Language change articles - analysis and comparison

Analyse the language used to represent the change/issue, comparing the two texts.

Prescriptive attitude article - Article 1
Descriptive attitude article - Article 2

Because the writer of article 1 wants to attract online readers to her article about how misusing words has damaged the English Language, she misuses the adverb 'literally' in the rhetorical interrogative in the headline in the way that people have misused it to cause broadening to its meaning. This is used to instantly engage and intrigue potential online readers, "Have we literally broken the English language?". The headline instantly represents the writer as having a prescriptivist view on language change due to talking about how that element of language change has effected the language, using the past participle adjective 'broken', indicating negative connotations towards how misusing words has caused broadening to occur diachronically. This, along with the pronoun 'we' to show that the online readers have contributed to the language being 'broken' can attract readers as they are intrigued as to why 'they' have broke the language and exactly why the writer thinks the language is broken. The use of the pronoun 'we' adds a sense of involvement to potential online readers intriguing them to read on, but can also seem like the reader is being positioned in a way that they are to blame; this would equally encourage them to click on the article to find out why everyone is being blamed on not just a minority such as young people. 
Similarly to article 1, article 2 uses an element of how our language is changing in their headline - an abbreviation - to attract potential online readers by playing with a feature of language change in a descriptive way "ICYMI,...". Despite being similar to article 1 in this way, they way that they have used the feature of language change is extremely contrasting as the writer hasn't depicted language change in a negative or prescriptive way, instead they have just used it to add a grammatical effect to it's informational declarative in the headline, not showing any representation of whether they think language change is good or bad - a descriptivist attitude. 

The representation of a prescriptive view in article 1 continues into the strapline and first sentence. In the strapline, the noun phrase "rather awkward state" is used to describe the state the English language is in as a consequence of misusing word such as 'literally'. The adjective 'awkward' suggests that now our language is in a very difficult position to potentially reverse, all because of one word, and this is intensified by the adverb 'rather'. This seems like the writer has used a sensationalism effect to engage the readers early on, and this sensationalism carries onto the first sentence of the first paragraph, as the snappy declarative "It's happened" indicates some thing very drastic has occurred, whereas actually all that has happened is the adverb 'literally' has broadened its meaning. The start of article 1 represents the writer as a prescriptivist as she is instantly focusing on the negative aspects of language change.  
On the contrary, article 2 uses a descriptive attitude in the strapline, using the neologism "fomo" to describe how parents don't know as many coined words as their children, consequently informing and potentially entertaining online Guardian readers, enticing them to read on in the hope that the rest of the article is as informing and entertaining. Using field specific lexis such as 'neologisms' and using elements of language change such as abbreviations and coined words may suit the online readers, as people reading the Guardian online are likely to be knowledgeable about these new coined words as they may use other online websites such as social media, or may just be interested in the topic; this descriptive view exploring and playing with language change suits this audience and may encourage them to read on.

The image and caption used in article 1 depicts the prescriptive view of the article as the image of the dictionary and caption "The English language … slipping out of our control?" emphasises the negative attitude of the writer. The interrogative using the verb phrase 'slipping out of our control' contains the intransitive dynamic verb 'slipping', suggesting that 'they' are slowly losing control of the language and gives a sense that it may eventually get out of hand if not 'controlled'. 
The caption uses the inclusive possessive determiner 'our' to position the reader as a part of the writer's group or idea that it is 'their' language that is being ruined, hoping to persuade the reader that language change is negatively effecting the English language. The image of the dictionary also adds an archaic element as the writer is focusing on the past of books and dictionaries, not being open minded into the present and future of how online dictionaries and books, such as an Amazon Kindle, are becoming very favourable and these technology advances are parallel to the advances in our English language. 
In contrast to article 1's image and caption, article 2 uses the multi-modal use of an image by focusing on social media apps and how they are an "influence driving changes in the English language" again taking a prescriptive attitude, opposite to article 1's general prescriptive attitude, judging the wrongs of language change. Again conversely to article 1, article 2 decides to focus on the future and how our language is being changed through social media and factors such as emojis, stating that emojis have a 'historical link' conveying their use as a positive.

Translating old text into modern English

From the play 'Hamlet' written by William Shakespeare between 1599 and 1602

QUEEN GERTRUDE
Good Hamlet, cast thy nighted colour off,
And let thine eye look like a friend on Denmark.
Do not for ever with thy vailed lids
Seek for thy noble father in the dust:
Thou know'st 'tis common; all that lives must die,
Passing through nature to eternity.

My translation to modern English: 

Good Hamlet, take your jacket off,
And let me see you be a friend to Denmark (the prince).
Do not spend your life with covered eyes
Seeking for your noble father in the ground. 
You know it is normal; that everyone must die, 
Passing through life to eternity.

It is clear that the syntax of language has changed a lot from written English around the year 1600 and modern English as it is now. An example of this from the play Hamlet is the line "all that lives must die", which I translated and changed the syntax to "that everyone must die". The syntax which slightly changed is "all that" now becoming "that all (everyone". This syntax may have changed diachronically to simplify language and make it easier to understand, seeing simplification was a major reason for language change.
The word 'lid' seems to have had a semantic shift, as the word "lids" in the original text has been translated to 'eyes'. This may potentially link to the original text meaning eyelids, but it could also have been a synonym for eyes in the 1600's and gone through a semantic shift, now having a very different meaning. Again, the potential semantic shift of meaning of the word 'lid' may have occurred diachronically to simplify language, making it easier for people to learn and easier for foreign countries to understand. This is an example of broadening as the word 'lid' is still refereed to as eyelids and the new meaning of lid has also been created.

Word that has changed its meaning

Husband

With Husband currently meaning a married man, it originally had a very different but now relatable meaning. The original meaning of husband was the head of a household. Husband is in fact not a native English word. It actually comes from the 'Old Norse' (which was a North Germanic language that was spoken by people living in Scandinavia) word hūsbōndi, which means the 'master of a house'. This was then borrowed into Old English as hūsbōnda. The old German words 'hus' and 'bunda' also meant 'house' and 'owner'. The slang 'hubby' was first used in the late 1600's and this is where the change in meaning started.
The meaning of the old and current husband do have a slight link, as the 'husband' home owners were desirable people to marry in the 13th century.

George Essay - Holiday homework

'Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake' essay

It could be argued that young readers shouldn't be corrected by their caregiver every time that they make a mistake as it is not allowing the young reader to see if they have made a mistake and then correct themselves. There are also better alternatives available to eventually help the reader correct their mistake and say the standard version of the word, such as by scaffolding, a concept developed by Jerome Bruner and then Wood and Middleton in 1975, developing on Vygotsky's theory of the zone of proximal development.

In the text, where George struggles, his mother helps him by giving him a strategy to overcome the problem he has with the reading, an example of scaffolding and Vygotsky as she knows the task is in his zone of proximal development, he just needs a strategy to complete the task (saying the word), as she says "sound it out". The school taught strategy of learning to read by phonics is used here by the mum, and once he completes half of the word, she helps him out midway through the compound word due to it being difficult to say for young learners due to the letter confusion of 'd' and 'b' so close together. By helping him in this way without making him struggle and then correct his mistake, she is helping him learn in a way - phonetic reading by sounding it out' that he can remember to use when trying to say other words. This help is critical as Lenneberg said that children need to learn early in their critical period, otherwise they will struggle to learn in later years. This is shown in the DeVilliers and DeVilliers investigation where a young boy called Jim found it very difficult to learn in later years as he had no lexical role models as both of his parents were deaf.

When George gets a word wrong due to the virtuous error of a word guessing error, mistaking 'never' for 'need', the mother doesn't correct him but instead uses negative reinforcement by saying "nooo". The negative reinforcement is mitigated by extending the negative particle 'no' and extending the vowel sound, making it seem less abrupt and acts as a face-saving act, protecting his face needs using Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies. After she says this, he self corrects himself by saying 'no we need', this shows he realised he made a mistake and knew what the correct word was, and self correcting is ideal as it makes the young reader think about the virtuous error they made and correct it themselves. This is similar to when George makes another word guessing error later on, mistaking 'upstairs' for 'upset'. This could have been because of the first few letters being the same - the word guessing error - but also because of the image showing the mum walking upstairs. The mother responds to the mistake by interrupting with "no" and then shows positive reinforcement by stating that it "looks like upstairs" and then gives a strategy to "but look at the word" showing scaffolding as she knows saying that type of word is in his zone of proximal development. The coordinating conjunction 'but' also shows that she wnats him to realise it is wrong. He does then say the correct verb; after both corrections, the mother uses positive reinforcement by saying "that's it" to make sure that he knows when he gets something correct his is doing well and will get praise for it. This is vital as young readers make a lot of mistakes and may be put off reading without support and acknowledgement of successes. If they were to be put off and stop reading, this would impact them greatly due to needing to learn early in their critical period.

Correcting a young reader when they make a mistake is necessary however as they sometimes would need to know directly if they have made a mistake and what the correct way to say it is, but caregivers can correct young readers with mitigation or adding strategies in as well for future reference. When George says the word 'house' without adding the plural inflectional suffix 's', the mother does correct him but also gives a strategy for him to get it right, showing scaffolding again, by saying "ez" and "watch the endings" giving him the strategy of what he can do. Due to the two second pause, it is clear that she wanted him to imitate but he may have actually thought that he said it correctly, showing that he potentially didn't understand the correction. This here shows that a straight forward correction may not always be the best idea as the child may not understand what is being corrected and they haven't been clearly given a strategy to complete the word properly, therefore in the future they may keep on making the same mistakes and struggle to eventually learn when they are older, shown in Lenneberg's critical period theory.

When George makes another word guessing error, mistaking 'made' for 'may' this shows a real pattern of his weaknesses which is the endings of words. The mother seems also aware of this therefore she jumps in straight away with the correction by saying the correct word of 'may', which George does imitate after and carry on with the sentence, recognising which word was the mistake. Correcting George in this situation may have been the correct decision because he wad previously made a lot of virtuous errors, most of which were word guessing errors, and may have been tired and not wanted to have been given a strategy to correct himself again, therefore she made the correction for him. This is again critical as you don';t want young readers to get disheartened about the mistakes they make and get put off reading in their critical period to learn.

Despite correcting young readers some of the time, it may not be the best idea to correct them every time they make a mistake as this doesn't give them the opportunity to self-correct or correct the mistake by being given a strategy by the caregiver, which they can then use for other words they get wrong and use that strategy to self correct.

Tom essay

Imitation and reinforcement are the most crucial tools for Child Language Acquisition - Evaluate

There are many theories based on Child Language Acquisition that are believed to establish the best ways for a child's language to develop, such as Skinner believing operant conditioning with positive and negative reinforcement coupled with imitation of the caregiver's standard use of language is key. Skinner contradicts the most influential linguists theory, Chomsky, who believes in his theory of Universal Grammar that children have an innate ability to understand the rules of syntax and they therefore say things they've never heard by overgeneralisation, and these virtuous errors show their understanding of language and syntax. This in turn supports Chomsky's idea and contradicts Skinner's idea as children can't learn non standard uses such as 'runned', adding the inflectional suffix 'ed', from adults as they have never heard it from adults, contradicting the viewpoint that children learn most from imitation. Chomsky is supported by Jean Berko Gleason and his 'wugs' theory, where children were shown a 'wug' something they have never seen or heard before, and when asked what 2 wugs were they replied 'wugs', showing their knowledge of the rules of grammar.

It could be argued that imitation is one of the mos crucial tools for a child's language acquisition. An example of imitation having a positive effect on a child's language acquisition is shown n the transcript, where Tom says the non standard noun phrase "The dad bike", and the mother simply replies "dad's bike" adding the possessive inflectional suffix "'s". After saying this and reducing her length of utterance to just 3 morphemes, Tom replies with "the dad (.) dad's bike (.) dad's bike...." eventually imitating the standard use noun phrase "dad's bike". After hearing his mother repeat the standard use of what he said, he internalises the standard use, but firstly starts to say the non standard phrase 'the dad'. He then self corrects himself and uses the standard form for the rest of the transcript, showing how effective imitation can be to improve a child's language and improve their acquisition of the language. This may have been helped by the mother using a smaller length of utterance than normal. Theorist Deb Roy said that the caregiver uses less complex language at the birth of a word, here being 'dad's bike'. Theorist Jerome Bruner also suggested that adults adopt their language in order to talk to children in an easier way and help their language develop, known as child directed speech; this is shown here as the mother imitates what Tom says but in a simplistic way, and consequently he gets the noun phrase correct. This links to what Skinner also said that it is easier for children to develop their language if another young child is speaking due to that other child's language already being more broken down.
Another example of imitation being a crucial tool for a child's language acquisition is shown in the transcript is where Tom says he 'killed the sheep', showing a lexical misunderstanding and overextension of what he actually did which is squashing the sheep. The mother replies "did you? what you squashed it". Tom then imitates the standard use by saying "yeah (.) I squashed it". Here, Tom accepts the alternative verb choice of 'squashed' which may be a euphemism to encourage Tom to use milder language. Again, this supports Skinner's idea that children learn through imitating speech of a caregiver.

Skinner believes that positive and negative reinforcement is very influential for a child to increase their vocabulary, and the development of a child's language is mostly due to positive reinforcement. In the transcript is an example of the mother using positive reinforcement to praise Tom's understanding and communication - after Tom says "is (.) dat your talker", where 'talker' is the non standard usage of the concrete noun tape recorder which conveys the use effectively, the mother replies "my talker? yeah (.) that's a tape recorder" with the positive particle 'yeah' showing the positive reinforcement to praise his knowledge and helps the modelled adult concrete noun 'tape recorder' can help him learnt he adult version instead of the coinage 'talker' what he said which supports chomsky.
The mother also uses negative reinforcement after he asks "is these drawing Cartoon Network cup of tea mum" where he over extends Cartoon Network for looking like something else. She replies "um (.) no (.) its a moving shadow mug...". The negative particle 'no' shows the use of negative reinforcement but Tom actually gets the response he wanted after using the language function labelling of the local topic the mug.

children's writng

Robbie Ogden
Year 4
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/lever/PROJECTS/41/xc41/xc4106x.jpg


In this piece of writing, the child overgeneralises the grammatical function of apostrophes, using them frequently when not needed after a word contains the inflectional suffix 's', such as "boy's". This shows this child understands the rules of needing to use apostrophes for certain words but has over applied the rule in this text. These types of virtuous errors link to Chomsky that children have a sense of grammar as they haven't exactly been taught to use apostrophes at the end of every word with the inflectional suffix 's' but they are using it here.
Capital letters are also used in the middle of sentences on numerous occasions, such as "hundred's of men played in the same game At the same time." The child may have made this mistake here as the word 'at' can be frequently used at the start of sentences in children's writing.
The child also spelt words only with their salient sounds, such as "becos" and wer".


Year 5
http://www.lancaster.ac.uk/fass/projects/lever/PROJECTS/53/RO53/ro5305x.jpg


In this piece of work in year 5, the virtuous error of applying apostrophes to most, if not all, words ending in the inflectional suffix 's' doesn't occur anymore showing the progress they have made in a year. This may have been corrected independently, but more than likely a teacher helped him with his overgeneralisation and helped him understand where and when not to use them.
However, the grammatical error of using a capital letter in the middle of sentences still occurs, such as "hunt by Day".

Why reading is so difficult research

Learning to read is incredibly difficult due to all of the irregularities and complexities of our language, such as letters alone and groups of letters having completely different phonetics. For example, the video uses 'comparison' as an example - each word in 'comparison' can be sounded differently at least twice, most three or four times. This is the case with most, if not all words. The inflectional suffix of 'ough' is especially difficult due to it being pronounced in over 8 different ways, and one researcher talks about how confusing the English language can be to young learners and learners with difficulty, such as the letter 'f' being pronounced as an f in most words, but uses the fricative sound for the word 'of' - the f being pronounced as a 'v'. 
This difficulty and complexity to learn to read the same spellings in different ways can easily lead to problems in written communication and then with social interaction.

Dr. Louisa Moats - "Learning to read an alphabetic orthography is a very artificial and unnatural act".
Dr. Paula Tallal - "Reading is one of the more complicated higher cognitive functions to learn - need to use attention, sequencing, memory, linguistic system, visual systems - they all need to coordinate. The more complicated the translation is from the orthography to the phonology is in a language, the more complicated it is to understand.

Children's reading development research

Who are the most popular children's authors for early years, infants and juniors? What are the elements of these books that are successful? 
Eric Carle (The very hungry caterpillar), Marion Billet (Noodles love to eat) and Raymond Briggs (The snowman) are a handful of popular authors and their respective books for children in the early years of reading. These books are successful due to how they include simple aspects of reading but are still incredibly entertaining to young readers - they engage young readers by keeping the story line simple and include engaging factors such as colourful images involving animals which children really enjoy, and areas where children can use more of their senses such as to touch different sensitive areas like the fur of an animal.
Allan Ahlberg, Judith Kerr and Rod Campbell are popular authors for infants, and
Roald Dahl, Julie Donaldson and Michael Bond are popular authors for juniors.
As children get older and their reading capabilities and vocabulary increase in complexity, stories become more engaging by including a meaning to the story - a bit like a moral to the story - while books stay engaging this helps children in their wider learning as well as just reading.

How are children taught to read in schools (there are different approaches so read more than one source)? What are the arguments for and against current approaches? Make sure you cover synthetic phonics and reading schemes.

In school, children are taught to read in numerous ways, one of which is by the words phonemes - 'phonics'. This is the most widely known method to teach reading, where the children must first be taught the alphabet and learn the letters and sounds that the letters make. Once having learnt the single letter sounds they are taught to blend letters together, making simple words and then adding another letter and so forth, e.g. a-t, i-t, c-a-t, f-l-a-t. 
Another method is the 'language experience approach'. This involves where a child may draw an imagine, and the caregiver will write a sentence about that image, such as 'the cat sat on the hat'. The child can then trace over these words to understand the meaning of them - this is a way to enhance a child's vocabulary in a meaningful way. Some people use this method as a first approach to reading to help their student understand what they've drawn and what you have written is a form of communication.
Another method is the 'context support method'. This is where a book will contain a long sentence read by the caregiver, and a much simpler, shorter sentence available to read by the child, often just 1 or 2 words. The books help the child stay engaged by using images such as cars or animals.
'Look and say' is a 4th method used to help children read. Using this method children learn to understand whole words or short sentences instead of just sounds - children will look at a word which the caregiver says and try to repeat the sound. Flashcards with pictures are usually used here. It is recommended that short sentences rather than individual words are used for this method. The caregiver should write a short sentence representing a picture displayed. They will then say the sentence and ask the child to repeat it while pointing at each individual word as the child repeats it.

What sorts of 'miscues' (virtuous errors based on misapplication of reading skills) do young readers make and how are caregivers encouraged to deal with them (again, numerous ways)?
Examples of errors that readers make(especially struggling readers) are 'whole word' errors when trying to visually recognise entire words as a whole unit, instead of simplifying it and just processing the printed word by sound. These errors indicate that children are not processing the prints phonetically - they generally mistake words for 'sight words' words which they have already learnt that look similar to the word they are trying to say, a few examples are:
mistaking every for very, scrape for escape, and agree for argue.
Tracking errors are similar to whole word errors - in this case, children are not looking at the words from left to right to sound it out properly, they look at the word as a whole and mix up the letters in the word - in these errors, the words they say are often contain the same letters but are in the wrong order. Examples of these are was for saw and slip for spill. There are many other mistakes children can make, including word guessing errors and letter confusion.
To deal with these mistakes, adults and caregivers are encouraged to firstly praise the successes of the child's reading abilities, if they have correctly read other parts of the text. When dealing with the mistakes, they are advised to allow the child to speak even slower, making sure they aren't rushing over the words and reading them as a whole, ensuring they read properly from left to right, and are also advised to read aloud to the child to help them understand what they are reading and imitate how they say a word - linking to Skinner's idea that children learn language from imitation.

Analysing Zach transcripts

In the Banana transcript, Halla sets the agenda the majority of time, asking frequent interrogatives such as 'What are you doing now'? Despite setting the agenda frequently which shows her power in discourse potentially due to her power (social group) for being the older participant, the total of 30 interrogatives asked in fact shows her co-operation and rapport style to include Zach in the conversation and prompt him to do the majority of speaking to enhance his learning and vocabulary, suggested by Tannen and the female 'genderlect' of a rapport style. Halla also asks 10 open interrogatives which allows Zach to take centre stage in the conversation and have the majority of air time; in the Robot transcript Halla only asks 7 open questions which would assume Zach had less air time and a lower mean length of utterance. However, Zach had a mean length of utterance of 7.5 in the robot transcript compared to 5.4 in the banana transcript. This could be because Zach is over a year older in the robot transcript suggesting his speech and vocabulary has improved, although the reason of a higher MLU in the robot transcript could be because a a high number of closed questions were asked in the banana transcript (15), considerably more than in the robot transcript (4) which would essentially lower the MLU due to shorter answers needing to be required. Jerome Bruner's theory of child directed speech is also supported in the banana transcript due to 5 repeats/ prompts made by Halla to encourage Zach to speak and the fact that Halla pursued Zach's topic of interest throughout to keep them engaged, coming from the pragmatics and grammar sections of his theory. The prompts/repeats also support Skinner's theory of positive reinforcement to encourage a child's learning by praising and responding to a young learning child.

In the banana transcript Halla echoes Zach's non-standard uses on two separate occasions e.g. 'are the skins off are they?'; this may be because Halla wants to encourage Zach to keep speaking and not disrupt his confidence by negatively reinforcing his mistake of over-generalisation, instead using positive reinforcement by repeating and responding to what he said, again supporting Skinner's theory of operant conditioning to encourage a childs development. This over-generalisation also supports Chomskys theory that children have a sense of grammar which has been 'hard wired' into the brain due to Zach using the non-standard use which he has potentially never heard before - this virtuous error does show an understanding of language. Despite echoing the non-standard use of 'skins' and the improper syntax of 'I think I don't', Halla does use the effect of modelling as well when Zach mistakes bolognaise for bolognay to encourage Zach to use the adult form of the word, again showing positive reinforcement. This effect is shown due to the robot transcript a year later having no non-standard uses apart from the improper syntax ‘waiting to get better for it’ which included a reformulation suggesting he knew what he was going to say in the first instance was wrong so tried to correct it, and after Halla says the proper syntax of ‘waiting for the robot to get better?’ he quickly interrupts saying ‘yes yes’- this interruption and 2 other interruptions from the banana conversation show support of the dominance theory that males interrupt more than females; however the interruptions could be because of the context of Zach getting something wrong and then quickly wanting to show Halla that he does understand the word order – apart from this, the correct syntax is used throughout both transcripts, showing support for Chomsky’s theory that children do have an understanding of syntax before they are properly taught it.

Using simple sentences in the majority of sentences in the banana transcript, it seems that Zach had improved his vocabulary and ability over the course of the year in between transcripts due to using multiple compound sentences in the robot transcript using frequent coordinating conjunctions such as ‘so’. Despite this there were a lot more pauses in the robot transcript and in particular in the longer utterances, potentially showing that he was struggling during the long utterances. However this influent speech may be because of his illness during the time.

Because of the illness occurring during the robot transcript which impacted on the fluency of his speech, the data could be unreliable when drawing conclusions. However, the illness didn’t have a substantial impact which consequently impacted on his vocabulary as he used more compound sentences and had a higher MLU compared to the previous conversation. Overall the transcripts do support Chomsky’s theory of children having an understanding of syntax due to Zach using the correct syntax throughout both transcripts for all but two times, one for each transcript, one of which he tried correcting at the start and hastily replied to the modelled version of what Halla described, and also supports Chomskys theory due to Zach saying improper uses of language that he has never heard before such as ‘skins’, where this virtual error shows a natural understanding of language use. Skinners theory that development of language is mostly due to positive reinforcement is also supported due to Halla responding to both proper and improper uses of language from Zach and consequently caused his MLU to increase. 

Lesson - Monday 3rd Ocotber

"Taking turns in conversation"

The length between utterances in a conversation between two or more people is usually just 200 milliseconds - just a fifth of a second.

As adults, we indicate we don't want to be interrupted by using linguistic features e.g. talking more loudly, repeating words in the middle of a sentence, and paralinguistic features e.g. glaring at the interrupter.

Sensitive to gap lengths in adjacency pairs - when an interrogative is asked, if a break between utterances of around half a second occurs (break point), something is wrong, e.g. "can i borrow your pen?"  reply within a fifth of a second indicates normality, the receiver heard it etc.
Break in utterances of over half a second indicates a problem e.g. they didn't hear the interrogative, they don't want to give you their pen. To summarise, if this question was asked in a standard conversation, if the answer the receiver of the question wants to say is no, the length between utterances will be longer, because it is more difficult to say no than yes.

Halliday and Dore

Michael Halliday's functions of speech
In 1975, Michael Halliday identified that childrens langauge in their early years has 7 key functions. He believed that children are motivated to learn language as they believe it enables them to serve certain functions for them, such as to express their needs. This is ultimately named 'learning how to mean'.

4 of the 7 functions are labelled as helping the child satisfy physical, social and emotional needs.
Instrumental: When the child uses language to express their needs - Example - " I Want milk"
Regulatory: Where language is used to tell others what to do - Example - "Come here"
Interactional: Where language is used to form a relationship/ socially interact with others - Example "Love you mum"
Personal: Use of language to express the speaker's identity or/and feelings - Example - "I've been good today"

The other 3 functions are heuristic, imaginative, and representational. These help learning children understand the environment they are in.
Heuristic: When language is used to gain knowledge about the environment - Example - a running commentary of a child's activities "look at the fox"
Imaginative: Language is used to create expand the child's imagination, usually by telling stories
Representational: Using language to convey facts and information - Example "I have long hair".

John Dore's infant language functions

These are much more simple and basic to understand compared to Halliday's slightly more in-depth theory. Still similar to Halliday in the fact that children still learn language to develop necessary functions, they are just a lot more basic.

Labelling - Naming or identifying a person, object or experience
Repeating - echoing language spoken by a more accomplished speaker
Answering - Directly responding to an interrogative or declarative (or any utterance) by another speaker
Requesting action - demanding something e.g. food or drink
Calling - shouting/ loudly talking to attract attention
Greeting - simply saying "hi" or "hello" 
Protesting - Objecting to a request
Practising - Repeating language that the child speaks when no adults are assisting, trying to independently develop their language.

In the transcript, relating to John Dore's infant language functions, it is actually the accomplished speaker who does the repeating of words or phrases, acting as interrogatives; this may be used to enhance the learning of the young speaker and encourage them to keep talking which will inevitably enhance their language skills and ability.
Furthermore, just 1 of the 4 functions used to satisfy physical, social and emotional needs (Halliday) was used "i got food on the floor". The reason that the other 3 from that category such as instrumental function were not used was because Zach was mainly talking about what he was doing at that moment, not needing to request for things. Because of this, many heuristic and representational functions were used because the interrogatives being asked allowed for a running commentary style conversation to occur, where Zach was detailing what he was doing throughout the conversation, also showing the simple 'labelling' occuring from John Dore's theory, such as "here's the skins".

ideas of theory and data - investigation

distinctive features of language use - Most probable I will investigate
Robin Lakoff's deficit model - focus on if it is true that women use uncertainty features, possibly compare to if men use them at all, or compare a woman's in 3 different situations, making it reliable, e.g. formal interview, informal chat show etc - ensure i mention if it is planned speech.
Zimmerman and West - dominance - if it is true that men dominate conversations due to their 'perceived' superior status e.g. talk for 2x long, interrupt more - if so, make sure comparable factors are correct to enable this investigation to happen.

Language change
The change of language over time - effect of technology, social media - investigate the language of someones / a company's official website compared to twitter feed.
Historical changes of the English language over time - Shakespeare, 20th century, modern day

Language of certain jobs 
Sports commentary - how it is different from analysis after game and normal speech
Language of the media - how tabloids are different from other tabloids and broadsheets

19/09/2016 - Vygotsky

Vygotsky's zone of proximal development (ZPD

 The zone of proximal development is defined as "the distance between the actual developmental level as determined by independent problem solving and the level of potential development as determined through problem solving under adult guidance, or in collaboration with more capable peers" by Lev Vygotsky in the last 10 years of his life. Because of his early death, this theory is not yet fully developed.

In a nutshell, it is the difference between what a learner can do without help and what they can do with help.

Vygotsky stated that a child will follow an adult's example of doing a task and gradually develop the ability to complete this task without any assistance.

Among other educational specialists, Vygotsky believed that the role of education is to provide children with tasks that are within their zone of proximal development to encourage them to keep learning.

He also believed that, instead of determining a child's knowledge based on tests given in schools (based on memory in a way), their development of their learning and knowledge should be based on their ability to solve problems independently and then with the assistance of an adult.

A concept of 'scaffolding' has been gradually developed by theorist Jerome Bruner, and furtherly developed by Wood and Middleton in 1975, supporting Vygotskys idea. They believe that this idea is that, when helping learning, a teacher or adult will help a child with a task within the child's ZPD, and will later reduce the amount of help as it becomes unneeded due to the child understanding what is needed to complete the task.

http://www.simplypsychology.org/Zone-of-Proximal-Development.html#scaff

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Zone_of_proximal_development

Me as an English Language student

As an English language student, I developed my skills of working effectively and efficiently on a variety of different pieces such as comparative essays and opinionated articles. What I found the most challenging was to quickly identify techniques used in a piece of work, such as the task in paper 1, and would also be unsure that if the techniques I identified were meaningful enough to write about to a good standard. To do well this year especially in paper 1, these skills of mine will need to be improved. 
Despite this, I enjoyed the topics learnt such as the effects that accent and dialect can have on your speech, most probably because I come from Bristol which has a unique dialect. Consequently, I use multiple traits from the Bristol dialect such as "where you to".

Creative piece

http://www.deathpenaltyinfo.org/facts-about-deterrence-and-death-penalty

http://www.bbc.co.uk/ethics/capitalpunishment/against_1.shtml                  

http://oadp.org/facts/13-reasons

Two wrongs don’t make a right – why the death penalty is wrong and even the worst of us still have the right to live – speech

Article 2 of the Human Rights Act 1998 – the right to life. The first and most important human right stated in the act. Yes, the majority of people on death row have taken someone else’s right to life away, but does that mean their life should automatically be taken away from them when found guilty of murder? Their most basic right violated? Do two wrongs make a right? Everyone knows that the answer to these questions are no. Seeing that murder is palpably wrong, and everyone knows and has been taught that from a young age, that murder is a punishable crime, then what is the point of the death penalty? What is it teaching us?

Think of the torture INNOCENT people go through when wrongly accused of murder and sentenced to death row, let alone the guilty criminals! The statistics on this matter is shocking; over 150 innocent human beings were set to endure the most inhumane experience anyone could possibly receive – life on death row (with the average time spent their being 11 years) – and tens of innocent people have been wrongly found guilty of murder and subsequently killed due to the death penalty, and yes ALL innocent. Imagine being that innocent person, knowing that a human error of misjudgement in the court will lead to the most inhumane experience happening to you – an innocent person. Or the person whose job it is to end the lives on death row, knowing deep down that they are guilty, but their life MUST come to an end, and you have the job of ending that innocent person’s life. Sickening. Luckily many convicts were eventually found not guilty, but still it is inexplicable that anyone can go through the terror of knowing they could be killed any minute of any day, be it they are innocent or not, for 11 years.

Forget the direct victims of this terrible idea, think for a second of the indirect victims. Imagine you were part of the firing squad – your job being to end the lives of others, the cruellest, most disgusting and most inhumane job there is on earth. How would you feel? Knowing how you pay your bills, how you are able to put food on the table, is to KILL other human beings. Yes human beings. These poor victims of this cruel penalty must be scarred for life. MANY workers on death row end up having terrible disorders such as Post Traumatic Stress Disorder. It is sickening, for both the criminal and the workers. Think of how their family members are affected. Their children, who may be frequently asked in schools “what do your parents do for a living”. They would need to reply with the utterly embarrassing statement of being part of the firing squad, to kill people on death row. How would you feel if you were that child? Having to share that your parent is essentially a murderer!

One of the main reasons for the death penalty is to act as a warning to other would-be criminals, where you would believe that is has a huge effect at dissuading serious crimes to be committed, especially the ones which merit a place on death row. So, what effect does the death penalty have? You may ask. The answer is little. Very little. The fact that the death penalty has minimal effect on dissuading criminals from murdering people or committing crimes resulting in being sentenced to death is both laughable and saddening. Multiple surveys from the United States show that there is an overwhelming majority of leading criminologists believing that the death penalty does NOT act as a deterrent to homicide crimes, and states where the death penalty is allowed have a higher homicide rate - 5% in 100,000 people – compared to states which have abolished the death penalty at 4% in 100,000 people! An incredible statistic with disgusting results. Capital punishment being pointless is an understatement.

I would like to conclude this by stating that not only is the death penalty inhumane and ineffective at stopping crimes, but the death penalty is essentially a lottery to when it is used - of the average 16,000 murders committed every year in the US, only around 120 of the defendants get killed – a measly 1%. With this being the case, why even have the death penalty? If only 1% of murderers will be sentenced to death row? Imagine being part of that 1%, knowing the vast majority of all other criminals will be able to live the rest of their lives, but yours must come to an abrupt end because of this ridiculous, lottery-esque excuse of REVENGE, not JUSTICE.

Thank you for listening.

Mini saga

BANG.
The bus had been shattered. Destroyed. Obliterated.
They had never witnessed anything like this before.
Deafening cries and shrieks were heard from nearby.
The news slowly started to filter through to loved ones.
"Don't get upset son" said the father, "You have plenty more toys you can play with".

Style models

Opinion
Articles - http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/jun/15/liar-idiot-voting-leave-lefty-brexiter-eu-referendum
http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2016/apr/24/boris-johnson-eu-referendum-barack-obama-slur
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/education/educationopinion/9966117/Text-speak-language-evolution-or-just-laziness.html

informative text samples

http://www.theguardian.com/media/mind-your-language/2016/feb/04/english-neologisms-new-words

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11574196/new-forms-of-social-media-terms-which-parents-do-not-understand.html

My findings from Mondays lesson - 14/06/16

Book title - The language report
Author - Susie Dent
Year the book was published - 2003
First edition
Published by - Oxford University Press (OUP) in 2003
Area/city published - New York
Pages - 160

"We should need new words. The old ones just wouldn't fit."

This quote from Susie Dent shows two statements I can test - firstly, the need, use and creation of new words, and secondly how the meanings of words changing, relating to how the old ones no longer 'fit'.

Gender Article

Write an opinion article in which you discuss the idea that women should change their their language.
Audience: Guardian comment is free readers

How a woman can become more successful by changing her language
Women could become more powerful by dropping their defensive language traits

Self-deprecation and an apologetic style may be beneficial in everyday talk when establishing friendships and talking to friends, but using this language in business and high pressure meetings such as 'I am probably speaking out of turn but...' show weakness, uncertainty and a lack of authority - this is, according to studies, frequently used by women and can consequently limit their potential in high profile job roles. "Why is a man's potential not limited?" You may ask; the answer is simple - because they don't use this weak, defensive style of language!

The fact that some language theorists such as Deborah Cameron who believe men and women do not talk differently is simply ludicrous. Cameron, who invented the 'discursive model' [hyperlink to Deborah Cameron wikipedia page] believes that your gender doesn't influence your language, and that the belief that men and women talk differently is "one of the greatest myths of all time". Why is it? Men are direct, discourteous due to their competitive approach to conversations and aim to dominate conversations through holding centre stage and interrupting people, compared to women who are polite, respectful and care more about language. Reputable language theorist Deborah Tannen [hyperlink to tannen wikipedia page] described in her 'difference model' just how much men and women differ in their language use and what they aim for in conversations - men want 'status' compared to a woman needing 'support', and a man wanting 'competition' compared to a woman wanting 'co-operation' are just a few examples of the differences. This translates to make a huge difference in circumstances such as business meetings, where, explained by Tannen, men are competent in speaking in public situations where they are comfortable in taking centre stage in a 'report' style, and are not afraid to have competition with other people in hostile situations.
Conversely, women are more comfortable in speaking in private conversations where they aim to establish connections with other people where they aim for co-operation and support - this could be interpreted as women being weak seeing they need 'support' which could leave them vulnerable in situations such as boardroom meetings.

"Women who try and claim a public voice are treated like freakish androgynes". Explained by classical scholar Mary Beard, it seems it will be a long time until women are treated fairly when claiming a 'public voice' due to the harsh reality of how they are treated, many describe they are merely a 'mute in the public sphere'. This however may be because of a woman's language style, being uncertain, defensive and apologetic. This allows men to take advantage of what they love to do - take control of a conversation.

Robin Lakoff is a highly regarded language theorist, researching women's language use in the 1970's, creating the deficit model, believing that men's language is normal whereas women's language is deficient due to their frequent use of 'uncertainty features' such as back-channelling [hyperlink to dictionary page with backchannelling definition], being uncertain when describing things, eg 'sort of...' and 'kind of...', and the frequent use of declaring a thought and then needing to question their own thought such as "it's cold in here, isn't it?" known as a tag question. These uncertainty features are all very similar to using an apologetic style and self-deprecating which is also a part of a woman's language use which consequently makes them seem weak and defensive, an approach which certainly has no place in work, especially hostile business meetings for example. How men survive in high profile jobs is through their language style of trying to dominate conversations and speaking in a direct manner and consequently talking for twice as long as women due to their perceived superior status, and being able to take the lead in conversations and use techniques to shut down women in conversations known as 'constraints'. Research conducted by theorists Zimmerman and West [hyperlink to dominance model information page] show that in 11 conversations, men interrupt 46 times compared to women interrupting just twice, and men talk for twice as long. Because of a woman's uncertainty in their language, men frequently are forced to explain things to women which they may already know in a condescending manner known as 'mansplaining', a reason which may also be accountable for men needing to be a powerful participant and take the lead in conversations.

If women don't start to change their language and become less defensive and uncertain, people's beliefs and thoughts towards women, their language and competency to take control in challenging situations may never change.

Comparison work 10/05/2016

Text A - YouGov website

Because the editor of the YouGov website wants to make online readers feel engaged with the topics surrounding the website, the polite interrogative "what would you like to do?" This interrogative is directly linked to multiple hyperlinks underneath showing what the actual readers can do. This clever use of graphology using hyperlinks shows the affordances of the text as the reader is directly involved straight away through the poll available under the hyperlinked title 'take part'. The cloaked imperative acting as a rhetorical interrogative below 'Would you support or oppose Britain phasing out the use of the one penny coin?' Coupled with the use of direct address, this shows that, relating to Hudson's dimensions of mode, the text has quite a high level of degree of interactiveness due to how easy it is to be involved in a poll relating to one of the main headings. In addition to this, the reader, which the editor of the website believe the implied readers are internet users who have interest in governmental debates, can also take part by creating an account, showing the type of intervactiveness is to connect with others online.

Another hyperlinked heading adopts the title 'Discover our products and services'. This imperative starts with the discourse marker 'discover'. This transitive dynamic verb gives off an enthusiastic essence, making the reader believe that what they will be 'discovering' will be exciting. Using this is trying to keep the actual readers engaged with the website and potentially lead them onto other pages of the website. Similarly, the third hyperlinked heading starts with the discourse marker 'Latest'. This superlative has connotations of 'breaking news' which the editor hopes will hook the reader into exploring the website more through clicking on the hyperlink, showing the affordances of the text.

The short imperatives used at the bottom of the page 'take part, 'see results' and 'find solutions' remind the reader of what is available for them to do on the website; the editor of the YouGov website seems to use these in a last gasp attempt to keep readers on the website by, not just making them titles, but hyperlinking them as well, again showing the affordances of the website, using influential power. The typographical effects of the titles are very simple, using a clear font colour, size and font, relating to the degree of formality of the text which is formal due to the nature of relating to the government using standard English, but does try to suit the needs of all potential readers by involving multi modal effects such as polls and images.

Text B - BBC news report

The writer of the BBC news report aims to grip the reader to the article by informing them of a lot of information about the election, using frequent short declaratives, packed with information. This relates to what the audience are hoping to see in the report, which is expected to be information on the election, which is easy to understand and read. This is shown through each individual piece of information having its own paragraph with simple typographical effects used such as simple font types and colours.

Comparison

Because the BBC need to engage the reader on a fairly dry subject, they use concise declaratives packed full of information to grip the reader. Similarly, the YouGov website uses a similar stance by using short quotes of information which relates to governmental debates to make sure the readers may come back to the website again.

Occupation article

Write an opinionated article about the use of work language in other contexts.
Audience - Guardian Comment is free readers.

Why our work should stay in the office
With our work troubles already hounding us enough, coming home to criticize and moan about our jobs, it seems that the language we use at work is also following us wherever we go, which, by all means, is not good.


When out and about, relaxing, work should be the last thing on people's minds and especially what comes out of their mouths. Despite this, I constantly hear people, unfortunately myself included, using jargon that can be understood, but should by all means be kept in the workplace. This exclusive lexis should be kept for people in our discourse communities like work colleagues who understand what is being said and why. According to theorist Goffman, your 'face needs', what people think about you due to how you come across in conversation, may be flouted and threatened due to people not knowing what you are going on about, or generally think you are trying to seem like a 'know it all', using specialist language that really doesn't suit the conversation - be it intentional or not. In addition to this, people may feel they are being overpowered in a conversation, due to such specialist terms being used that they are unable to contribute to a conversation, causing an unequal encounter.


In contrast to the thought that people believe that learning from work related language can help broaden your knowledge, it is clearly not the same for many aspects of work - should nurses or social workers be confusing young children with language of such complexity? Or teachers at home using their instrumental power on their children (who may be already tired of school talk) the same as they would in a classroom? It clearly wouldn't benefit anyone.

Accent and Dialect article

Audience - regular guardian readers who are interested in the general language topic, surrounding accents, dialects and other issues.

Are we afraid of our own accent?

In light of the recent interview between Russell Brand and Ed Miliband where the latter seemed to be refining his accent to possibly 'connect' with his potential voters, is it true that we are afraid of our own accent, and need to regularly chop and change it to be liked and gain popularity?

Conformity is a regular occurrence in the social sphere - people change their beliefs and behaviours to be 'in' with the crowd and be liked, to gain popularity, to fit in. However, this is very similar to what is starting to occur with our accents; people are using 'covert prestige', a similar concept of changing their accents and dialects to fit in and avoid being judged (perhaps), but should people need to be converging their accents to suit the people they are with - can't we be happy and unafraid of being judged of our own voice?

This seems to be the case with Ed Miliband in his interview with Russell Brand, who slightly altered his original accent of Received Pronunciation using a slightly informal tone - 'yes' became 'yeah', glottal stops were used, and features were used such as elision shown through 'going to' becoming 'gonna' to potentially impress voters and converge with the people who will be voting in the general election. This just shows that even famous politicians are at threat of being pressured to change their accent to 'fit in', but why is this happening? According to language theorist Howard Giles' accommodation theory, Ed Miliband may have changed his accent to 'accommodate' the person he was talking to, in this case the strong Cockney Russell Brand, where he used a style of 'downward convergence'- a tool where general RP users tone down their accent when speaking to a person of lower class. Another example of this is the Queen who has been analysed to have toned down her strong RP to converge with the people, showing that even the most prestigious of people have, over time become uncomfortable in their own voice and have resorted to slight changes in their accent!

The opposite of downward convergence also exists, stated by Giles' accommodation theory, known as 'upward convergence', which is a more common occurrence where working class people eliminate strong regional features of accent and dialect when speaking to people of a higher class or users of RP; one example of this is covert prestige, where people use RP or standard English dialect to fit in with the crowd and to be accepted. However, why should this be the case - is it people feeling generally concerned about their accents, or has it come from persistent judging from prescriptivists who are overly obsessed with correct and 'acceptable' language use? A study done by William Labov named '4th floor study' shown that middle class workers in a prestigious retail store in New York used overt prestige when asked a question in which the sound of a 'rhotic R' would be used to prononce the word 4th, which is classed as an upper class style of language to use in the area. After being asked twice, the middle class workers, compared to upper class staff, had a much higher upward shift of the pronunciation of the rhotic R, maybe in response to not using it enough the first time, therefore being afraid of not sounding prestigious enough, but why is this? Can't we be comfortable with our own voice, a sign and reminder of our upbringing and where we come from?

Many language theorists suggest that, with people constantly moving up and down the country due to work and university, accents are becoming weaker due to 'dialect levelling', where people pick up regular occurrences of the accent where they are living and consequently drop parts of their own accent, but is this because of the reason generally thought of, or is it because people are not comfortable with their own accent and therefore want to feel respected and fit in by using features of the dialect where they are living - using covert prestige? Are students who go to university trying to gain a discourse community with fellow students, to share a lexical understanding, or are they changing because of being afraid of judgement, uncomfortable with their own dialect and voice? Whatever the reason, it is clear to see that prescriptive attitudes towards accents and dialects have caused people to change them to be respected and to fit into the social sphere.

Gender Speech

Audience - youth parliament hoping to make an impact in relation to gender equality issues.

Title - Will women ever be able to claim a public voice?

Why, in this modern era, are women still frowned upon when speaking in public, trying to 'claim' a public voice? Why has it got to a stage where they have to fight to even 'claim' a public voice? It shouldn't be this way, and if it continues can greatly affect our future in terms of parliament elections - why did our only female prime minister Margaret Thatcher need lessons on talking more like a man? Even she was affected by the opinion that women do not hold the power to establish authority in the public sphere!

Famous scholar Mary Beard once stated that women who try to 'claim' a public voice are treated badly, like 'freakish androgynes'! Can you let this continue? One factor contributing towards this is that women are not valued as highly as men when trying to establish authority because men are 'deep-voiced' with 'connotations of profoundity' causing women to be a 'mute in the public sphere' - all because of the sound of a voice! Why should that matter? Surely what comes out of someone's mouth is more important don't you think? This can lead to women being afraid to speak out in the future, and therefore things may never change - all because of the sound of their voice not being as 'deep-voiced' as men's, therefore without having connotations of authority and profoundity. Are you going to let this continue?

This problem leads to men dominating conversations due to their 'perceived superior status', opinionated by theorists Zimmerman and West; they also state that men generally talk for twice as long as women, holding the authority in a 'report style' explained by Deborah Tannen, where men hold centre stage in a conversation by talking in an anecdote style, showing they realise the power they have and therefore use that to totally block out women in a conversation, using constraints in the process causing unequal encounters where women may be 'shouted down'- this shouldn't be the case. In addition to this, men interrupt women over twice as much as women do so to men. Consequently, women may be nervous when in a position of talking in a conversation with men, as they know that men associate a conversation with a 'competition' explained by Tannen, and therefore maybe quick to shut them down, causing the women to use fillers and non fluency features such as stuttering.

This shows that women when in the company of men may never be able to express their thoughts in a manner they would like, and may then therefore never be able to 'claim' that public voice as they will never gain recognition of being confident when speaking in public. This is shown by Tannen stating that women prefer to speak in private in a rapport style, establishing connections, rather than in a competitive style like men do, as they may feel intimidated by men when speaking such as on the public stage - but why should they feel intimidated?

This could all change if men and women actually understood each other in conversation - in John Grey's book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' he states that there is a strong miscommunication between men and women, linking to Pamela Fishman's idea that communication regularly fails between men and women; women care more about language than men do, and therefore may be the reason for pauses and non-fluency features, to make sure what they say is correct and comprehensible! Maybe, if a step was made for the sexes to understand each others speech, then it may be the start of a long road to women feeling comfortable when 'claiming' a public voice, and men not to frown upon them in doing so.

How our language is changing due to gender issues

Audience - Guardian readers with interest in the English language.

Why is our language changing due to gender issues?

Despite believing we are a gender friendly community, equal to all, only recently has our language been changing due to issues regarding gender. Why were there issues in the first place? To what extent are these issues changing our language? you may ask...

According to many language theorists, it may actually be our views on language that is changing - not the language itself. Renowned gender theorist Robin Lakoff claimed that female language is 'deficient' compared to men's due to certain language features women use which supposedly show uncertainty and a weakness in language such as 'tag questions', added onto the ends of sentences to gain an understanding with the receiver such as "isn't it?" You know? In response to Lakoff believing women are 'deficient', Pamela Fishman claims that actually these uncertainty features women use are signs of showing power in the conversation without actually dominating it, dictating who speaks, co-operating with other members of the conversation. This adds a different perspective on the whole issue of gender equality in language, along with the straightforward approach Deborah Cameron has in insisting that men and women do not talk differently, therefore discounting the fact there are gender issues in language, as people 'do gender' - a way of talking in a way that suits your audience and situation.

Scholar Mary Beard once claimed that women who claim a public voice get treated badly - like 'freakish androgynes' -  and are not valued as highly as men when seemingly trying to establish authority, declaring that women are a 'mute' in the public sphere. In addition to this, she later claimed that men are 'deep-voiced with connotations of profoundity', something that females are stereotypically not associated with, meaning men generally dominate conversations using their 'rapport' style according to Deborah Tannen, a way in which men hold centre stage through communication giving 'anecdote' style talks to maintain authority. Is our language changing because of this? To accommodate women without the 'connotations of profoundity'? This is shown through Margaret Thatcher having lessons to make her voice more 'manly', to sound like a person (man) who holds authority, showing that in the past people have tried changing their accent and language use. Was this a wise thing for her to reveal, or did that start the whole frenzy on sexism involved in language and why our language now has to change because of women not feeling 'valued' enough to appeal to be powerful when talking?

To 'put to bed' a lot of issues surrounding gender inequality in language, Gary Nunn's article suggested releasing a 'gender-neutral pronoun' - this way, people can have the choice of keeping themselves anonymous in many different scenarios by not giving away information on their gender, and can help with supposed sexist terms where men are perceived to be superior such as phrases like "it's every man for himself", and "man up" - both have connotations to strength and willpower, something stereotypically linked to men, and unfortunately not to women, linking to Mary Beard's thoughts on the matter.

In addition to this, changes have already been made in relation to a change in language due to gender issues, mainly relating to sexist terms, as many previous marked terms such as policeman and policewoman now becoming police officer to offer equality in occupational job roles.

Comparing different texts

FIFA Wikipedia website
FIFA article


In the Daily Mail article, the writer uses the personified verb phrase "brought to its knees" in the headline to inform the implied reader, who are interested football fans, that the world governing body of football (FIFA) have been caught out in a 'corruption scandal'; the plural personified noun "knees" additionally emphasises how much of an impact this will have on the organisation. Because the article is an online tabloid, the writer uses the fact it is slightly informal as an affordance to attract the audience to the article from wherever they may be browsing the internet from. In addition to this, the writer uses the controversial rhetorical interrogative "Isn't an ethics committee at FIFA a contradiction in terms?" This affordance furtherly engage with the reader and make them think more about what the article is stating, keeping them hooked to the article. Because of it being an online tabloid, the reader may expect this. The fact that the contraction "isn't" is used signifies that the question may be a tag question to get the reader involved, as the formal use of the interrogative would just start with 'is...'. Despite the fact that the website is based on the same topic, the grammar used is very much more formal, using simple and complex sentences throughout, both acting as ways to keep the reader informed in the most simple way possible whilst also giving more in depth information. Furthermore, most sentences start with the preposition 'in' for example "in December 2010" "In November 2013". Conversely to the Daily Mail article, this website shows very little sign of using strategies to keep the reader fully interested as they potentially know that the visitors of this website would have looked on the website by choice.


The graphological features of the article relate to the fact it is only a tabloid and therefore use multi-modal effects such as multiple images throughout to keep the reader engaged, and use a mix of simple and more 'advanced' language under the captions such as "embroiled and embattled". Although the Wikipedia page informing the similar idealised reader (possibly looking for a more in-depth analysis of the incident) does use a hint of multi-modal effects such as quotes to add a spoken element to the text, it uses very simple orthographical features with simple font sizes and styles throughout, compared to the article which may keep changing its orthographic features to keep the reader focused and attracted to different parts of the article as they may just be browsing the web, compared to readers looking at a Wikipedia page who may have set out to gather information before hand. Although the font styles stay similar throughout, the website uses similar typographical features which are aimed to keep the reader on the webpage such as making hyperlinks; this is an affordance the website uses to keep the reader on the website, likewise do the Daily Mail with links to other articles all around the main article.

Cambridge Elevate work - PEE

"We're not all young thugs" - Text 13T

Because the writer from the Sunday Express wants to inform older generations that not all teenagers are tearaways who "cause trouble", they immediately use negative language towards their target audience, labelling that everyone who judges the young are "scaremongering". This derogatory dynamic verb from the lexical field of fear implies that in fact the people judging are in fact wrong, as it is included in the imperative "this scaremongering must stop". The modal auxiliary verb 'must' suggests that it is an urgency that the way teenagers are being portrayed must come to an end before it possibly becomes the 'norm' that teenagers can be described as young "thugs" which is a very strong adjective relating to violence and crime, which a whole generation should certainly not be labelled as.
Furthermore, the writer goes on to state that Britain is "in the midst of an education epidemic", and schools are "forgetting to teach the difference between right and wrong". Although the reader may believe this is an excuse for some potentially wrong actions of teenagers, they are stating that the young generation are being neglected in terms of education, through the verb phrase "forgetting to teach" using the dynamic verb "forgetting" to show the failure to teach such a simple aspect of right and wrong' in this 'so called' "epidemic". This powerful post modifying adjective was used to furtherly persuade the reader that Britain is in a bad state when it comes to educating the young.

In addition to this, the writer links the unnecessary scaremongering to a scenario by using a noun phrase with relatable hyperbole, "I wear a hoodie when it's cold... does not mean I am a knife-wielding criminal". This suggests the extremes of which teenagers are thought as, purely based on an item of clothing which a small minority of troublemakers wear; this has an effect on the reader as, although they may interpret that as exaggerated and slightly humerous, in fact this declarative shows just how wrongly misinterpreted teenagers are.
Towards the end of the extract, the writer uses the tongue in cheek verb phrase "believe it or not" when discussing teenagers' views on 'politics and other issues'. This phrase is followed by the adverb "actually"; both of these frameworks imply that it may be usually ludicrous for older generations to believe that teenagers have interests in such issues, relating to the overall purpose of the text to show that teenagers aren't all 'thugs' and interested in crime and uneducated issues, hence the need for the term 'believe it or not'.

Fair trade - Comparison of two texts

Comparison of the two texts
Text 1
Text 2

In text 1, one of the first few sentences states, "Uncover to your class how Fairtrade is helping to break the cycle of poverty..." Belonging to the lexical field of assistance and help, the strong dynamic verb of 'helping' relays a message to the reader that the company are doing all they can to help poor farmers in the developing countries; the fact that it is an imperative shows that they want the message to be spread of their good work indicating that they are proud of what they are doing, and the dynamic verb 'uncover' persuades the reader to believe that if the help was to be uncovered it may be an interesting, motivating and appealing subject to talk about. Although text 2 has the same theme as text 1 about the work of Fairtrade, their representation of the company diverges extremely, as in their headline Fairtrade "fails to help poor farmers" the powerful dynamic verb 'fails' indicates to the reader that Fairtrade may not have put in maximum effort to help change the farmers lives who are described by the adjective as 'poor' which may further emphasise to the reader that the company are not trying hard enough or even 'bothered' no matter how poor the farmers are.

The graphology of both texts play a big role in how Fairtrade may be interpreted by the reader when receiving this text; in text 1, the multi modal features such as the pictures indicate that the people being helped seem happy, especially "Thais' story". This multi modal feature may persuade the reader to believe that Fairtrade is doing a good job in helping people in developing countries and consequently making them happier, and the use of the concrete noun 'story' suggests that the girl has been through an inspiring and tough period and Fairtrade have helped her to change her life for the better. However, in text 2 the graphology is of a more dull atmosphere, with the images being used as a multi modal effect to create imagery in the readers mind that the farmers are not being helped and are working in poor conditions, and the caption underneath states "child labour", showing that the work they are doing may be illegal or at least exploitative because of the presumable low pay they are receiving.

Throughout the web page, text 1 uses lexis of positivity, such as strong adjectives like "stunning" and "beautiful" relating to photos being taken of the thriving community, suggesting through declaratives that a lot work has been done in the project to change the villages of the farmers into a positive, thriving and happy village. However, the newspaper article in text 2 states that the social project were "not proved to be equal to all" and "poor workers did not have access to proper facilities" as they were "reserved for managers"; again with the workers being labelled by the adjective "poor" it seems that the company may be discriminating against the poorest workers, as bewildering as it may seem. The adjective "reserved" indicates that the managers are only allowed to use the toilets, again suggesting the scheme may be discriminating against the poorest workers, a huge contrast to the thriving, happy project described in text 1 that seems all of its focus is based on helping every unprivileged worker they can.

Conversation and representation task

Transcribing my relevant contributions to the conversation
Callum: So Fin, do you or your parents have jobs?
...
Fin W: They are obviously both responsible people as they have to decide what happens to other peop-
Callum: Do you want to do that?
Fin W: No
Callum: Why not
...
Callum: Junior talk about your job in the co-op.
...
Fin W: Um-
Callum:   So (.) just tell me, what does your job involve?
Fin W: Um (.) I work at a trampoline park sort of place- 
Callum: Is that 'Jump'?
Fin W: No
Callum: The one in Cribbs Causeway?
...
Callum: Anyway (1) my parents (1) my (.) my mum is a social worker (.) who works (1) with people with learning difficulties (1) and (.) my dad is a service manager for an engineering company which does have a lot of responsibilities as he (.) in a way (.) takes care of the engineers

Relating to Tannen's difference model and that men are competitive in conversations, it seems I try to gain the authority by being the agenda setter, interrogating Fin, starting with a discourse marker, "So Fin, do you or your parents have jobs?" Although I believe myself to be a confident speaker, I wouldn't necessarily believe I would try to dominate and take authority in the conversation, despite the fact it may seem that way. Again relating to Tannen's theory that men are competitive, I interrupt Fin again with an interrogative which is unmitigated, without fillers or hedges, and straight to the point "Do you want to do that?" In reference to Brown and Levinson's politeness strategies, it could be argued that I use a bald, straight forward 'face', suggesting I was very confident in the conversation and possibly seemed as if I held the authority and didn't need to be overly polite, which was not the case. It could also be argued that, as the powerful participant, I was using constraints by asking a closed question to Fin to reduce his airtime. 
Again relating to the bald face, I used an unmitigated imperative, again agenda setting, saying "Junior talk about your job in the co-op". Because we cannot see paralinguistics such as tone of voice and facial expression in the transcript, which I believe are a vital part of my communication, it seems I am being quite 'bossy' by using imperatives to demand someone else to talk, when actually my tone of voice could suggest I am actually being cooperative and trying to include people to talk.
Contrastingly to being cooperative, it could be argued that when in latched conversation with Fin, I am using a stereotypical male use of language by trying to be correct by questioning the speaker confidently; the fact that I also interrupted Fin also shows the confidence I had and, although there were no participants who were female, Zimmerman and West's theory of men interrupting frequently is shown in the transcript, as I interrupt quite frequently. However, it could be said that when interrupting, I am just trying to find out information and make the speaker expand on what they are saying, which I think was my intention.
When predominantly speaking, my air time was quite long and interrupted like a monologue, which could represent that the others did not feel confident or 'hold the power' to interrupt me; it may come across this way, but it is not the case. The pauses could also reflect on me trying to 'hog' the air time, or it may actually contrast from that and suggest me being nervous and not prepared of what to say.