Language Change Revision- Synchronic Change

Language Change Revision

1. Look up the following related topics, and post the findings to your blog:

• Political Correctness
• Plain English Campaign 
• The Crystal Mark
• Dog Whistle Politics
• World Englishes

Political Correctness

This is a term which, in modern usage, is used to describe language, policies, or measures which are intended not to offend or disadvantage any particular group of people in society. 

Prescriptivist View of Political Correctness- The group may be in favour of political correctness as it's prescribing 'correct' language. However it could also be seen as language change and an attack on language, linking to decay and the crumbling castle metaphor. 

Descriptivist View of Political Correctness- They may see political correctness as a form of prescriptivism and therefore be against it. 

Norman Fairclough- This theorist suggests that political correctness isn't enough and that we need to change society and the way it thinks about minority groups. 

Plain English Campaign 

Since 1979 the Plain English Campaign has been campaigning against gobbledygook, jargon and misleading public information. They help governments, organisations and their documents, reports and publications as they believe everyone should have access to clear and concise information. 

The Crystal Mark 

The crystal mark is approved by the Plain English Campaign and is the seal of approval for the clarity of a document. It now appears on over 21,000 different documents in the UK, Australia, Denmark, New Zealand and South Africa. It is the only internationally recognised mark of its kind. The Crystal Mark has a fee and allows people to edit subsequent minor changes to any Crystal Marked document that Plain English approve of. 

Dog Whistle Politics

This is a political messaging employing coded language that appears to mean one thing to the general population but has an additional, different or more specific resonance for a targeted subgroup. The phrase if often used as a pejorative because of the inherently deceptive nature of the practice and because the dog whistle messages are frequently distasteful to the general populace. The analogy is to dog whistle, whose high-frequency whistle is heard by dogs but inaudible to humans. 

World Englishes 

This is a term for emerging localised or indigenized varieties of English, especially varieties that have developed in territories influenced by the United Kingdom or the United States. 

2. Find some examples of the ways English is changing and link it to:

• Standardisation
• Simplification 
• Reasons for language change 

Standardisation 

This is the process by which conventional forms of a language are established and maintained. It may occur as a natural development of a language in a speech community or as an effort by members of a community to impose one dialect or variety as a standard. The term re-standardisation refers to the way in which a language may be reshaped by its speakers/ writers. 

Simplification 

Making the language less complex 

Also occurs a lot in CLA where children often simplify pronounciation by deleting certain sounds:

• Final consonants maybe dropped e.g. the sound 't' in 'hat' or 'cat'
• Unstressed syllables are often deleted e.g. 'banana' becomes 'nana' 
• Consonant clusters are reduced e.g. 'snake' becomes 'nake' and 'sleep' becomes 'seep'

http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/phonological-development

Reasons for Language Change

http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/english-changing

"Language changes for several reasons. First, it changes because the needs of its speakers change. New technologies, new products, and new experiences require new words to refer to them clearly and efficiently. Consider texting: originally it was called text messaging, because it allowed one person to send another text rather than voice messages by phone. As that became more common, people began using the shorter form text to refer to both the message and the process, as in I just got a text or I'll text someone right now.

Another reason for change is that no two people have had exactly the same language experience. We all know a slightly different set of words and constructions, depending on our age, job, education level, region of the country, and so on. We pick up new words and phrases from all the different people we talk with, and these combine to make something new and unlike any other person's particular way of speaking. At the same time, various groups in society use language as a way of marking their group identity; showing who is and isn't a member of the group.

Many of the changes that occur in language begin with teens and young adults. As young people interact with others their own age, their language grows to include words, phrases, and constructions that are different from those of the older generation. Some have a short life span (heard groovy lately?), but others stick around to affect the language as a whole.

We get new words from many different places. We borrow them from other languages (sushi, chutzpah), we create them by shortening longer words (gym from gymnasium) or by combining words (brunch from breakfast and lunch), and we make them out of proper names (Levis, fahrenheit). Sometimes we even create a new word by being wrong about the analysis of an existing word, like how the word pea was created. Four hundred years ago, the word pease was used to refer to either a single pea or a bunch of them, but over time, people assumed Excerpt from Beowulf that pease was a plural form, for which pea must be the singular. Therefore, a new word, pea, was born. The same thing would happen if people began to think of the word cheese as referring to more than one chee.

Word order also changes, though this process is much slower. Old English word order was much more 'free' than that of Modern English, and even comparing the Early Modern English of the King James Bible with today's English shows differences in word order. For example, the King James Bible translates Matthew 6:28 as "Consider the lilies of the field, how they grow; they toil not." In a more recent translation, the last phrase is translated as "they do not toil,” because English no longer places not after the verb in a sentence.

The sounds of a language change over time, too. About 500 years ago, English began to undergo a major change in the way its vowels were pronounced. Before that, geese would have rhymed with today's pronunciation of face, while mice would have rhymed with today's peace. However, a 'Great Vowel Shift' began to occur, during which the ay sound (as in pay) changed to ee (as in fee) in all the words containing it, while the ee sound changed to i (as in pie). Overall, seven different vowel sounds were affected. If you've ever wondered why most other European languages spell the sound ay with an ‘e’ (as in fiancé), and the sound ee with an ‘i’ (as in aria), it's because those languages didn't undergo the Great Vowel Shift, only English did."                                             

3. Find a quote to memorise for AO2 and AO3

• AO2- Concepts and Issues 
• AO3- Contextual Factors

http://crossref-it.info/files/files/Language_change.pdf

4. Find some words to exemplify language change, and terminology to attach to them 

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/languagechange.htm

                                                            

The 17th Century

Cambridge Elevate
16.7 Standardisation

This is a gradual process and in English began as early as the 14th century. As we have already seen English is a hybrid language (amalgamation of 2 things) which is made up of different dialects and this has resulted in a language that is highly inconsistent. The need to establish a standard became important if English was to be taken serious as a national language.

Haugen (1966) has identified a four stage process to standardisation:

Selection 

Language Selected- Variety selected is usually a prestigious one 

Codification 

Reduction of internal variability, establishment of norms of lexis, grammatical structures and spellings 

Elaboration 

The selected language is developed for a variety of purposes. This may involve expansion of linguistic resources 

Implementation

The standard language must be given currency by making texts available in it, encouraging users to develop pride and loyalty 

(Milroy and Milroy, 1985) Standardisation, therefore, is an ongoing process and an ideological struggle 

Why Do Words Change Meaning?

Cambridge Elevate- 16.4.3 Why Do Words Change Meaning? 

It is difficult to predict which words will undergo shift in meaning when examining semantic change. However, it can be possible to examine internal and external factors which may influence neosemy (when we see words in older texts which may not mean the same as they do now.)

External factors such as cultural changes, technological innovation or social convention may affect how a word is used. E.g. the rise of technology has seen developments in words such as 'virus', 'bug', 'windows', 'crashes' and so on.

Changing social ideas can mean that a need for a new term arises such as LGBT (lesbian, gay, bisexual, transgender), to replace words that are no longer acceptable.

Cultural changes can result in broadening or bleaching of words as the original word looses significance. 'Guy' originally referred to Guy Fawkes but was then applied to anyone of grotesque (ugly) appearance as guys were burned in effigy on Guy Fawkes Night. This slowly replaced 'fellow' to refer to any man, and this meaning exists alongside the current usage of guys to refer to both males and females.

Internal factors can also affect semantic change. The basic meanings of a word can be linked to some similarity, either a specific attribute or an abstract concept. E.g. an actual virus can be likened to a computer virus. Similarly progress can be used literally to refer to a step forward but can also be used metaphorically to suggest personal growth or movement towards improvement.

Why Does Language Change? 

Language changes for several reasons:

1. Needs of speakers change
2. New technologies
3. New products 
4. New experiences

For example when texting, this was originally called text messaging. Called this because it allowed one person to send a text to another rather than by voice message. As this became more common we now use the shorter for of text to refer to both the message and the process. 

Another reason for language change is that no two people have experienced exactly the same language experience. We all know a slightly different set of words and constructions dependent on things such as our job, education, age, region of the country and so on. We develop our vocabulary and pick up new words all the time from different people that we talk to.

Many changes of language begin with teens and young adults. As young people interact with others their language grows to include words, phrases and constructions that are different from those of the older generation. Some words have a shorter life span, others live on to affect our language as a whole. We can also get words from different places e.g. borrowing them from other languages. For example 'sushi' and we also shorten words, combine words and create new words. 

16.4.4- Attitudes Towards Lexical and Semantic Change 

Simon Heffer comments on some changes in meaning that he does not approve of in The Daily Mail.

He is evidently very upset about some of the language change that has gone on over the years. E.g. He says 'ACCESS is a noun and not a verb. 'Can I access your website?' is wrong: either say 'can I gain access?' or 'can I see?' If the access is literal rather than metaphorical, use 'enter': not 'Can i access the premises?' but 'Can I enter the premises?'  

Language Change Presentation Summary

The Effect of Social Media Language Change 

Social media has helped us to develop a whole new range of ways to communicate including:

         •Acronyms such as ‘LOL’

         •Abbreviations such as ‘cus’ instead of ‘because’
•Neologisms (new words) such as ‘selfie’ which is a newly coined word or expression
•So people can get their point across quicker
•So that people can use emoticons and hash tags in their tweets
•Shorter tweets are also much more eye catching 

On some social media sites such as twitter you are restricted to only 140 characters therefore you have to adapt your language to communicate. This provokes people to using emoticons to express emotions, acronyms and abbreviations to shorten words as well as the hash tag (#) to categorize their tweets.

Such changes in language like hash tags are used in our everyday language, you can also find them all over popular culture such as cards, t-shirts and on TV.

Due to twitter users being limited to the amount of characters they can use they don’t type the way they would speak. This is for a variety of reasons:

1. People get their point across quicker 
2. So that people can use emoticons and hash tags in their tweets 
3. Shorter tweets are also much more eye catching

Lots of people assume that social media has dumbed down the English language, abbreviating words and changed meanings. However, there are also ways in which social media is strengthening the English language.

         •Social media can in fact help students to boost their creativity and become more aware of misspellings and poor grammar.

       •It also allows for language to be developed and updated to modern day

       •Social media language helps to save lots of time when wanting to talk to friends etc.

 

However, some spelling and grammar has deteriorated because of clippings and abbreviations being used so often on social media. 

Language Change Homework

Homework 22/01/16
Language Change


There are a few different attitudes towards language change, these terms express attitude:


Descriptivism- Happy to explore and embrace the change in English
Prescriptivism- Unhappy about the development in English and disapproving of the evolving language


Attitudes to Language Change and Technology- John Humphrys, Mail Online


John Humphrys has written an article about language and technology on the Mail Online. It is evident that John Humphrys has a prescriptive attitude towards language and technology and how our language is evolving. His prescriptive attitude demonstrates he is unhappy about the developments in English and is also very disapproving of the evolving English language.


John's prescriptive attitude is present in the title of the article 'I h8 txt msgs', this gives an immediate example of the fact that John has a prescriptive attitude as he is clearly unhappy with the development of technology and emphasises the use of abbreviations in the heading. To begin the article John comments on the fact he would much rather look up an unknown word in the dictionary as he states /infinitely more satisfying than looking something up on the internet'. This demonstrates John's disapproving attitude of how our language is evolving and also how we are putting technology to use in modern day life to find words that we are unsure of.


John describes his relationship with the Oxford English Dictionary: 'my lifetime love affair with the OED is at risk'. He uses comedy to share with his audience how he feels about the dictionary and how much more useful he finds it compared to looking up words on a computer. It is also evident that John has a prescriptivism attitude when he talks about how hyphenated words have changed in the last couple of years. 'It has removed the hyphen from no fewer than 16,000 words.' John uses statistics to back up his points which shows he is strong and passionate bout his beliefs.

Language Change

Task One
New words in the oxford dictionary

• E-cigarette- Another term for electronic cigarette which is a cigarette-shaped device containing a nicotine based liquid that is vaporised and inhaled to simulate the experience of smoking tobacco.  
• Netbook- A netbook is a small laptop computer designed for internet based applications
• Photobomb- To spoil a photograph of a person or things unexpectedly by appearing in the camera's field of view as the picture is taken, typically as a prank or practical joke.
• Retweet- On the social media website Twitter; to retweet means to repost or forward a message posted by another user
• Tan line- A tan line is a visually clear division on the human skin between an area of pronounced comparative paleness relative to other areas that have been suntanned by exposure to ultra violet (UV) radiation. The source of the radiation may be the sun, or artificial UV sources such as tanning lamps.
• Twerk- To dance to popular music in a sexually provocative manner involving thrusting hip movements and a low, squatting stance.
• On trend- Very fashionable.
• Blu-ray- A format of DVD designed for the storage of high definition video and data.
• Totes- Totally
• Jeggings- Tight fitting stretch trousers for women, styled to resemble a pair of denim jeans.

Task Two- Attitudes


There are a few different attitudes toward language change. Your task is to learn and define the following terms which express attitude:

• Prescriptivism- Also known as linguistic prescription; this is the practice of elevating one variety or manner of language use over another. It could imply some forms are incorrect, improper, lack communicative effect or of a low aesthetic value
• Descriptivism- This is the belief that the meanings or ethical or aesthetic terms and statements are purely descriptive rather than prescriptive, evaluative or emotive.
• Synchronic change- A diachronic study or analysis concerns itself with the evolution and change over time of that which is studied; it is roughly equivalent to historical. Thus diachronic linguists is also known as historical linguistics. A synchronic study of analysis, in contrast, limits its concern to a particular moment of time

Task Three
Attitudes to Language Change & Technology
The following TED talk and 3 articles are all about the relationship between language and texting. You may remember looking at the TED talk in your AS study. Watch and read them and make notes on the viewpoints of the writers and speaker. Do they display a descriptivist or prescriptivist attitude?

• John McWhorter TED Talk
• John Humphreys
• John Sutherland on Texting
• David Crystal on Language

Lexical and Grammatical Development of Children Summary

The Pre-Verbal Stage

• The cooing stage occurs when a child is roughly 8-20 weeks old where they produce sounds such as "aaaaah."
• The babbling stage occurs when a child reaches 9 months old and can produce sounds such as "ba, ba , bbb." 
• The next stage is known as verbal scribbling and happens when the child is 30 weeks old, this is where the child uses a range of consonants, vowels and fricative sounds which are produced when sounds escape through a small air passage in the mouth. 
• Melodic Utterance occurs when the child is roughly 9-18 months and the sounds they utter become more recognizable.  

Lexical and Grammatical Development 

Stage One- The Holophrastic Stage 

• Stage one is known as the holophrastic stage, this occurs when the child is roughly 12-18 months old. In this stage the child utters their first word and builds a vocabulary of holophrases also known as single words to convey meaning. At this age the child has learnt about 50 words and so from the pre-verbal stage has developed to understand 5 times more words. It is known as holophrase as oppose to words as they all convey the meaning of a phase or sentence through body language, intonation and volume related to the child everyday life e.g. "doggy" and "gaga". 

Stage Two- The Two Word Stage 

• Stage two is known as the two word stage, this is where children of aged 18 months begin to use two words at a time. Some call this stage the 'emergence of grammar' as it is now possible for a child to choose word order and make a simple grammatical analyses of the meanings of these sentences. They often consist of a noun and a verb the same as an objects and an action.                                           The type of utterances are more flexible with a range of grammatical functions e.g. 

1. An action affects an object- "Make bridge"
2. An order performs an action- "Mummy sleep"
3. An object is given a location 

• It is possible to work out grammar behind utterance and there are quite a few that defy definition and understanding including: "hot pretty", "mummy-daddy", "teddy-juice". These do not make sense but it is evident  that the child is asking for their teddy and some juice however they do not have the language skills to differentiate asking for this in two separate sentences. 
• The meaning relies heavily on context and a sympathetic listener 
• Correct syntax (Word Order)- "My Bed"
• Begin to use preposition- "On Head"
• Possession Words- "My Cat"
• Pronouns- "She Cold" = The child is able to refer to others as well as themselves

Stage Three- The Telegraphic Stage 

 

• At the age of 2-2 and a half years a child goes into the telegraphic stage, this is where the child begins to use sentences containing up to 4 words in length. Sentences with gaps where the non lexical words ( those without a dictionary meaning) such as "and", "but" and "if" (conjunctions) "the", "a" (articles) "is", "has" (auxilary verbs) as well as endings like "ing" are lost. E.g. go swim instead of go swimming. The child combines 3-4 words in a variety of constructions e.g. a statement sentence, a question sentence and a command sentece.
• After the age of 3 child langauge advances in leaps and bounds, although massive developments happen simultaneously and are linked together. The simpliest way is to divide them into four categories, these are:

1. Semantics
2. Phonology
3. Grammar
4. Pragmatics

Stage Four- Post Telegraphic Stage

 

• The post telegraphic stage begins at roughly 36 months in a childs life, this is where they start to become more grammatically complex and their development of reading and writing skills begin to improve. 

 

Investigating Language on Twitter

Introduction
Social Context= Power
Hypothesis= I predict that celebrity figures use power in language to portray a higher level of power compared to an average person, and attempt to build relationships between them and their audience.
This corresponds with the theory of Dan Clayton- Positioning and Stance.
In order to conduct this investigation various tweets were selected which were published by a celebrity and the average individual.

Methadology
I selected ten tweets using stratified sampling, five tweets from a celebrity and five tweets from an ordinary person.This involved taking every third tweet from the twitter accounts which avoided cherry picking and gave a wide variety of data. Furthermore my data had no obvious anomolies that would affect my results, and I did not know these people on a personal bias making the data reliable and unbias.
Benefits and limitations included the fact that these ten tweets were no where near representitive of the target population of twitter users and the tweets selected did not come from a very large pool. It may have been more reliable and respresentitive to take every 20th tweet from the users twitter. This also has further disadvantages as it is more time consuming to collect the data. Finally, I feel that ten tweets was no where near enuogh data to analyse accurately. As each tweet only has a maximum of 140 characters this made it difficult to analyse and annotate.

Analysis
So far in this mini investigation of language on twitter I have found that celebrity figures such as Katie Hopkins use more persnoal pronouns such as I, you, she, he etc. to adress their mass audience as indivuals. The use of synthetic personalisation 'you' helps Katie Hopkins to address her audience as individuals as it feels like they are the only ones she is speaking to. Furthermore, she is also found replying to her fans a lot which shows she does talk and adress her audience directly which is a positive but also demonstrates that maybe celebrities try not to be this authoritarian figure we impose them to be. Instead, they're more role models and celebrities like Katie Hopkins like to adress their mass audience individually by tweeting them. Katie Hopkins is a very opinionated individual which is good in her speech as she uses this to her advantage by influencing her opinion on others in her tweets. Lastly, Katie Hopkins also uses a number of empty adjectives by adressing her audience when replying to their tweets as 'lovely'. However, this language technique is more to do with the social context language and gender rather than language and power. On the other hand non celebrities tend to acquire more multimodality in their language to express emotion. For example, using sad faces to express the fact that they are poorly. Whereas Katie Hopkins tends to use connotations of emotion such as 'xxx' to represent kisses. However this again could in fact be an aspect of the social context language and gender.

Conclusion
I feel my hypothesis has been proved in one aspect and this is the fact that Katie Hopkins tends to use personal pronouns to address her mass audience as individuals and is talking to these people. On the other hand the non celebrity uses language in his tweets in general. He does not use any personal pronouns which shows he does not have anyone to direct his tweets to. Therefore this supports the theory of Dan Clayton and the fact that people in higher power attempt to build relationships with the writer. Whereas the non celebrity tends to use general language with no personal pronouns to show who in fact he is talking to. Due to the limit of characters istead of explain how he feels multimodality is used which implies he must not have much power. The male who is non celebrity uses multimodality in his tweets to express feeling however, the female who is a celebrity uses connotations of emotion such as 'xxx' to portray how she is feeling and furthermore she uses empty adjectives such as 'lovely'. This therefore makes me wonder whether I had chosen the wrong social context to study and my hypothesis should have been linked to language and gender, or whether I should have spent longer looking for my data and analysed more of it to come up with a better analysis filled with more language techniques and terminology.

2-3 Paragraphs of Analysis of the June 2013 Paper

Analysis on the June 2013 Paper

Study the texts A–G on the next seven pages.  These texts illustrate different varieties of language use.

Discuss various ways in which these texts can be grouped, giving linguistic reasons for your choices. (48 marks)

Texts A-G all illustrate different varieties of language use and can be grouped in various ways. One way some of these texts can be grouped is due to the graphology features used. Texts B, C, F and G can be grouped as all four of these texts are posters. Compared to all the other texts they immediately stand out, they are eye catching due to the big bold headings and subheadings although they lack a range of lexis. Texts C and F also contain images and colour making the texts much more appealing to their audience. For example the pragmatics in text C shows a chicken and a mushroom having a conversation. The chicken says “In a chicken and mushroom casserole, I’M THE MAN.” The mushroom replies “you are the chicken.” This shows a creation of a relationship with the intended audience of people who are looking into healthy eating. It includes humour into a healthy eating adverting portraying that healthy eating can be fun.

In addition the subject specific lexis stands out in texts D, F and G. For example in text D subject specific lexis is spoken between the two people having a conversation. They use the word ‘Morrissey’ to refer to a British singer and lyricist rather than his full name ‘Steven Morrissey.’ It may be only the adults talking during their night out that understand the meaning of Morrissey and other people not part of the group may not know what these people are talking about. Other subject specific lexis includes ‘fan’, ‘lyricist’ and other singer’s names to show the discourse of these peoples conversation. Similarly in text G where subject specific lexis is demonstrated in terms of technology for example the words ‘broadband’, ‘wireless’, ‘connection’ and ‘BT total broadband’. People who are not up to date with current technology may not understand the meaning of these words and therefore the lexis is specific to those who use technology and is aimed at a younger audience. Text F also demonstrates subject specific lexis through a poster about bike safety. For example words such as ‘bicycle’, ‘helmet’, ‘reflectors’ etc. show subject specific lexis, however most people are likely to understand these terms.

Language and Power Class Notes

Language and Power Class Notes

 -Conversations
-Political Speeches/ Debates
-Arguments
-Transcripts
-Letters
-Written Language i.e. eviction notices

 There are two types of power according to Wareing 1999 Political/Personal/Social group

1.       Instrumental Power
2.       Influential Power

Type of Power	Example:
Political	Held by politicians, the police and those working in law courts
Personal	Those who hold a position of power as a result of their occupation or role such as teachers or employers.
Social Group	Those who hold power as a result of social variables such as class, gender, age (typically) but not exclusively white, middle class men hold positions of power.

 

1.       Instrumental- When it is used by individuals or groups to maintain and enforce authority.
2.       Influential- When it is used to influence and persuade others:

·         Peer Pressure
·         Politics
·         Government
·         Media and Advertising

Task 1

 What does it mean to be powerful?

 

·         Being knowledgeable
·         Being respected
·         Be able to take control and have the last say
·         Leadership
·         Narccism (Love yourself)
·        Authority
·         Confidence
·         Responsibility
·         Encouraging
·         Assertive (In charge)
·         Intimidating
·         Being decisive
·         Being a role model
·         Experience

 What does not dictate power?

·         Age

·         Gender

·         Qualifications

 

What situation is an interview? How do you feel? What do you expect?

Interviewer- Instrumental

Interviewee - Influential

·         Interviewer uses interrogative questions

·         Put on the spot
·         We use declaratives e.g. ‘I will’
·         Try to project confidence in body language
·         Expect to use formal language and lexis
·         They have the power to give us the job: assertive, decisive, higher position of power
·         Use maxim of manner and maxim of relevance
·         Control the way we speak including tone/volume
·         Completely unfamiliar in terms of discourse

 

 

 

Shawshank Redemption Presentation

Shawshank Redemption
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KtwXlIwozog

 Parole Officer

 •     He starts off with the power, however his turn is shorter than Red’s and hence his moment of power is shorter

•       The conversation begins on the parole officers terms as he sets the agenda and frames the conservation by calling him by his full name- ‘Ellis Boyd Reading’

•       He speaks clear and rhythmically using formal lexis

•       He used imperatives such as ‘please sit down’ which uses maxim of manner, displaying his confidence of his authority because formality is uncommon in a prison.

•       However he doesn’t have maxim of quantity, but instead wants Red to use it in his speech to see if he can be released from prison.

Red

•       Personal authority: knows that the parole officer and him are not part of the same group so does not use “we”, uses “I” instead

•       Rhetorical questions: “What do you really wanna know?”

•       His authority is visible because his speech sticks to the four Maxims – the reason why he sounds eloquent.

Brown + Levinson's Face Theory and Grice's Maxims

Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Theory

Politeness can be described as normal social behaviour or a set of prescriptive social ‘rules’ also known as rules or things we do to be liked. Lots of linguists have researched into politeness including Brown and Levinson who developed their face theory in 1987, based on our desire to be liked.

Brown and Levinson’s theory is called the ‘face theory’ this is because of our public image which is important during everyday interaction. There are two aspect of ‘face’, these are positive and negative. Positive is the desire to be appreciated and liked whereas the negative face is the desire to be free and therefore not be imposed upon. Brown and Levinson also come up with the face threatening act (FTA) this is where an act is put on purposely threatens the face needs of others.

Politeness is defined as ‘using communicative ways to create and maintain social harmony.’ Brown and Levinson’s face theory relates to this is various ways:

·         Being appropriate
·         Following social and cultural normality
·         Being socially positive

People use politeness strategies in order to ‘save face’ by using FTA’s:

·         Not attempting to minimise face threat
·         Positive politeness, showing you value someone
·         Negative politeness, not impending on someone
·         Avoiding responsibility for the FTA by being indirect

Politeness strategies are also determined by contextual factors:

·         Power of relationship between listener and speaker
·         Social distance between listener and speaker
·         How great the threat of the FTA is

The aim of conversation is usually cooperative, therefore the more dangerous our FTA is, the higher number strategy we use.

 

 

Grice’s Maxim’s

Maxim of Quantity- A person attempts to be as informative as they can and gives as much information as needed and no more.

Maxim of Quality- A person attempts to be truthful and therefore doesn’t pass on false information or say anything that cannot be supported by evidence.

Maxim of Relevance- A person tries to be relevant and only says things relevant to the topic of conversation.

Maxim of Manor- A person attempts to be as clear, as brief and as orderly as they can avoiding obscurity and ambiguity.

Style Model Analysis

Travel Writing
http://www.theguardian.com/travel/2014/sep/06/mount-everest-base-camp-trekking-himalayas-trekking
I am taking my ideas for my travel writing from my style model: Trekking to Everest Base Camp by Alex Vink. Alex's travel writing includes lots of techniques and is written in the same style I would like to. The topic of his travel writing is a trek he goes on to Everest. This is very similar to the type of thing I am planning to write for my course work. I personally want to write about an experience I went on to Norway where I ran in the Kjeringi Open. Therefore Alex Vink's writing gives me lots of inspiration and structure for my writing.

The writer, Alex Vink uses lots of graphology in his travel writing including headings, sub headings and lots of pictures. This gives the reader plenty of imagery and helps them figure out the topic of the lexical field. To do this Alex also uses lexical sets as well as subject specific lexis which interests a certain audience of people who enjoy travelling or want to read about peoples experiences, the purpose of this test being to inform and entertain. Sibilance is used lots in the text to speed up the reader, "stone slabs" and "shy, sweet-toothed" this could represent the business and excitement of everything going on around the people trekking to Everest Base Camp. Lastly, the writer uses two complex sentences in one paragraph symbolising the hectic and chaotic atmosphere and helps the reader to engage with the text through imagery.

Article
http://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/sep/18/south-africa-racism-rugby
Although both my style models are from The Guardian, this article on Racism in Sport helps me to understand how articles are written in the third person and how they're set out. Looking at this article allowed me to be able to decide how I would like to set my article out and also to include dialogue to include other peoples opinions bedsides the writer as they can be bias depending on the topic of the writing.

This article by The Guardian similarly to the travel writing style model contains plenty of graphology which attracts the reader when seeing the heading, subheading and pictures. It distinctively tells the audience what the text is about and the picture gives out plenty of imagery so the reader can put their selves in the situation. The article also uses speech to put across other peoples views and opinions which can help the reader sympathise with the situation e.g. racism in sport. People may describe how it feels to be discriminated against for the colour of their skin and people can explain how it is extremely hurtful. Therefore this article has a purpose to inform and persuade people to do what they can to prevent racism.

A Monologue From The Perspective of Geoffrey

Geoffrey is a vicar. He is intelligent, friendly and helps the village community. He stands at the front of the church. It is early on a Sunday morning.

This mornings lesson was the business in the Garden of Gethsemane with Jesus and his disciples and Susan has disappeared once again. It's the traditional Holy Communion in the middle of winter, around this time I seem to be constantly apologising for my failure to de-frost the church. I love Sunday mornings, a day for the village to prey to Jesus and the holy spirit. The church wrapped in their thick coats due to the sub-zero temperature in the chapel. Unfortunately Mr Medlicott was unable to attend as he had shingles. He always plays the organ so Mrs Bee had to take over instead, she was very good and we sang songs it was so very peaceful and the village love the holy communions.   

Susan, my wife is probably at home. Sat upright on the chair in the kitchen as usual. Most probably smoking a cigarette ... and she doesn't think I know.  I also expect she's muttering under her breath about me being a vicar and believing in Christianity as she usually does.  She's been acting rather strange at the moment ...- although I trust she relies on me if she needs me. I ask what's wrong and I usually get back a grunt or some kind of noise that will usually mean leave me alone.

In the afternoon I usually have to wait for Susan to make an appearance, she tells me she often parks in the lay-by on the ring road asking herself what happened to her life ... she never wants to talk to me about her problems and she never wants to come to Evensong. I usually have to pretend she has a headache.. I no longer think its believable, she's had a headache for the past three months now. Susan doesn't understand why the vicar's wife is expected to go to church ... it's a mark of respect towards me - something she doesn't seem to have. I'm so loving towards that women but I'm beginning to wonder if she even feels the same.

Actually I'm beginning to wonder if she has any respect for me at all, she's constantly going to that shop around the corner and she thinks I don't know what she buys...-well, I'm not that stupid. She buys sherry, and she's in debt. I mean, how is it even possible to become in debt to a corner shop? The whole place is only worth a couple of hundred pounds. So anyway, she's started going to another shop she's found, run by an Indian family, they seem nice. However when I walk in they give me a funny look, almost like I've got ... three heads or something, they've probably never seen a vicar in public before.

Dramatic Monolouge Analysis- Bed Amongst the Lentils

1. Which techniques has Bennett employed to make this sound like spontaneous speech?

Throughout the monologue Bennett employs techniques to make his speech very spontaneous and to sound as though he is writing as he thinks. For example on page 32 Bennett talks about Susan's daily routine. "I top off a thrill-packed morning by taking round Meals on Wheels... somehow-'and this to me is the miracle', says Geoffrey." In my opinion this is very spontaneous speech as Bennett uses ellipses to make it seem as through he pauses implying he is writing spontaneously. Alan Bennett also includes lots of hesitation where he writes ... and fillers such as 'well'. He also includes long pauses or a rapid change in subject as the writer thinks of something else to include in the monologue. For example Susan talks about Ramesh Ramesh and then she would suddenly change the subject and go back to talk about him a couple of paragraphs later.

2. Read the opening stage directions. What key information do we learn about Susan?

The opening stage direction simply states 'Susan is a vicar's wife' this gives the reader a picture of how this women is presented. The first thing that came to my head personally was that she is very well mannered and very well dressed lady. Who has a respectful attitude and is someone younger people can look up to. However following the opening stage direction, Alan Bennett continues to describe her appearance 'she is thin and nervous and probably smokes.' This portrays a completely different image of Susan, that she is the opposite of everything a vicars wife should be. The reader now has an image of little old lady who doesn't look after herself very well and smokes. It may make the reader assume she is quite timid and that she has had something go wrong in her life.
'She sits on an upright chair in the kitchen. It is evening.' Overall the opening stage directions imply Susan is quite a shy old women who can also be extremely stubborn. She may have had something go drastically wrong is her life which could be why she smokes and is thin and nervous.

3. What does Susan's language reveal about her age, social class and attitude?

Susan uses more middle class sort of language, with complex words and with quite a stubborn attitude. She acts as though she is better than everybody else especially her husband Geoffrey who is a vicar. She is extremely discriminatory towards the Christian beliefs, which makes her social class very low and shows she has a childlike attitude. 'Geoffrey's bad enough but I'm glad I wasn't married to Jesus.' From initial thoughts Susan seems like an older women however her frame of mind and how she talks to her husband gives her a very young age mentally. In my opinion she likes to think she is an upper class, older lady however Alan Bennett presents her as quite immature with a lower social class.

Travel Writing- A day at the Beach

Everybody loves a day at the beach, June 14 France, Chez Moines.

As I sit on the gorgeous golden sands the crystal blue water looks right at me, the glistening reflection from the red hot sun makes the beach that little bit more beautiful. The grains of sand rest in my palm and in between my toes as I admire the view. The calm waves lap over the beach in layers and go back in simultaneously. I close my eyes and listen to the calm water lying still whilst a few children sing and play at the other end of the beach.

The abandoned rocks look picturesque as people get lost in the rock pools, midday arrives and the sun is beaming from the centre of the sky as the beach becomes busier. The atmosphere is beautiful, young families bonding with their children and the elderly enjoying the views and the fresh air. The air feels so clean and cleansing its lovely to be out in. As early afternoon draws to a close the sun lowers towards the sea becoming redder and redder by the second. The breeze chills the beach as the white ripples in the sea become more prominent as it heads towards the shore.

Late afternoon causes for a stroll along the beach, ice cream stalls surround the area like bee’s surrounding honey. Behind the beach a row of beautiful restaurants line the sea front, catching all the passers-by’s eyes calling them in with the beautiful patisserie. Not to forget those traditional French restaurants where the most appetising meal on the menu is either snails or frogs legs.  Early evening and the sun has dropped once more, the beach is completely calm and the sun is beginning to disappear creating the most beautiful reflection. The sky lights up red, yellow and orange as the sun drops down below the horizon.

As the sun goes down and the stars come up, I gaze up at them twinkling in the midnight sky, the scenery is beautiful and the sea goes back to being all settled and calm while it waits for the next busy day to begin.

Armstrong and Miller's Sketch

In the Armstrong and Miller's sketch 'Chalky's a Spy', the language used is very uncommon and informal for this era. This is partly why viewers would find the sketch interesting, the lexis and semantics used by the two men from the 1900's in this sketch would not be using the language teenagers of our generation use today. Throughout this lexical field there are lots of slang and simple sentences to discuss how Chalky, one of their colleagues is a spy. The lexis is easily noticeable especially for teenagers as this is the kind of language they use, this makes the discussion in the sketch very humorous and interesting.

Lexis such as 'swear down', 'oh my days' and 'homeboy' did not exist in the time period of which Armstrong and Miller's sketch was set. Therefore this is much more suitable for a younger generation who use slang and who know what the men are talking about. In my opinion this kind of language can educate younger people such as teenagers to understand events that happened years and years ago in a certain style that they are able to interpret.

The sketch also entails an element of humour which is entertaining for younger people but also educational in the fact that the slang words used such as: 'whatever', 'totally' and 'well betrayed' is the kind of lexis younger people use and are able to understand.

Tavel Writing Analysis

Language Frame Works of Charlotte Hobson's Travel Writing

Charlotte Hobson's travel writing by the name of Black Earth City contains lots of subject specific lexis related to travelling such as hostel, room, train, tram and luggage. Subject specific lexis can encourage an audience who enjoy reading about specific subjects be it sport, computer gaming or travelling etc. Charlotte's piece of writing automatically becomes interesting to an audience who enjoy reading about the genre of travelling. Charlotte includes subject specific lexis by using a range of sentences in her travel writing mainly including complex sentences. She has used complex sentencing in her writing to emphasise the cramped room in which she stayed in Russia, it portrays a strong image of the place.

Charlotte has also included phonology in her travel writing, she uses onomatopoeia such as juddering, chugged, crackled and buzzed to give a real sense of emphasis and enhances the reader or listeners imagination to all the different noises constantly surrounding her. Charlotte has also used sibilance 'the stink of the rust-coloured paint that had been splashed all over the ceiling and grimy lino floor rose up to meet us, along with a stale, sweaty smell.' The repetition of the sounds S slows the reader down and creates a vivid imagery, setting the scene.