‘Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake’

‘Young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake’

Early in the transcript there is evidence to support the idea that young readers should be corrected whenever they make a mistake; George struggles to pronounce the concrete noun ‘sandbags’ this is likely to be due to the fact that it is low-frequency lexis and appears to be an example of a consonant cluster with the letters ‘d’ and ‘b’. After his mother asks him to sound out how to correctly pronounce it, praise is given. According to Skinner’s operant conditioning theory, by using the terms ‘well done’, George’s mother is positively reinforcing his linguistic behaviour. By doing this he is more likely to repeat this behaviour, this shows that by correcting young readers it leads to better language development and therefore supports the question. However, it could be argued that it was the praise that George’s mother gave that is causes language development as oppose to the correction, therefore contradicting the statement in the question.

Linked to my first point is the idea that modelling and scaffolding causes development in linguistic ability. Later In the transcript George's mother models how to say the word 'sandbags' by splitting it into the two morphemes 'sand' and 'bags' and asking him to repeat what she says. This is evidence of the primary caregiver providing scaffolding to help the child reach Vygotsky's zone of proximal development. in essence, bridging the gap between what George does know and what he can know. Therefore, by George's mother scaffolding for him when he makes the mistake of mispronouncing the word 'sandbags' his linguistic ability is being developed, thus, supporting the phrase in the question.

Certain theories (with evidence from the text) appear to contradict the statement in the question, The fact that we know that George is 7 years old allows us to see the stage he is currently at in developmental theories. One such developmental theory is Piaget's critical stage hypothesis; according to Piaget's theory George is in concrete operational stage of language development. This is an innate stage of development which can't be effected by correction from making a mistake. At this stage George would be expected to think in a rational way but lack understanding of abstract or unclear topics and ideas. There is evidence from this in the text in that George spells words out phonetically to understand them but lacks understanding but often reverts to local topics and basic phonetics when he isn't sure on how to pronounce a word such as when he says 'upstairs' instead of 'upset'. because Piaget's theory is so well supported, this contradicts the statement in the question.

In summary, there is evidence to support and contradict the statement 'young readers should be corrected when the make a mistake'. It could certainly be argued that development of language is more innate and that correcting a child does not aid their linguistic development. Theorists such as Piaget and Noam Chomsky show this. However, it could also be argued that without being corrected, children will continue to make the same mistakes, evidence from George using correct forms after being corrected in the text shows this and it is further supported by theorists such as Skinner and Vygotsky

Word that has changed in meaning

Word that has changed in meaning

The adjective ‘awful’ used to have the complete opposite meaning to what it does now. The word awful used to describe something which is simply ‘full of awe’. This means that it would describe something positive, similar to the way that we use the adjective ‘awesome’ in modern day English. The word has changed to mean something which is ‘so terrible that it is worthy of awe’. This therefore means that prejoation has occurred as the word has become more negative.

Exemplified, nowadays if we used the phrase ‘that t-shirt looks awful’, we are saying that we very much dislike the t-shirt. However, many years ago if you were to say that the t-shirt looked awful, you’d be saying that you really like the t-shirt; similar to if you said you thought the t-shirt looks awesome nowadays.

The term has prejorated so much that it has become unheard of in modern English and would lead to great confusion if used in the way it used to be.

1600 comparison

1600’s Shakespearian	Modern English
He doth bestride the narrow world like a Colossus; and we petty men walk under his huge legs, and peep about to find ourselves dishonorable graves	He walks on the narrow world like a giant, and petty men like us walk under his huge legs and look forward only to dying dishonourably.

 

This is an extract from the Shakespearian play ‘Julius Ceaser’

Firstly, the context should be considered; the play is action-orientated and based on a leader who was known for being strong and brutal, therefore, Shakespeare might well have used language that sensationalise the tension and feeling of awe in the extract. The use of the verb ‘doth’ is a variation of the modern day verb ‘to do’, this is placed before the objective verb ‘bestride’ to increase a sense of majesty and vastness. In modern English we don’t use either of these verbs and instead would just use the one verb ‘walks’. Therefore, it would be fair to say that the phrase ‘doth bestride’ has become obsolete in modern English.

Interestingly, in the Shakespearian text, the word Colossus is used as a singular, common concrete noun. Although, this is sometimes still used in modern English in this way but the term Colossus is perhaps more commonly used a proper noun to describe a company such as Colossus Computers or Colossus Comics., this is an example of semantic shift and I believe it to be broadening.

Finally, the Shakespearian text uses the phrase ‘peep about’ where in modern English we use the phrase look forward. There is a correspondence in that both texts use a variation of the verb ‘to see’ (‘peep’ and ‘look’). However, the Shakespearian text uses the present tense preposition ‘about’ whereas in modern day English we use the future tense adverb ‘forward’. I feel as though this phrase has become amorliated in a semantic sense, because by using a word to do with the future you are connoting a sense of positivity.   

children's writing

Children’s writing

1) Pre–Phonemic stage

• Children write incoherent squiggles which aren’t separated into words

 

 2) Semi-phonetic stage

• They start to produce some form of letter shape, some are invented and some are mirrored from what they’ve seen.
•  It’s often not split into words

 

3) Phonetic stage

• They write words using phonetic spelling
• It refines as they develop and bad spelling shouldn’t be criticised, the communication should just be rewarded

 

4) Transitional stage

• They start to learn some key patterns, even some digraphs (two letters making one sound)

 

5) Conventional stage

• They learn to spell most words

• They then start to get an awareness of punctuation as their writing and reading begins to improve
• They start to use conventions of the different words they know
•  They start to become aware of differences in formality with reading and writing

Another theory of writing development by Kroll (1981)

Stage 1: Preparatory stage

• Masters the basic motor skills needed to write
• Learns the basic principles of the spelling system.

 
Stage 2: Consolidation stage (age up to 6)

• Child writes in the same way it speaks.
• Uses short declarative sentences which include mainly ‘and’ conjunctions.
• Incomplete sentences as they don’t know how to finish the sentence off.

 
Stage 3: Differentiation stage (age up to 9)

• Child becomes aware of the difference between speaking and writing.
• Recognises the different writing styles available e.g. letter, essay.
• Lots of mistakes.
• Use writing guides and frameworks to structure work.
• Write to reflect thoughts and feelings.

 
Stage 4: Integration stage (12+)

• Child develops a personal style.
• Child understands that you can change your style according to audience and purpose.

virtuous error is when a child makes a mistake because they've never learned the correct way.


These are examples:

Insertion - adding extra letters 

Omission - leaving out letters

Substitution - substituting one letter for another

Transposition - reversing the order of letters in words

Phonetic spelling - spelling words according to the standard phonemes that graphemes make

Over/undergeneralising of spelling rules - applying or not applying rules in inappropriate contexts or one specific context

Salient (key) sounds - only including the key sounds

Child's text


'Bird of prey


Bird of prey mean that
A bird of prey hunt's
thats why it has a pointed beake
A bird of prey is very special Bird
there Just not like any sparrow becous there bigger
a better and protective but not as loving


Bird of prey fliing'


- The child sometimes fails to pluralise some key words such as 'mean' to 'means', this is an example of omission.
- The child adds 'e' onto the word 'beak' creating the word 'beake', this is an example of insertion
- the child uses the determiner 'there' instead of 'they're'. This is an example of overgeneralising words
- the child says the word 'fliing' instead of 'flying' this shows phonetic spelling


   

Introduction of investigation

Introduction of investigation 


I chose to investigate names and terms of address after reading Richard Hudson's article on the online English and Media magazine. He describes how every name and term of address has a different social message and I want to discover whether people perceive this to be true. Grice's maxims of conversation link to this argument; Grice's maxim of quality states that we shouldn't portray information for which we have no evidence, does this mean that by calling someone by a title without first asking them what that title is would be flouting a maxim of conversation? I wanted to look deeper into this idea so I chose to investigate the hypothesis 'people's positive face needs are effected when they are being referred to by the wrong title'. To investigate this I used a questionnaire in which I will find out how/when people are offended by being called the wrong title (if at all).

Comparison of transcripts

Comparison of transcripts

In the 2;4 transcript Zach shows premature signs of the multiword stage; at Zach’s age (28 months) we would expect to see the telegraphic stage of language acquisition as more dominant in Zach’s speech. However phrases such as ‘I got food on the floor’ show evidence that he has entered the multi-word stage, an equivalent phrase that we would expect in the telegraphic phase would read more like ‘got food on floor’.  Zach’s early entrance into the multi-word stage would appear to disprove Piaget’s ideas that we have to reach certain ages to move through learning development and that language acquisition is somewhat destined to occur at innate junctures.  Linked to this is the idea that language development is not a linear process and that despite Zach’s language being more sophisticated than expected at 28 months regression is still a natural phase in learning, arguably the fact there are more false starts in the second transcript (3 to the first transcript’s 1) show that Zach is going back to language he is more comfortable with (i.e. regressing) in order to develop. However, an alternative explanation of this is that at 41 months he has a wider vocabulary and therefore more words to choose from causing more false starting.

In the second transcript a lot more emphasis is given by the caregiver to politeness than accuracy, this is shown by the idea that although there are various grammatical mistakes in Zach’s speech which Halla doesn’t correct him for, when he fails to say please, he is prompted by Halla’s use of the cloaked interrogative ‘I think you might need the magic word then’. His failure to use the adverb ‘please’ might be due to his high level of comfort at home with his primary caregiver where he will not be judged. However, the earlier transcript doesn’t show any evidence of correction for either politeness or grammatical error. According to Halliday’s language functions the earlier transcript appears to show more interactional speech from Halla (compared with more dominant regulatory speech in the latter transcript). It could be argued that this is because younger age children can get away with both grammatical mistakes and lack of politeness but as the child gets older the social and cultural context means that parents wouldn’t want their child to appear rude as it would reflect badly on them however grammatical mistakes will be seen as part of the child’s development and accepted, this could differ across different cultures.  

There is a clear morphological development over the 2 transcripts; in the first transcript the mean length of utterance is 5.6, whereas in the second transcript it is 12.45 (both much higher than expected). This development in MLU shows not only development in morphological skills but also syntactic development, this development reduces the level of ambiguity in the child’s language, reduction in ambiguity is very important in language acquisition and this is shown in Zach’s language. For example, in the first transcript Zach says ‘I cutting round the edge’ the lack of pluralisation on ‘I’m’ shows lower morphological development than the second transcript; phrases such as ‘so I put lots of sellotape…’ shows how morphological development can lead to more maturity in phonetics and general acquisition of language.

According to John Dore’s language functions, the first transcript shows a much heavier focus on answering, i.e. answering questions. Examples include utterances such as ‘yes’ and ‘I think I don’t’. This is contrasted by the second transcript which shows a much a wider range of functions such as requesting action’ – ‘can you do it mummy’ and protesting – ‘we don’t need breakfast’. It could be argued that this range in language functions shows development in Zach’s language, it could also be argued that the context of just Zach and his primary caregiver at home has given Zach the confidence to try and use a wider range of language functions.

Something common in both transcripts is the scaffolding put in place by Halla to help Zach to widen his linguistic ability. Scaffolding is the process by which adults such as parents and teachers help children to learn language by prompting and asking questions such as 'what have we eaten today' in the first transcript. This allows the child to mature and develop their language use. The idea of scaffolding was developed by vygotsky, he stated in his theory of cognitive development that children have a zone of proximal development, this is the gap between what a child knows and what they can know with the help of a caregiver; in the transcript Halla enables Zach to bridge this gap with the help of prompts such as 'what else have we had?' in the first transcript and 'because' in the second transcript. This helps Zach to grow his knowledge of language and effectively make his linguistic ability eat into his current zone of proximal development.

 

Investigation methodology


Richard Hudson's theory about names and how every name carries a different social message, he says that if you call someone by their first name then you see them as someone you know well and your social equal and if you refer to them using a title such as 'Mr' 'Dr' or 'Professor' then you show that they're a stranger.


I am going to investigate whether names do carry different social messages in our culture & whether calling people by the incorrect title affects our positive face needs?


To investigate this I will design a questionnaire to give to people on how they feel when they are referred to in different ways for example, how a person feels when they are called a title which makes them seem less educated, for example Dr instead of Mr.


The use of a questionnaire can provide me with large amounts of data in a reasonably small space of time


Questionnaire design
- I will use a mix of open and closed questions to gain all relevant information
- before my main questionnaire is sent out I will run a small scale pilot study
- I will start the questionnaire with shorter, easier questions and develop it into the longer, more difficult ones
- I will ensure that all my questions are concisely and accurately worded to provide reliable results


Ethicality
-  I will let people remain anonymous and tell them that their results will be published in my investigation. I will ensure them that details such as their name and address will remain confidential.


Reliability
- I will keep my questions worded in a simple, readable way
- I will make sure that my questionnaire looks neat and well presented to improve the chances of the person thinking that the results they're giving is important
- I will give out my real questionnaire soon after my pilot one to ensure nothing changes
- I will ensure when reading answers that similar questions provide me with similar answers, if they are different then I might have to disregard the results of that questionnaire
- I will have to make sure that my questions provide results which, although qualitative, give measurable results for me to discuss in my report


comparability

Investigation ideas

Language investigation 


Deborah Tannen's advice versus understanding idea


I will investigate whether it's true that men look at a problem as a challenge and women look at a problem as a an opportunity to offer sympathy.




“When my mother tells my father she doesn't feel well, he invariably offers to take her to the doctor. Invariably, she is disappointed with his reaction. Like many men, he is focused on what he can do, whereas she wants sympathy.”




beth kemps ideas that taboo language towards females is becoming a joke




https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/language-theorists-put-to-the-test/

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/contents.htm#langa


notes from this website


Notes on accent and dialect
dialect levelling and standardisation has occurred over the last 100 years


some important features of speech which I should revise

Affective features

Agenda

Adjacency pairs

Adverbials

Back-channelling

Backtracking

Closing conversation

Co-operative signals

Deictics

Disagreement

Facilitating mechanisms

Feedback

Fillers

Foregrounding

High considerateness/high involvement speakers

Humour

Implicatures (implication)

Introducing new topics

Metamessages

Monitoring talk

Opening conversation: request, question, offer

Overlap (co-operative)

Pauses

Rapport talk/report talk

Relevance

Repetition

Simultaneous speech

Tag questions

Turn-taking

Types of conversation: child/adult, gender related, power related (e.g. doctor-patient)

Uncompleted sentences

Utterance types: statement (declarative); question (interrogative); command (imperative); exclamation

Word of mouth link

http://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/b006qtnz/episodes/player

Halliday and Dore


Halliday


These are Halliday's 6 functions of language in the child language acquisition


1)  Regulatory: Language used to influence the behaviour of others. Concerned with persuading / commanding / requesting other people to do things you want.


2) Interactional: Language used to develop social relationships and ease the process of interaction. Concerned with the phatic dimension of talk.


3) Personal: Language used to express the personal preferences and identity of the speaker. Sometimes referred to as the ‘Here I am!’ function – announcing oneself to the world.


4) Representational: Language used to exchange information. Concerned with relaying or requesting information.


5) Heuristic: Language used to learn and explore the environment. Child uses language to learn; this may be questions and answers, or the kind of running commentary that frequently accompanies children’s play.


6) Imaginative: Language used to explore the imagination. May also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling.


John Dore


John Dore created an alternative to Halliday's theory of language functions
He focused more in interactional utterances, below are the Language functions


1) Labelling: This is naming a person, object or place


2) Repeating: This is repeating an adult word or utterance


3) Answering: Responding to an utterance of another speaker


4) Requesting action: asking for something to be done for them


5) Calling: greeting someone's attention


6) Greeting: greeting someone


7) Protesting: objecting to another person's request


8) Practising: using language when no adult is present  

Analysis of Zach 2;4 transcript


Contextual factors which might effect the language used are Age, gender, social class, the place in which the interaction takes place and the time of day.


An example of a theory that could have a bearing on the transcript is Bernstein's restricted and elaborated code; Bernstein showed that people who only have access to restricted code will speak in a highly predictable way, with a fairly high proportion of pronouns, tag questions, and the use of gestures and intonation to convey meaning. People who have access to restricted and elaborated code will use more subordinate clauses, adjectives, more use of the pronoun the pronoun 'I' and passives. This applies to Zach's language because if he has access to elaborated code, his language will have more variety and be more sophisticated.


Another theory which could effect the language use is Zimmerman and West's dominance theory. This applies because it shows that the fact that Zach is male might mean that he would interrupt more than if he was female, however, Geoffrey Beattie's theory would contradict this and state that interruptions wouldn't be effected by gender.




Test of Zimmerman and West's theory for interruptions

Skinner's operant conditioning/behavioural theory for how children learn language

Skinner's operant conditioning/behavioural theory for how children learn language

Skinner came up with the idea of positive and negative reinforcement and how this leads to behaviours being learned. Skinner viewed babies as 'empty vessels' which needed to be 'put into'.

Early in the baby's life, an example of positive reinforcement will be attention given to the baby when they babble, this will increase the frequency in the amount of times they babble, leading to increased vocalisation.  

 After rewarding vocalisations for a while, parents become used to a child’s babbling and pay less attention to it. This motivates the infant to vary the babbling. Sometimes, by accident, the child produces more recognisable speech sounds, for example, if an infant accidentally says 'dada', the parents might respond excitedly (positive reinforcement). Therefore, skinner did not claim that parents intentionally shape the language of children but that it happens naturally.

Later in the child's development thought that when a child said a word correctly they were positively reinforced. For example, when the child says ‘milk’ and the mother will smile and give her some as a result, the child will find this outcome rewarding, enhancing the child's language development (Ambridge & Lieven, 2011).






However, this theory assumes that without reinforcement, imitation will not result in learning. Brown and Hanlon's case study shows that during parent-child conversations, parents rarely reinforce correct grammar in a child's speech. But instead focus on truthfulness and accuracy of statements.   

Stages of child language acquisition

Stages of child language acquisition






1) The first stage of the child language acquisition is babbling, this occurs at 6-8 months and involves producing a full range of possible speech sounds, even when these sounds don't appear in the child's living environment.






2) The second stage is the holophrastic 'one word' stage, it occurs at 12-14 months and you don't just get any word. You get words such as 'bad', 'go', 'fast' 'drink' but you will never get words such as 'and', 'in', 'the'.






3) The third stage is the two word stage this occurs at 18-24 months, there are still no closed class words, the closed classes in English include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions. However, there are some pronouns used such as 'me' and 'you'.






4) The fourth stage is known as the telegraph stage this occurs between 24 and 30 months. There is no 3 word stage in language, there is basically full sentences but without closed class words. There are some affixes used.






5) The fifth stage is the later multiword stage this occurs after 30 months and in this stage grammatical or functional structures emerge.




-  Babbling
-  Holophrastic
-  Two word
-  Telegraph
-  Later multiword

Stages of child language acquisition

Stages of child language acquisition




1) The first stage of the child language acquisition is babbling, this occurs at 6-8 months and involves producing a full range of possible speech sounds, even when these sounds don't appear in the child's living environment.




2) The second stage is the holophrastic 'one word' stage, it occurs at 12-14 months and you don't just get any word. You get words such as 'bad', 'go', 'fast' 'drink' but you will never get words such as 'and', 'in', 'the'.




3) The third stage is the two word stage this occurs at 18-24 months, there are still no closed class words, the closed classes in English include pronouns, determiners, conjunctions, and prepositions. However, there are some pronouns used such as 'me' and 'you'.




4) The fourth stage is known as the telegraph stage this occurs between 24 and 30 months. There is no 3 word stage in language, there is basically full sentences but without closed class words. There are some affixes used.




5) The fifth stage is the later multiword stage this occurs after 30 months and in this stage grammatical or functional structures emerge.


-  Babbling
-  Holophrastic
-  Two word
-  Telegraph
-  Later multiword

Recommended reading list


- Look for books by David crystal - Netspeak books
- Tim Shortis- language of ICT
- Angela Goddard- Language and technology
- Norman Fairclough- language and power
- Alison Ross with language and representation
- Deborah Cameron- The feminist critique

Paper 1


- Avoid information and vague expressions
- Write in a sophisticated 3rd person manner
- Plan quickly
- Gramps isn't really needed- intro just needs to be brief




Questions 1&2


- Always provide some kind of evidence
- Comment on what is there, not what isn't
- Think about a range- demonstrate a breadth of language knowledge
- Affordance
- Revise word class




Grade descriptors
- Talk about graphology and affordances




A03
- Must use representation
- Must mention affordances with an online text
- Talk about peoples values and self representation - 'usernames'
- Look at the language surrounding the main body
- Look at how the site represents itself
- Constraint 'no face to face communication'
- Comment on the fact that it is asynchronous- delay in the response of the communication - can pick your response




personal targets


- More terminology
- Comment on affordances
- Offer alternative interpretations


Main idea is to use more terminology!!!!




Question 3


- 2 or 3 detailed paragraphs- not loads of rubbish ones
- Don't rely on audience and purpose
- Terms and evidence

Comparison of Mumsnet forum and Guardian article


There is a clear difference in audience between the two texts. This difference in who the text is intended for is displayed in the difference in language used. The mumsnet text has more common use of simple sentences such as 'I was nominated to post 5 pictures which make me happy to be a mother' whereas the Guardian article has more compound and complex sentences such as 'a challenge is coping with grief when you wish you were dead, or pushing your mind and body to the limit in a feat of superhuman endurance'. The use of simple sentences in the first text shows a more rushed, basic tone which reflects on the audience that the writer is intending their text to be read by; it shows that the text is likely to be read by mothers who stereotypically will not have as much time to be both reading and understanding more complex sentences. However, the Guardian article portrays a more mature tone; the writer will be appealing towards a middle-class, educated audience who stereotypically would have more time to read and comprehend complex and compound sentences.


The use of noun phrases between the two texts differs in meaning greatly. In the mumsnet text, noun phrases such as 'egotistical lemmings' suggest a sarcastic and pretenscious tone, this represents the users of this forum as somewhat magniloquent, this tone is common in the Guardian article, however, this is more expected of the stereotypical Guardian writer, Noun phrases such as 'glow worms in padded snowsuits' show a snobbish manner and make themselves seem as if they know better even about how to dress a child.     

Paragraph on 'MyHub' web page.


The frequent use of compound and complex sentences appeal to a more mature audience. Compound sentences such as 'my main role is to respond to incidents of crime and disorder reported by members of the public' make the text appeal to an older, more mature audience, thus, widening the audience. It could be argued that the length and complexity of the sentences used represent the laborious nature of being a Police Officer. However, this is juxtaposed by the colourful, youthful layout of the text would be more likely to appeal to a younger audience. Overall, the text appeals to a wide audience by counterbalancing the more stereotypically older and mature language with more youthful affordances and layout.

Analyse the meanings and representations in the text


There is evidence of rhetorical questions in the text. The rhetorical question 'taking the EPQ next year?' acts as a leading question. The implied meaning is that it will allow the consumer of the text to answer this rhetorical question in their mind. This answer will lead him to answer the primary question that the questioner wanted him to answer in the first place. This represents the consumer as easily enticed as the producer of the text can engage the reader by asking them an open question.


The place in which the text is consumed is also relevant; the college setting in which the text is read means that students will be the consumer of the text, this makes the use of synthetic personalisation relevant. synthetic personalisation is used to create an artificial relationship between the text and the consumer. Students are likely to be more liable to the idea of a artificial relationship as they are stereotypically more enthusiastic & optimistic individuals. 
AO1 -              


















AO2 -              

Grammar


Grammar is a language level in the same was as lexis, phonology, semantics etc...


Grammar is the underlying structure of language


Linguistic rank scale

- morpheme

- word

- clause

- phrase/group

- sentence

- text

Morphology

- Morphology is the study of morphemes which are the smallest unit of grammatical meaning

 

- It is the study of the way words are formed, a morpheme is not the same as a syllable


- The word 'Apples' has two units of grammatical meaning- 'apple' & 's'


- The word apple has one unit of grammatical meaning


- 'Apple' is a free morpheme because it has grammatical meaning by itself


- 'S' is a bound morpheme because it needs to be attached to a free morpheme to have meaning


- If an affix is inflectional it means that it does not change the word class of the root word


- If it is derivational then it does change the word class of the root word


- An infix is 'abso-bloody-lutely


Modal auxiliary verbs


Auxiliary verbs are verbs that are usually used to show tense
Modal auxiliary verbs are verbs that are used to describe obligation, probability  

Commenting on this online teen speak article
http://parentinfo.org/article/online-teen-speak-updated


I think that this article is relatively inaccurate, this is down to the diverse, region-based nature of language and specifically slang. To elaborate, different slang phrases/words will be used in different contexts and at different times between different groups of young people, in addition, some slang words have different meanings to some people, for example, the word 'peak' to some people will mean really good and to others will be referring to something bad. With this in mind it's impossible for the government to pinpoint definitions of slang words because of its ever-changing nature. Therefore, it could be argued that this article is rather misleading and in some circumstances can actually further confuse the parent/career who is trying to understand the language that their teen is using.


However, it could be suggested that the above argument is unfair as it only refers to a few terms and in actual fact, most of the terms shown are accurately displayed and could help a parent to understand what their child is saying which could aid their online safety.     

William Labov

William Labov


Labov's Background


Labov was born in Rutherford, New Jersey on December 4th 1927, he studied at Harvard University and began work as an industrial chemist before turning to sociolinguistics. In 1963 he completed a study of change in the dialect of Martha's Vineyard, which was presented before the Linguistic Society of America. Labov took his PhD in 1964 at Columbia University and taught at Columbia before becoming a professor of linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania and then became director of the university's Linguistics Laboratory in 1977. He has been married to fellow sociolinguist Gillian Sankoff since 1993. Prior to his marriage to Sankoff, he was married to sociologist Teresa Gnasso Labov.


Labov's two most famous studies are the Martha's vineyard study and the department store study 


Martha's vineyard study(1960)


On Martha's Vineyard a small group of fishermen began to exaggerate a tendency already existing in their speech. They did this seemingly subconsciously, in order to establish themselves as an independent social group with superior status to the despised summer visitors known in the study as "summer people". A number of other islanders regarded this group as one which epitomised old virtues and desirable values, and subconsciously imitated the way its members talked. For these people, the new pronunciation was an innovation. As more and more people came to speak in the same way, the innovation gradually became the norm for those living on the island. Labov studied the way in which this language evolved specifically with the use of diphthongs (double vowel sounds such as 'oil' and 'mouse').

The department store study (1966)

The speech of sales assistants in three Manhattan stores was studied by Labov, drawn from the top (Saks), middle (Macy's) and bottom (Klein's) of the price and fashion scale. A customer assistant in each store was approached with a factual enquiry designed to elicit the answer - "Fourth floor" (such as "where can I find the shoes") - He recorded whether the post vocalic /r/ sound in the answer was strongly pronounced i.e ("forrth floorrr" as oppose to "fouth flur"). He pretended not to have heard so he could obtain a repeat performance in careful, emphatic style. The findings were that the sales assistants from Saks used it most, those from Klein's used it least and those from Macy's showed the greatest upward shift when they were asked to repeat.

The results from the department store study highlight the main themes of the research. Frequency of use of the prestige variable final or post vocalic (r) varied with level of formality and social class

Labov still works at Philadelphia University as a professor at the age of 88.

Useful links

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

http://www.ling.upenn.edu/~wlabov/

http://www.pbs.org/speak/speech/sociolinguistics/labov/

http://www.slideshare.net/hassanrouijel/william-labovs-contribution-to-linguistics

http://www.oxfordbibliographies.com/view/document/obo-9780199772810/obo-9780199772810-0195.xml

 

contact Labov

Linguistics Laboratory 
3810 Walnut St. 
Philadelphia, PA 19104

(215) 898-4912

(215) 573-2427

labov@comcast.net

Labov Timeline

 

Geordie accent case study

geordies appear to have rich and varied regional dialect. Some words almost appear as if they're from a diferent language, this is because invasions into England meant that the North East was linguistically isolated therethe dialect has evolved differently in the following 1500 years.

A few words which are paticulalry different include:

'Marra' meaning mate

and

'spelk' meaning splinter

The word Geordie refers to Natives of Newcastle-upon-Tyne.

There are several theories about how the word 'Geordie' was derived but they will be quick to tell you that their accent and dialect is very different from the surrounding 'Pitmatic' or 'Makeem'

It is believed that the Geordie accent isn't just conquering dialect levelling but also spreading; I believe this to be due to the media, popular T.V shows such as Geordie Shore show the Geordie dialect as more cool and popular with young people, this creates divergence and also changes attitudes towards the accent.

I believe older people watching a show in which young Geordies act perhaps foolishly and irresponsibly will associate the accent with low intelligence, and due to the cheating and lying in the show, particularly un-trustworthy. However, they might associate it with more friendliness because of their up-beat nature   

assessment feedback

Assessment feedback

A01 – out of 10

• Written expression- ability to communicate in clear topics and paragraphs
• Use language terminology- lexis and grammar

A02 – out of 20

• Language concepts and issues
• Own examples
• Stereotypes
• Representation

How to get marks

A01:

•  Clear topic sentence
• Worthwhile introduction/conclusion
• Linguistic terminology
• Women use tag questions, intensifiers…
• Men use more imperatives
• Women use more modal verbs

A02

• Discussion and link to theories
• Does data reinforce or contradict?
• Be tentative
• It doesn’t prove a theory wrong- it just contradicts it
• Discuss or challenge theories if appropriate
• Don’t say Lakoff is wrong
• 3 D’s- make sure you know who did what!
• Consider other contextual factors of the data
• There are other factors other than gender, such as occupation…
• Consider written as well as spoken interaction
• Discuss stereotypes, how do you think men and women are told how to behave
• Status vs support  this is where you can link to Cameron
• Show own research

Improvement paragraph  

The average ‘did interrupt’ was also higher in males (with the exception of ‘woman D’ who had the same as ‘man E’). This suggests that the men used more oppressive discourse strategy to dominate the conversation. It also supports Tannen’s ‘order vs proposals’ idea as men use more oppressive declaratives to make themselves heard more and stand out as a somewhat ‘alpha male’. Whereas women would be more likely to wait their turn in speech then use more verbose language in accordance with Lakoff’s deficit theory                                     Universalteacher.org  

•   

Basics of noun


common


abstract- lass clear things - emotions


group- a collective like a group such as a flock, family etc


concrete- something that can be perceived
              - can be divided into countable or non-countable




Proper 


unique things, names of cities, companies etc...


Abstract nouns can be easily confused with adjectives
- anxious vs anxiety


Dictionary- concrete
despair- abstract
herd- group
joy- abstract
sellotape- proper