A2 lesson Tuesday 13th May

What are the comparable factors and how do they help you to explore change?

The topics mentioned in text J reflect traditional stereotypes of woman. For example, there are frequent examples of language within the lexical field of cooking- a role traditonally associated with women. This contrasts with text K which talks about women going things through a "workplace" and "abortion"- things completely unacceptable for women in the contect of text J.


How are the techniques suitable for the target audiences of that time and how might audiences of the other time react or what might be changed to suit them?




Text  J refers to the wife of a household as "mistress". This is approproiate for the reader of the audience at the time the text was written as the marked term was used to describe the "master and mistress" of a house. This would of had quite positive connotations asscociated with power as they were the woman in charge. However, diachronically the noun "mistress" has pejorated over time tocome a derogatory label. It is now associated with negative commotations of adultary which is how a modern reader would interpret this. This relates to the sapir- whorf hypothesis in that it matters what you call something.

What are the significant aspects of each text that are worth commenting on and how can you link those to terminology, theory and context?

new words due to brands, eg, "TopShop". New neologisms through coinage due to medical advances, eg, "Botox".

"Too tired to talk"

http://www.englishandmedia.co.uk/emag/subscribers/downloads/archive_emag/_emagpast/Rosen_TTTT.html

This article highlights how in today's society, we shorten words for convinience. For example: "zoological gardens" becomes "zoo"; "gymnasium" because "gym"; and "increasing the number of repetitions" becomes "reps".

However, it points out that sometimes clipping can lead to confusion. For example, "reps" means different things depending on the context. "If you work in a shop, then a ‘rep’ is the person who comes round trying to get you to buy stuff. If you work in the theatre then ‘rep’ is ‘repertory theatre’, the kind of theatre that puts on several plays in rotation in the same week. Many years ago, in the eighteenth century to be precise, ‘rep’ meant someone’s ‘reputation’."

There are examples of clipping even in Shakespere "in Romeo and Juliet, as when Capulet calls Tybalt ‘coz’ even though he isn’t his ‘cousin’". There are still examples of this in today's society. For example, "brother" is clipped to "bro" and "sister" to "sis".

Great Expectations

"After darkly looking at his leg and me several times, he came closer to my tombstone, took me by both arms, and tilted me back as far as he could hold me; so that his eyes looked most powerfully down into mine, and mine looked most helplessly up into his.
`Now lookee here,' he said, `the question being whether you're to be let to live. You know what a file is?'
`Yes, sir.'
`And you know what wittles is?'
`Yes, sir.'
After each question he tilted me over a little more, so as to give me a greater sense of helplessness and danger.
`You get me a file.' He tilted me again. `And you get me wittles.' He tilted me again. `You bring 'em both to me.' He tilted me again. `Or I'll have your heart and liver out.' He tilted me again.
I was dreadfully frightened, and so giddy that I clung to him with both hands, and said, `If you would kindly Please to let me keep upright, sir, perhaps I shouldn't be sick, and perhaps I could attend more.'
He gave me a most tremendous dip and roll, so that the church jumped over its own weather-cock. Then, he held me by the arms, in an upright position on the top of the stone, and went on in these fearful terms:"

Dickens demonstrates the adult in the conversation as the powerful participant by setting the agenda with the use of interogatives, "you know what wittles is?". This supports the ideas based on Fairclough's principles of ideological assumptions we make towards society; particulary in Vicorian society, when the book was set, children could not speak unless spoken to. Acooriding to Fairclough, we would expect adults to be the powerful participant over children as this is the "assumption" we make. Furthermore, as it is a closed question there is an implication that if the child does not no the answer to the question they are stupid and if they do then they are liked.

History of the word "short"

The word "short" is most commonly used as an adjective either to describe something lasting or taking a small amount of time - for example, "a short bus ride" - or to measure a small distance from a certain point to another - for example, "I have short hair".

Due to the introduction of technology, "short" has broadened in semantic meaning. For example, "short" can now be used when referring to an electrical item that has "short-circuited". However, this requires pragmatic understanding of how technology works and how it can go wrong.

Ngram viewer shows a decline in the use of the word "short" since the 1800's. This could be due to negative connotations associated with the word "short". For example, to be short could be seen as making you more disadvantaged than those of other heights. As a result, to be politically correct people previously described as "short" may now be referred to as "vertically challenged".

"Short" is now also used in a colloquial sense in slang amongst society. For exapmle, people may say "I'm a bit short" but not in refference to their height but rather the fact they do not have enough money for something. This means that it can be used as an off the record, indirect way of asking for money.

The word "short" is originally Germanic and in old English was "sceort". It is related to the word "skirt". It could have chamged to "short" due to giving a way for people to describe the length of the skirt.

Castle transcript task

Overview

As Evie is in conversation with someone she knows, she is likely to be more comfortable and therefore take risks with her language choices. Grandma affirms an asymmetrical power balance with Evie, which she maintains by setting the agenda throughout the discourse. However, this does not discourage Evie from developing her language as she uses the set conversation to talk about local topics that interest her; this encourages her to communicate. By doing this Evie incorporates her development into the role-play activity including examples of Halliday’s functions such as imagination.

Six points

1) Skinner’s operant conditioning- how Grandma uses negative and positive reinforcement in reaction to Evie 2) Power- in relation to the lack of politeness strategies from Evie’s point of view 3) Observers paradox- are we observing natural behaviour? 4) Child-led discourse- the use of local topics 5) Theorists- Halliday’s functions and Vtgotski’s zone of proximal development 6) Fairclough- power balancing and powerful participant

PEE paragraph

There is an asymmetrical power balance between Evie and her grandmother. Her grandmother has both instrumental and influential power as she has authority over Evie as there is an ideological assumption in society that adults hold power over children (instrumental); yet, she also has influential power as Evie looks up to her for guidance for her language development as she is a caring figure due to their family relation. Evie’s grandmother shows aspects of being the powerful participant by setting the agenda through the use of interrogatives such as “who else do you want to put in the castle?” However, rather being used to assert her power, she may just be doing this in order to keep the conversation going, encouraging Evie to talk about things she likes which acts as motivation to talk and develop her speech. This supports Nelson’s theory of local topics and results in child-led discourse as Evie names all the nouns, such as “pig” and “triangle” that she would “like to put in the castle”. Evie’s common use of imperatives drives the task, for example “come on car”. This supports Halliday’s theory of imagination as she is incorporating role play into her speech. Furthermore, it also shows an attempt by her to experience the other side of a power dynamic as “come on” is most likely a phrase she has heard in unequal encounters with her parents when they are trying to make her hurry. By repeating this phrasal verb, it shows an example of how usually children feel powerless and want to know what it feels like to be powerful so Evie repeats an imperative usually used against her to do this. The fact she is able to understand the phrase and then apply it shows how she has a more complex understanding of language suggesting she may be in the telegraphic stage.

CLA task

As Evie is in conversation with someone she knows, she is likely to be more comfortable and therefore take risks with her language choices. Grandma guides her speech by developing these skills that are in Evie's zone of proximal development including examples of scaffolding and positive and negative reinforcement which are a part of Skinner’s operant conditioning.

1) Social skills/politeness- Evie's grandmother does not only correct uses of non-standard English but also reinforces the idea of social skills and politeness. For example "hahaha that's a lovely smiley"; smiling is an important social expectation/rule in order to be a friendly member of society.

2) Interaction theory-  Following ideas in Brunner’s interaction theory, Evie’s grandmother uses scaffolding as a form of modelling to show her how to pronounce something. For example how “wan-da” is modelled and therefore corrected to “panda”.

3) The observer's paradox- Usually when people are filmed they start to display unnatural behaviour, this is called the observers paradox; however, this may not actually effect the conversation between Evie and her grandmother as the camera has been incorporated into the conversation as a game. The whole conversation is centred around “who else” they “shall take a picture of”.

4) Skinners operant conditioning-  Evie makes a virtuous error when using the declarative “I sneeze” as she omits the past tense suffix. Her grandmother uses negative reinforcement to correct this by repeating her statement except this time adding the suffix, “you sneezed”.

5) Child-led discourse- Evie is encouraged to speak about things that interest her as this is motivation to communicate. Her Grandma achieves this by using local topics, an idea by Nelson, of the toys around her such as “tigger” and “cat”.

6) Power- Evie’s grandmother sets the topic of conversation, this demonstrates her instrumental power; however, her the interrogatives used are always open, such as “what’s that? Who is it?”. This suggests that rather than displaying her power through asking questions, she is rather trying to keep the conversation going by giving Evie an opportunity to talk about something she knows about and is familiar with in order to develop her language.
 

E Magazine Article

 World Englishes refers to the variety of English in different communities.



 Dynamic Model of Postcolonial Englishes:

Phase 1: foundation, in which Englishis brought to a territory by a colonising power.

Phase 2: exonormative stabilisation, where ‘exonormative’ means that the variety is outward-looking, in that it

is dependent on the model of English spoken by someone from the colonising power, i.e. the UK or the US, depending on who colonised the region, and is viewed as a second language (L2).

Phase 3: nativisation, in which the variety starts to have native speakers for whom it is no longer an L2.

Phase 4: endonormative stabilisation,where ‘endonormative’ means the variety has developed its own standards which are not based on the original variety of the colonisers.

Phase 5: differentiation, in which varieties form within the new variety, much as

they have in the UK.