Bristolian accent and dialect case study

• It is believed that the proud, identifying 'farmer-esc' Bristolian dialect is in fact being levelled despite the attempts of people such as Terry the odd job man to save and spread the dialect. He see's it as his duty to spread the dialect so people can understand and embrace it more. Despite his attempts majority public opinion is that the dialect is being levelled, this is shown through what's said in the Bristolian Linguistic diversity section of the full English website, Jessica Luce makes relevant comments with regards to the idea that the dialect is being diluted by students coming into Bristol and proudly expressing their own identity, despite this the accent itself is not being diluted.

stereotypes associated with the Bristolian accent are: 

• Farmer
• pirate
• uneducated
• predominantly male

There is much debate about how Bristolian words such as 'gert' (gurt) should be spelt, this is expressed through the beast clothing t-shirts which express the Bristolian dialect through their popular t-shirt brand.

A common stereo-type associated with the Bristolian dialect is that of Vicky Pollard, the 'Little Britain' character, the common Bristolian opinion of her character is one of annoyance due to the mild discrimination many Bristolian's get from outsiders. Because of the 'yeah...but...no...but' was decided against as a t- shirt idea for beast clothing

Analysis of Letters

The two letters, despite having the same intention, are written in ways which contrast greatly.

The converging letter is writen in a more conservative tone, as shown by introducing the letter with 'regret to inform'. This is a way of non-directly saying that something bad has occured and preventing the use of a face-threatening act. The diverging letter, however, starts with 'I am extremely pissed off...'. This is a very direct, taboo introductory sentence and will most certainly come across as a face threatening act. 

The converging letter is an example of the influential power that teachers have over the parents of there students. This is shown through the tone created by the language used by the teacher, the way the text is written in preverbial 'peaks and troughs' displaying a negative being covered up by a positive. This is shown through 'a shame consindering his incredible achievments prior to the academic year'. this is a way implementing power in a more influential respectable way.

Again, this is contrasted by by the the continual negativity shown in the diverging letter, in this text the teacher is trying to implement instrumental power which is a more forceful way of gaining respect and is used a lot less freguently and virtually never in this context.

Converging letter

Dear Mr and Mrs ****

I regret to inform you that your son is not performing to what I believe is the best of his ability. This is such a shame considering his incredible achievments prior to this academic year. I must ask that you as a parent will talk to him about the effort he is putting into his schooling so we, as a team can help him to achieve his potential.

Kind regards
Joseph Cruse


diverging letter

Dear Mr and Mrs ****

I am extremely pissed off with your son! I have have never been treated with so much disrespect and at times the though of smashing his head through the classroom window has been more than just apparent in my sub-conscious, how you could've brought your son up this way is thoroughly above me and if you dont attempt to sort out this excuse for a boy I swear I will violently take matters into my own hands. I've had enough of all your son's shit so I leave you with this as ultimatum; you sort him...or I do.
Fuck you.

Language and power

Not in any of our papers but things we learn terms from this which we can apply to other aspects of the syllabus

What is power?

Power is dynamic because it changes due to the different scenarios we are in
Why is an individual allowed power in a certain enviroment?

- Physical setting or enviroment is relevant
- There can be power online

Basic terms
- power in discourse is the ways in which power is manifested in language
- power behind discourse is the contextual reasons for the enactment of language
- instrumental power is power used to maintain and enforce authority
- influential power used to persuade or influene others
- political power is power held by government, the police, the law...
- personal power is power held by people as a result of their occupation
- social group power is power held as a result of social variables such as social class

Power in discourse

Constraints - language strategies used to assert power

oppressive discourse strategy- blatant ways to control people like shouting or swearing

repressive discourse strategy - more subtle ways of exerting power e.g. asking quesions which press a subject.

Paragraphs on Gender Theories

Tannen

Tannen’s ‘difference theory’ differs from Lakoff’s theory in a few was but has a lot of similar ideas, I would agree with many of her ideas such as ‘advice versus understanding’ however I would strongly challenge ‘status versus support’. ‘Advice versus understanding’ relates to the idea that men see complaints as a challenge however; women would prefer to just give sympathy. I would strongly agree with this point. However, my view might be affected by the fact that I am a male so would naturally be better suited to advice from another male whereas a female would only be able to give sympathy. The idea I disagree with is ‘status versus support’ I actually don’t agree with either of the sides of this argument; I think the idea of male dominance is out of date and therefore it solely depends on the personality of the participants even with stereotypes taken into account. The word ‘support’ (despite perhaps having more female connotations attached to it) does not apply in my opinion in the context in which Tannen describes it. She says that women look for a type of confirmation that what they’re saying is correct. Again this statement is extremely general and in my opinion untrue as a female who is confident in what they are saying would not seek support. It could be argued that it is in fact down to more dispositional factors.

Lakoff

Lakoff’s ‘deficit theory’ states many things that women do that men don’t (or do less of). Things such as the idea that women hedge more correlate with Tannen’s idea ‘order versus proposals’ as they both interpret the idea that women are not as direct as men. The idea that women have a special lexicon for colour is interesting and in my opinion, true. Women are stereotypically more creative and arty from birth and personally I think this is why they have a special lexicon for colour. Lakoff continues to say that women generally speak less. I don’t believe this to be true and I think she only found this because of the size, ethnicity and time at which she took her sample. If she did a bigger sample nowadays I believe this would not be the case. This is because now, women are looked at as being more equal than they once were.   

Language and Gender

Male and female speech
paper 2

language varieties
- with gender you will be given data- this could be a trascript, table of turn lengths, chart etc...
- respond to the data and tell all you know about the topic. This is a discursive essay.

Moving on...

Lakoff's deficit theory

In 1975 Robin Lakoff- a white, middle class woman a sample. Because of her ethnicity and social class and because of the time it was written, this was a very small sample so cannot apply to that many people. Lakoff came up with the deficit theory, this theory said a lot about the way women speak (from her small sample).

Lakoff said:
- women hedge more
- they are more polite
- they use more tag questions 'don't they?'
- they 'speak in italics'
- use empty adjectives such as 'cute' and 'adorable'
- they use more hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciatiation
- they use more direct quotation 
- They have a special lexicon- women use words for colours, men for sport
- Women use intonation in declaritive statements to make things sound like a question
- They use 'wh' imperatives eg 'would you open the window'
- women generally speak less frequently
-  

Jennifer Lawrence- 'Why Do I Make Less Than My Male Co-Stars'

What is the purpose of the text?


The purpose of this text is to inform the reader about gender equality, it could also be argued that the text has a persuasive purpose too; the way she talks about this as if she's trying to make a point shows a persuasive tone e.g. 'found out how much less I was being paid than lucky people...'. However, the persuasive nature of the text is rather abstract and it could be argued that she is just passionate about the subject as appose to trying to persuade. This purpose is relevant to the target audience because it plays on the enthusiastic opinionated nature of young people and specifically the females she is appealing.


Make a list of the 'male' and 'female' language features in this text. what is their effect on the reader.


Some of the language with male connotations includes the taboo language e.g. 'fuck that'. This is more associated with males because of the competitive, more harsh tone of the language and would not traditionally be considered to be feminine. The fact the she uses this language is effective because it's a way of showing her stubborn nature and is a way of rebelling through her language towards what she believes to be an injustice. There is also language that is more associated with females in the text, for example, adjectives such as 'adorable' might have more of an effect of innocence and might make the readers feel guilt which helps them to understand her point of view.


Do you agree with her conclusion?

I do agree with the conclusion, the word 'brat' does stereotypically have more female connotations and therefore she is correct in what she says. However, there are insults directed towards men which wouldn't necessarily be directed to females. Therefore, with this point taken into account her conclusion losses some level of validity.

Post-match interviews

Post-match interviews

Genre

•       Post-match interviews very much depend on the outcome of the match in hand; if the match goes badly for a team then the reaction from people involved will be very different from if a match goes well.

•       We have watched a post-match interview and this was what we managed to find about the genre

•       The manager is relaxed and shows this through the language he uses and through his body language. He smiles throughout the interview and we see many more emotional verbs and adjectives. I believe this is because he is more willing to show how he feels than an actual player. The first interview however talks much more about the way others are acting or feeling. In my opinion this is to disguise his own feelings about how he thinks his team played. The manager is obviously very frustrated and angry with the result of the game. This sets the tone for a more emotional, short tempered interview.

Contextual factors

•       Genre                   – Post-match interview

•       Register               – Colloquial (may be formal/informal depending on  the speaker)

•       Audience            – Football fans / anyone in the room

•       Mode                    – Multi-modal (video/pictures/sounds) and spoken

•       Purpose               – Transactional / to inform / to entertain (answering  questions)

•       Subject – Football / sport

•       Where?
At home, in the workplace, live on television, online, Youtube, may have been written up in a newspaper / magazine

Modal features

WRITTEN

•       - Durable (video lasts)

•       - Some points may have been planned in advance

•       - May be Formal (manager / figure in a high position within the club)

SPOKEN

•       - Dialogue (2+ people)

•       - Spontaneous

•       - Grammatically simple

•       - May be Informal (player / manager)

Language levels

Language levels depend on the outcome of the game; this is an analysis of a regular post-match interview

•       Lexis
The words used in this interview are more directed towards the actions of others. He describes the actions of a player as ‘disgusting’. The manager in the second interview uses more personal adjectives and describes his team as very good as appose to describing the other team in cynical way.

•       Grammar
The grammar is affected by the person saying it. In football or any other sport people come to play the sport from all walks of life. This means that often in post-match interviews grammatically incorrect sentences are used such as ‘it ain’t good’

•       Punctuation
Because post-match interviews are only spoken we have to assume that the punctuation used is correct, If it was written we’d be able to analyse punctuation in more detail

Discourse features

•       Video

•       Audio

•       Interview is usually linked onto a transcript (however heavy improvising can be made due to player’s/manager’s responses.)

•       Manager’s/player’s response is very improvised and only usually mentally planned at the most.

 

speech analysis

Analysis of speech

I begin the speech by repeating the word ‘Today’ across three sentences following one another. This is both a triadic structure and use of anaphora. I purposefully use these techniques at the beginning to establish a transactional purpose and to entice an audience of college students which would most likely be rather switched off by a more boring speech.

I go on to ask a rhetorical question: ‘causing us to live in an uncomfortable tomorrow?’ I do this to stimulate the audience and make them question themselves on what they do with regards to the question. This will help the audience to understand my point, specifically the word ‘tomorrow’ is important as it brings effect after the anaphora of ‘today’. This will help the audience to understand both the persuasive purpose and formal register.

Later I use an A-syndetic list including the repetition of the inclusive pronoun ‘you’ to drum the reality of the topic into the mind of the audience. I do this at this stage specifically because it is important to the chronology of the speech; the speech is designed to take people on a journey from where they are now to where they could be if they make (what I consider to be) bad life choices. This helps to make the students emotionally engage with the speech.        

My speech

Speech to 1000 students on why to take a non-vocational degree

Today there are 1000 students who are capable of great things. Today there are 1000 students who are studying challenging subjects. Today there are 1000 students who study hard. But why do we sit and talk about today if we make a simple wrong decision causing us to live in an uncomfortable tomorrow?  It’s a question that we will forever struggle to answer but also a question we can eradicate from our sub-conscious mind.  In one year you will face the question of what university course to choose and in a world where 202 million people are unemployed we must choose wisely.

I come here to plead to you to take a non-vocational course; you ace your course, why? Because you don’t want to be part of that statistic. Because you want to provide for your family. Because you are better than that. Picture this, all your life you’ve been a physics genius, you aspire to be an engineer so do a mechanical engineering course. You ace your course and go for a job. You wow the employer with your fantastic grades. However, a big part of this dream job wasn’t covered in your course; your employer has no choice but to employ another candidate.

3 long penniless years pass and finally you get lucky with a job stacking shelves.

Wrong course. Wrong job. Wrong life. All because of that simple wrong decision you made in one years’ time.

Make the right choice.

Choose non-vocational

How do the language features reflect the contextual factors of your given text?

Many language features that are used reflect the contextual factors in text A. For example The colloquail language used to open the text: 'how are yer doin', shows the spontaneous nature. specifically the idiolect shown in the pronoun 'yer' shows the informality and spontinaity of the text. If she wasnt in such a relaxed enviroment she would be more likely to used more planned formal speech and show less of her idiolect by speaking in  more standard tone.

Furthermore, later in the transcript the participant elongates the word 's:::o'. this shows that the participants speech is ephemeral and grammatically simple as this wouldnt be done in written text. It also shows her closeness to the other particiapnt as she would'nt feel the need to elongate and use words colloquially in a situation in which she doesnt feel comfortable.