texting has in a way formed it's our language and meanings explained in the article 'Cn u txt?'. The author, John Sutherland explains how texting is brainwashing our younger generation into communicating with their thumbs more than their mouths, furthermore making the younger generation more lazy than older generations. He even says in the article that now an increasing amount of people are using their keyboards instead of spoken language. Another thing mentioned in the article is that lots of individual groups in society has it's own codes when it comes to texting. This I think counts as a form of regional dialect but in text form.

David Crystal who wrote the '2b or not 2b' article says that this is not a disaster to the English Language but it adds a new dimension to it. He also supports that not as many people are using these abbreviation in texting as first thought. In fact only 20% of texts showed any form on abbreviation in them, many people like I said still use standard English when texting.

Overall, I don't think text speech is taking over our English Language, although some of the words that have been put in the dictionary because of it are quite amusing don't you think? Also i do think some of the abbreviations used in them, for example, ROLF means rolling on the floor laughing.