transcribing task

Ellie: So (2) who’d like to go first? Umm Abbie?

Abbie: yeah, (.) um I work in a garden centre café,

Kristie: what do you have to do there?

Abbie: help cook, clean, make coffee, serve customers food drink, wash dishes, lots of different things (.) it’s hard work, but I really so like working there(2) all the people I work with are a similar age to me and we all get on really well and have a laugh.

Ellie: Kristie?

To start with Ellie tries to be the dominant speaker by appointing which person should speak first, but I take up most of the air time, mainly because I am the one currently explaining my occupation; the amount of time we spend talking would have varied depending on who was talking about their occupation. However Ellie tries to regain the position of being the dominant speaker again after I finish talking by choosing who the next person is to talk. 

Representation and language task

Representation and language task

I chose the song ‘Thinking out loud’ by Ed Sheeran, I believe he has the ability to bring so much emotion into his work and this is why his music stands out over other musicians. It is also known that he writes most of his own songs with little input from other people.

Take me into your loving arms

Kiss me under the light of a thousand stars

Place your head on my beating heart

I’m thinking out loud

These lines in the verse stood out to me the most as I believe they are directly address the audience because of the amount of feelings that are portrayed here. I think he wanted the audience to this is and relate it to him and how he would treat a lady. He creates a romantic impression of himself by talking about how he would show he loved someone and telling them this in great detail  and not be afraid to show them off to other people.

He personifies someone’s arm to be loving, this creates an impact on the audience as it seems that he loves every part of the woman in question and conveys how he feels while present in her arms; he would feel content and loved. The lexical field is clear though out the song but it is evident more so in the text I chose; the words kiss, loving, light and heart all convey the connotations of being love or being in love with somebody, this is used to make the audience again see the caring loving man he is, and that he has a massive heart. He exaggerates that he wold liked to be kissed ‘under the light of a thousand stars’ however there is billions of stars in the sky but the romance he tries to imply here is huge, it’s something that often takes centre stage in a movie and therefore will be in a women’s book of dreams, so here is he implying that he would make the dream of being kissed under the light of stars come true. 

research for computer lesson- Labovs New York research

Labov's research in the New York Department store 1966 found that ‘individuals speech patterns were part of a highly systematic structure of social and stylistic stratification'. He studied how the letter ‘R’ was pronounced a word with the variable of the place the letting ‘R’ sits on the word. 

• New York is seen as a prestigious city when it come to their language, so it can be measured accurately and as the letter is used often in words is easier to collect a large amount of data quickly.

He knew that the new York accent didn’t have to letter ‘r’ featuring in their language and it was only nearer to the 1960’s that it had been reintroduced.

He had three different locations in his study, these were; 

• saks fifth avenue (expensive upper class shop) 
• Macy’s (less expensive middle- class store) 
• S. Klein (a discount store used by working class people)
•  in all three of these stores he analysed the language of the employees.

In order to collect the data he needed he aimed questions at them which would allow him to hear the letter ‘R’ four times.

•  He asked the questions- Where can I find the lamps? Which he knew the answer would be ‘fourth floor and the second question being 
• ‘excuse me?’ so the answer was repeated more carefully so he can hear how they say it more clearly.

From his findings he found that for the New York citizens the strength of their ‘R’ sounds depended on their social class- the letter was more common in the speech of in people with higher social class.
This differs to the RP language as it is set in New York therefore it is hard to generalise his findings to English speaking people as the accents are very different. Also language in the 60’s may have changed dramatically to what it is like now, we have adapted our language to fit in with people, because of this the English accent may have changed to be more like the New York accent as it often features on TV and on films that are broadcasted in the UK. 

Bibliography; http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Sociolinguistics/Exemplarystudylabov

http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/labovny.html

Jennifer Lawrence

Jennifer Lawrence speaks of her disgust with the fact that her male co- stars, from the same movie, get made a great deal more than she does, playing the same sort or part. She only became aware of this due to a Sony phone hacking scandal, which revealed to her the salary her co-stars were earning doing the same job as her but they had ‘dicks’ she said. In her article she shares who view on why she thinks it is wrong for men and women to be treated differently in this situation. She uses the evidence of women fighting for equality many years ago and how this being successful was supposed to set up a fair scheme where men and women are treated equally.

Throughout the text she manipulates he language to change depending on which gender she is talking about. When she is talking about men she uses words in the semantic field of anger; she uses words such as “fierce” and “tactical” she uses typical stereotypical language to describe the actions she believes a man would take if he was in this situations and how they would be praised for this type of behaviour. It’s thought that men are controlling and dominant in many situations- such as in conversations, this is proved by the Zimmerman and West theory, which says that men are keen to take a lead and control a conversation when talking to the opposite sex.

When talking about the difference between her money and her male co-stars difference in pay cheques she also highlighted the difference between her and them physically by referring to them as “lucky people with dicks”, this phrase is contradictive in itself as it uses abrupt and aggressive language in itself which Lakoff connotes to a masculine way to talk. The light hearted phrase also suggests that the fact that their biological make up is different is hers automatically gives them an advantage without taking into their acting ability (which they should be being paid for).

She refers to feminine language as equally as she does the masculine language (ironically), she says she doesn’t want to seem “difficult or spoiled” which are examples of empathetic language which Lakoffs study says is trend of the feminine spoken language.  The adjective “adorable” is used in a sarcastic manner to mock the stereotype of girls being ‘cute and adorable’ all the time, looking sweet an innocent, as if they click their fingers and what they want falls at their feet, because in this instance it isn’t the case. She is showing that when women have to

Right up until her very last word she is criticising the ‘male way’ to do things and how they dint think about what they say or do they just do it unlike the thought through process women take. I commend her for getting the courage to post the article online, she stands up for herself in a situation she thought she wasn’t treated equally in. Throughout her article she backs up points made by many theories such as Lakoff and Dehorah Cameron to prove her points, I believe having this attitude toward her job and lifestyle will help her a great amount in the future. 

The continuous change to dialect and accents

The continuous change to dialect and accents

From the top of the Scottish isles to the very bottom of Cornwall there are on average 56 different accents, all in one very small island. For people who don’t live in the UK this is very surprising as stereotypically they assume we all talk in one monotone central London accent which is prim and proper (estuary English). However, within the United Kingdom dialect and accent both vary depending on your religion, social group and culture, this benefits people within the island to identify who lives in what region and gives them a culture identity.

Although these are unique to certain people there is still changes constantly occurring between the dialects, this could happen because of people from outside the region or even the country travelling to the UK and giving us a taste of their accent and dialect, which has an impact on us if we are around it for a duration of time, leading to us adapting our language and picking up some of their sounds/words and adding them to our language. For example, if an American citizen visit a shop in London and ask for a ‘trash can’ the sales assistant could pick up on this and unconsciously refer to a bin as a trash can in the future to this customer or one they deal with in the future. Social media can also affect your dialect in the same way as we are constantly spoken to by a television, radio and more.

questions on the barrister transcript

Questions on the barrister transcript

1.       In the transcript, pronouns are used frequently. Names are a type of pronouns and this is the most common pronoun in this extract. The barrister shows his authority in this situation, by calling the defendant ‘Mr Neil’ ,  this illustrates to the audience the power he has over him because not only is it a formal way to address someone it is said in a patronising way/ manipulating way.  It shows that he isn’t familiar with the man and calls him a name his friend or family wouldn’t call him on a daily basis, but maybe someone would address him as if he was in trouble.  He refers to him as this the whole way through the extract continuing to manipulate him with the formality, even when the conversation becomes more spontaneous.

2.       In the sections 5-15 it seems suited to a court situation as the barrister holds his power by repeatedly questioning the defendant and when necessary talking over him ‘is that right? What happened?...’ this gives the barrister the upper hand in the conversation and has control over what information he needs to find which is evident to the audience. Mr Neil answers in a closed manner as far as possible and to the audience this means that he is guilty, nervous or unable to remember- he often answers ‘no’ with a prior uncomfortable pause, he also stumbles and becomes noticeably uncomfortable with a lot of utterances and ‘er’ sounds during his conversation. The conversation here is structured by the barrister however later on the questions get noticeably spontaneous due to the nature of the situation, his questions start to adapt depending on this answers and the next set of information he needs to gather.

Later on Mr Neil ‘laughs quietly’ when responding to the barristers question where he raised his voice, this was clearly a natural response that wouldn’t have been pre learnt, it may have come from his nerves of the fact that he is so confident that it is rubbish.  The barrister still goes on to raise his voice to emphasise certain words which would have been unplanned.

3.       From the beginning of the transcript it is clear who has the control in the situation the barrister manipulates his language and language techniques to belittle the defendant. He emphasises words which would reach out to Mr Neil as it would bring him back into the conversation and highlight the importance of what the is saying like when he suggests the ‘police’, this picks out the fat that it is a serious matter and the potential consequences. Mr Neil denies most of what he says and doesn’t give very detailed, truthful answers.

  

4.       To me nothing specifically stuck out to me for being unusual or uncommon in a transcript.  

Commentary of same sex marriage article

Commentary for same sex marriage article

The two blogs speak of the controversial subject of same sex marriage. They both have very opposing views on the subject due to personal experiences, religion and other factors. I created these characters as I thought they had a clear insight to the topic of same sex marriage as one was a women who is in a heterosexual relationship and finally has the freedom to marry her fiancée and my other character, a middle aged man (around 35/40 year old) who was brought up with the religious views that same sex relationships are wrong and now wants the same views on this for his children.

In the first blog I open with a rhetorical question ‘Isn’t getting married supposed to be the happiest day of your life?’ this immediately makes you think of what your day would look like and consist of, it holds your attention as it gives you the time to bring yourself into the writing, it also makes you question just what the lady is going on to talk about, it’s clear that it is going to be on the subject of marriage but the aspect of this is unclear. My character then spoke about the facts that shocked her “definition of marriage” I used a fact to emphasis what the ‘Oxford University’ class same sex marriage as, the definition was surprising.