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.
Thursday, 14 April 2016
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.
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.
Monday, 11 April 2016
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.
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.
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