article on attitudes to accents

You Are What You Speak
Over the years people have always had the tendency to prejudge others based on the way they speak and their accents. Are we ruled by our accents or are they simply just the way in which we speak?
Throughout the years our attitudes towards accents have changed. We are now more accepting than ever of diverse accents and accents that sound different to our own. People now even appear to enjoy the variety of accents that are heard around the globe as research shows that '78% enjoy hearing a variety of accents'. However, even though we enjoy the sound of all of the different accents, we still are very prejudice towards certain accents and make judgement on the character of a person based purely on the way in which they speak due to the area associated with the accent.

The area in which we are from has a huge impact on our attitudes towards accents. This quote comes from the book Bad Language by Anderson and Trudgill, ''American listeners, who do not recognise a Birmingham accent when they hear one, who know nothing about Birmingham and who probably don't even know where it is, do not find the Birmingham accent unpleasant at all. And everything they know about London leads them to find London accents highly attractive.". This quote tells us that we do not judge the accent specifically, but the area associated with the accent. If we have never heard of a area or their accent, then we tend to make no judgement on them based on their accent because we don't have the background knowledge to do so, however, when we already have opinions on areas, we associated the accent with the area and then with your opinion on it.

Age is seen to be an factor that seems to influence our attitudes to accents. Younger people and teenagers are said to be more accepting of different cultural accents within their home town. This may be down to the diversity in the UK and the different cultural experiences that young people are able to experience these days such as seeing different parts of the world and getting to know people first hand with accents different to their own and the typical accent of the town. The older generations seem to be more accepting of received pronounciation accents. This may be due to the way in which the older generation were raised and the opinions that they were taught about diverse cultures. Also, they grew up listening to the "cut-glass" English accents that featured on public information films of the past.

Jennifer Lawrence

The context of this text is that Jennifer Lawrence had noticed after the Sony hacking scandal that she was earning significantly less than her male co-stars in one of the films that she starred in. She too was one of the main characters in the film but still manages to earn less. This is Jennifer explaining her view and actions she took in retaliation to the scandal. She is discussing that fact that she believes that men and women should be earning equal amounts and that there should be equal opportunities in the work place. She shows a lot of aggression in her text.
In this context, Jennifer Lawrence uses many 'male features' in this text. She uses swear words on several occasions. According to Lakoff, this is a predominately male way of speaking which contradicts her stereotype that women only use empty adjectives and emphatic language. However, in the text, Jennifer does use one of Lakoff's stereotypes throughout the text, she always uses correct grammar features such as commas, quotation marks and full stops where men perhaps wouldn't have taken the time to do so. Another of Lakoff's 'female' features of speech Lawrence manages to contradict is that women use hedges in order to soften or weaken something, Jennifer simply wrote the sentence 'Fuck that'. Nothing about this sentence suggests that she is trying to weaken or soften her point. She is quite clearly getting straight to the point. Lawrence does not use humour at all throughout the text. She is very direct and serious which again is one of Lakoff's trends of female spoken language. If it was a male writing this in contrary to a female, then he might have tried to find the humour in the situation and get his message across in some what of a humorous way. Jennifer also uses another of Lakoff's typical female speaking features when she uses a tag question at the end of one of her sentences, 'I should have written a check, but I fucking forgot, okay?' She displays male features here as well however as she is showing clear aggression and swears but Lakoff believes that the use of the tag question at the end is a typical female thing to do in spoken language. All of these effects make the reader look at Jennifer as a more empowering and strong woman. Perhaps this is because men are predominately thought of as leaders and strong figures in society so when a female such as Jennifer Lawrence appears and uses stereotypical male features in her language, it makes the reader think of her in the same way that they might think male leaders to be.
I do not agree with Lakoff's conclusion in the way that male and females speak in spoken language as quite clearly, her stereotypes of the way women speak have been mostly contradicted in this case. Also, in most cases I think that her opinion is completely untrue as she claims that women have no sense of humour, however there a multiple women all over the world that are very well known and proclaimed comedians in their own rights.

How are dialects changing?

Dialect is a particular form of a language that is particulate to a specific region or social group. It varies depending on where about you are from. Because of the huge diversity of cultures and religions in different cities, there is not just one dialect per city. Because of the amount of foreign people living in different cities to their home towns, the number of dialects is rapidly increasing.

We all know the stereotypes for the way in which English people speak. Everyone seems to think that we as English people speak in a received pronunciation accent. They seem to think of English people as being very posh and this is how we are widely thought as across the world. What they don't seem to realise is that in England alone we have so many different dialects and more and more are coming about throughout the years.

Because of all of the developments of the travel industry, people are able to travel around the world more quicker and easier than ever before, even just travelling around your own country from city to city. This has led to people picking up different phrases and words from other cities and bringing them home with them and then these words are becoming apart of their everyday language. Also, this then starts to spread within the hometowns. Not only is travel affecting our dialects, but other things as well. One of the biggest other affecting factors on our dialects is social media. Now a days, we can speak to people all around the globe from the comfort of our own bedrooms and can watch all different types of people on things such as YouTube. Also, music culture affects our dialects with so many popular singers and rapping performing in American accents. People in countries that do not speak English still listen to artists who sing in English, this also affects their dialects.



www.decodedscience.org/dialects-reveling-in-linguistc-freedom/7365

Transcrpit Analysis

1) The barrister in the transcript only ever use proper nouns when addressing and talking to others. The barrister is questioning Mr Neil and almost everytime he speaks to him he addresses him by his name. The repitition of his name being used may make Mr Neil feel more underpressure as he is constantly being reassured by the barrister that it is specifically him on trial. The effect of doing this is that he is more likely to get the truth out of him.
2) The parts of the dialouge that seem prepared are th barristers parts; the parts spoken by Mr Neil seem to be more spontaneous, for example, Mr Neil laughs quietly before answering one of the barristers questions. The reason for this laughter may be because Mr Neil was in shock about the barristers comments and questions and found it amusing. The barrister's parts are all very well constructed and he seems to have a question ready for any answer given by Mr Neil. The barrister has no pauses at the start of his sentences which gives the impression that he had preplanned what to say.
3) In the transcript, the barrister definately seems to be the one who holds the power over Mr Neil. The barrister puts emphasis on certain words when speaking to Mr Neil, 'So many times Mr Neil'. This whole sentence has emphasis put on it making it seem as though the barrister is almot talking down to Mr Neil as though he is a child. He also frequently pauses between words. This could potentially make Mr Neil feel on edge and underpressure to answer the question in answer as quick as he can which gives him less time to think about his answer making it more likely that he will come out with the truth.
4) Something I found unusual about the transcrpit was that, despite the fact that the barrister clearly holds an upper hand as far as power is concerned, Mr Neil speaks over the barrister more than once. You would think that with the barrister being of an higher authority than him, he would respect the barrister when speaking and listen to him silently. Mr Neil is quick to interupt the barrister when he is asking him questions.When the barrister asks whether or not Mr Neil remebered a crutical event, Mr Neil is quick to jump in and defend himself with the quick reply of, 'I don't'. Mr Neil is almost too quick to defend himself here and whilst doing so almost makes himself look more guilty than he would have if he waited for the barrister to answer the question and then answered it in an orderly fashion. He also interrupts the barrister again at the end of the transcript when the barrister asks Mr Neil if driving without insurance did not cross his mind. Mr Neil is once again very quick to jump in and defend himself with the answer of 'no'. Mr Neil doesn't give too much information away here and comes back with a very uninformative and short answer.

Extension
Barrister: so (.) Mr Neil (.) where exactly were you on the 16th of October at 7:42am when this crime occured?
Mr Neil: (2.5) I was taking my daughter to school
Barrister: ok Mr Neil and did you not see Mr Peterson on this morning?
Mr Neil: no
Barrister: what, not at all?
Mr Neil:                       no
Barrister: so you're telling me that you did not purposely hit into Mr Peterson's gate despite your past feud with him?
Mr Neil: as far as i am concerned our problems are well and truely behind me and i wouldn't get into more trouble with the police because of him
Barrister: yes i can understand that Mr Neil and of course as you previously mentioned you were on your way to the hospital at this time
Mr Neil: yes that is correct
Barrister: the only problem with this Mr Neil is that you actually said that you were taking your daughter to school at this point
Mr Neil: (3) yes i was i didn't mean that
Barrister: like you didn't mean to hit into Mr Peterson's gate?
Mr Neil: yes (1) no
Barrister: you see Mr Neil you've admitted enough evidence to me to believe that you actually did intend to and suceed in hitting into Mr Peterson's gate
Mr Neil:             No i didn't
Mr Barrister:     Yes you did Mr Neil and I have no further questions

Controversial Issue- Abortion

Controversial Issue- Abortion

Characters are for and against abortion.
Speaking as a character who has had an abortion
Doesn’t everyone have the right over their own bodies? Today I am going to talk about the controversial issue that is abortion. I myself have recently been through the struggle that is an abortion. I just felt completely physically and emotionally drained. The bags under my eyes stuck out like a sore thumb and I could feel myself dozing off on my bus route to work, and other people began to see the change in me too. Put it this way, if I had to pay 5p for the bags under my eyes I would've been bankupt. I wasn’t my happy outgoing self that I normally am and that I should’ve been. I was completely embarrassed and ashamed at what I had done! And why should I be, why did I feel this way? Simply due to the way that abortion has been painted out to the public. It is seen as a vicious crime on an unborn child. Although I respect people’s views, I simply cannot let other women feel the way that I felt when going through this. This is quite a taboo topic that is rarely discussed within everyday life; however, I believe that more people need to understand the arguments for abortion. Women shouldn’t feel ashamed to speak about this and, due to women not having the confidence to speak out about their experience, they feel very alone, like the whole world is against and judging them. Women have a moral right to decide what to do with their bodies. You do not know the women’s situation or reason to decide to abort. It could be critical for their dreams in life. I desperately want to (and always have) had such a love for travel and a desperate desire to one day be a part of a cabin crew. Just tell me this: how on earth could I lead this sort of lifestyle with a child? Completely impossible! This leads on to my second point. The right to abortion is vital for individual women to achieve their full potential. If a sporting hero was too accidently, inconveniently get pregnant before a big sporting event, they would have no choice other than to abort. From a feminist’s point of view, abortion is vital for gender equality. Banning abortion could be highly dangerous. Banning abortion puts women at risk by forcing them to use illegal abortionists. In countries where abortion is illegal, such as Argentina, women are left severely ill by the illegal methods of abortion they are forced to use.  The right to abortion should be part of a portfolio of pregnancy rights that enables women to make a truly free choice whether or not to end a pregnancy and they should feel un-judged and confident on their decision. The women may not feel happy about having to get an abortion and therefore we should not be judgemental on them and make them feel as comfortable as they can with their strong decision. Women have a right to decide what she can or cannot do with her body and should have to right to decide whether or not the foetus remains in her body. To finalise, women need the right to abortion to have the full rights over their own bodies, without this right they do not have the same moral status as men. We as a whole need to realise that that we should not judge anyone under any circumstances until we understand one hundred percent the situation that they are in!
Speaking as a Catholic against abortion
How would you feel if your life ended before it even began? How would you feel if you were never given the opportunity to live, see the world and explore new places? Speaking as a proud Catholic, I must put forward my opinion on the highly controversial issue of abortion. The fact that some of you believe that it is an acceptable thing to do makes me feel physically sick! How could you possibly live with yourself knowing that you took away the greatest gift a person could ever receive; life. We as Catholics see abortion as simply being the termination of the unborn human life. We believe that, whatever the circumstance, abortion is always wrong, sinful and completely not right! The circumstance in which the life was conceived is completely irrelevant to the poor life of that fragile life. It is evil. The whole concept of the abortion route in evil and no how good the intention is, it will always remain a sin in my eyes. Abortion does not free women. They say that what women need for equality is not free access to abortion, but to be given what they need to survive financially and socially as mothers. They need inexpensive and realises childcare and a school that understands and acknowledges the needs of mothers. Abortion also actually damages women; some people oppose abortion because it can damage the long-term physical and emotional health of women who have had an abortion. Women will eventually come to the realisation that what they have done to their unborn child is plain and simply wrong and cruel and they will have an eternity of pain thinking about it, every time the see a child’s rosy cheeks and sparkling eyes, guilt will rush through their veins like a river and their whole body will overcome with hatred towards themselves. All children are unique, who says this child won’t be the one to come up with a cure for a major illness? Aborting this child will not just affect you and the child, but the entire world. Abortion is murder; it is the deliberate taking of a human life. Unwanted babies could be adopted, so many desperate couples are looking to adopt every single day, so abortion is, in this case, very selfish! The rights of the unborn child are equal to those of the mother. Defenceless babies need special protection against since they cannot stand up for their own rights. The embryo, if left alone, will develop into a beautiful, unique human being; So if you are ever thinking about having an abortion, stop being selfish and look at the bigger picture. It’s not all about you; it’s about equality and the right to live.  
Evaluation
The genre of this piece of text is a blog post. The intended audience for this text was women who are either going through an abortion or for people who judge abortion but do not think about the feelings, ethics and situation behind someone's story when contemplating having an abortion. The purpose of the blog is to comment upon the issue of abortion and to inform the audience of the emotions and feelings behind abortion. I think that the expectations were to receive a civil balanced argument on abortion; however both sides seem to go in very hard on the topic and reinforce their opinions of abortion being either right or wrong. The second blogger uses the word ‘evil’ several times. This reinforces their thought on the topic and the word creates imagery in the mind of the reader. The use of the term evil paints a picture of the devil and is associated with the colour red which screams danger. This is the intended message of the blogger to get across to their audience. The first blogger keeps reinforcing the fact that we as an outsider could not possibly understand the situation of the woman debating/going through an abortion. This person who has been though an abortion is very passionate for women not to feel guilty for having gone through an abortion. The second paragraph was shorted due to limited points to make against the topic. There are so many emotive things to include in the ‘for’ abortion paragraph. My characters are unknown bloggers who are just eager and passionate to get their views and points across.

 

Kardashian-West Baby 2

The following articles are about Kim Kardashian sharing with her sister, Khloe Kardashian, that she is pregnant on their new season of their hit TV reality show Keeping Up With The Kardashians.
http://www.mirror.co.uk/3am/celebrity-news/kim-kardashian-reveals-shes-pregnant-6485705

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/tvshowbiz/article-3242827/This-like-miracle-Kim-Kardashian-tells-sister-Khloe-s-pregnant-second-child-season-premiere-KUWTK.html

Both the Daily Mail and the Mirror used the same qoutes when re-telling the event, "I just got the blood tests back from my doctor and I am pregnant." "is this a joke". The use of the second qoute imparticular portrays the excitement of the sisters that Kim is pregnant again with Kanye and her second baby. It shows that, from where she is so excited and happy, she simply cannot believe what her older sister is telling her and is overwhelmed at the exciting news.

When descibing Kim's expression, the Mirror used the term 'stunned'. Although they meant this in the literal way in the fact that she was shocked at what she was being presented with, it also works as the Kardashian family is so known for their stunning appearences so the use of the word works in with the family theme. It also reinforces the fact that the article is about Kim who is prodominately known for her appearnece.
 
 Both of the newspapers use adjectives when intorducing the qoutes of the people being spoke about,'an emotional Kim said', 'Khloe joyfully laughed'. The use of these adjectives help to get across the current emotion of the person behind the qoute. Without the adjectives, these particular qoutes would be extremely hard to read emotion through, however with the help of these words, it helps to get the reader deeper into the story and to understand the emotions invloved behind it.

A difference in the language used is how they describe the event. The Mirror describes the event as 'emotional' whilst the Daily Mail describes is as 'exciting'. The two words give completely different outlooks on the way the story is percieved. The use of the word 'exciting' gives the impression that a big event has happened in one of their lives that is going to be a positive, 'exciting' occurence. The use of the word 'emotional' gives the does not give a lot away as far as the reader is concerned. 'Emotional' could be used when discussing both a positive or negative event in their lives. In this case, the word emotional is due to the rush of emotions going through the family due to a new arrival on the way and is focusing on positive emotions rather than negative ones. The emotions the article was most likely refering to here would be joy and overwhelminly happiness.

Slang or common talk

 

Slang Or common talk

Yay all knows that peoples talk funny

If yous are from the south.

They cut off the lights and jaw jack alls night long.

If youns need to find something.

We cans find it down the road a piece or maybe over yawner.

So if you think I talk funny or in slang.

You alls need to catch the seconds of taters and grits and pig fat.

You alls come back now you hear.

·         Conventions of poems- ·         Standard stanzas ·         Rhyming patterns ·         Rhythm patterns ·         Metaphors ·         Personification ·         Imagery ·         Narrative (telling a story)

    And yes bring granny and the boys well have a shing dig.THERE are no handles upon a language

 

Poems

Poem planning

·         Metaphor

·         Personification

 

 

Slang words and phrases

Effects on language

Ain’t

Like

 

Future of Slang

The generations of today are going through Ludacris phases

That are killing all of our well known phrases

The pengs and the peak

Fresh from the ends of the streets

Seem to be coming day by day

And looking to stay

 

Words commencing on Facebook

Making parents look like crooks

Not knowing what they’re saying

Start to question if they’re just playing

Are they even making any sense?

Or have they just ran into a fence

 

Words like bae

They’re sure to slay our English language

They don’t even know what we say

Even abbreviations like ‘K’

The future of slang looks bright

Let’s just hope we all use it right

 

How language is changing

How language is used

Today’s language is rapidly changing due to the way it is being used by younger generations. Social media is one of the main reasons why Standard English language is rapidly changing. Abbreviations of words are being used as a part of day to day language. Words such as ‘sick’ and ‘bae’ are commonly used throughout the teenage language. The use of ‘sick’ in today’s language means the opposite of the literal use of the word, it is now used as a positive adjective rather than the opposite literal meaning the word is actually supposed to be. ‘Bae’ is a shorted way of the phrase ‘before anyone else’. Nearly all teenagers would recognise these words, however, when parents and older generations were asked about the words, majority of them were clueless about the slang words and some had never even heard of them before being asked about them. This demonstrates the complete difference in language between younger generations and older generations due to social media as the older generations would not have used social media when growing up and therefore did not use this type of language. The word ‘fleek’ is the most unknown words within parents with a huge 43% of parents claiming to not know the word or its meaning.

Emojis are also becoming the next phase of language change. Teenagers are not even using letters now to communicate but simply an emoji to get their message and feelings across. Some send texts and messages that only include emojis. There are now even full keyboards full of emojis and apples IOS are constantly adding new emojis with each update which is cutting down the use of language again. Some emojis have been put together to form sentences. They are recognised by younger generations. A frog emoji and a cup of tea emoji represent the sentence ‘but that’s none of my business’. This is a completely alienated concept for adults and parents. The emojis do not actually represent the sentence but it is widely recognised by teenagers everywhere. Language is not even used here to get a message across which demonstrates the power and use of emoticons.

One prime of social media that is causing shortening of words and abbreviations is Twitter. This particular social media site only allows 140 characters per tweet. This almost forces users of Twitter to abbreviate words and shorted words down to be able to fit their message in. Also the use of emojis gets their emotion towards the message across easily without having to explain it. Parents were unable to understand the acronym ‘TBT’. This is an increasingly popular trend in Instagram which refers to uploading old pictures on Instagram on Thursdays, thus it standing for ‘throw back Thursday’. This is used by thousands of teenagers so the fact that adults have never even heard of the term shows how much language is changing from generation to generation.

As there are a lot of foreign speakers in the UK, there language has developed as a part of slang. Jamaican slang is widely used throughout cities in England as normal day to day language which has become a part of mainstream language for teenagers. 

Self Evaluation-
I could have explored my points more and added more facts and evidence to back them up like quotes. I think I added some good points to my article.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-10971949
http://blog.oxforddictionaries.com/2014/06/social-media-changing-language/

Slogan Patters

Slogan patters

One of the patterns I noticed when looking at spoken slogans was that there was a lot of use of synthetic personalisation. This is when advertisers assume knowledge about the targeted audience. This is a popular technique for advertising slogans as it makes the target audience feel as though the product is being designed specifically for them and if the consumer does not feel this way then the product most likely is not targeted at them. For example, the L’Oréal advert slogan is ‘because you’re worth it’, this makes the consumer of the product feel special and targeted for being ‘worth it’. If someone was to take an oppositional reading from this and say that the company doesn’t know that they are ‘worth it’ the product is not targeted for them.

Another trend I found was that a lot of the spoken slogans were for food products. For example the Burger King slogan is ‘Have it your way’. This is especially effective to the consumer as is makes the customer think that the company is catering especially for them. This is why the use of spoken slogans is used so much for food brands as it makes customers think that they will enjoy the food as they are sort of being recommended by the company who are assuming they will enjoy it (synthetic personalisation).

Diverisy in spoken language

http://www.manchester.ac.uk/discover/news/article/?id=10520
last accessed 15/09/15
Around 40% of Manchester’s kids and up to 50% of Manchesrer's adult population are likely to be multilingual(using mutiple languages) according to research. Also 3000 pupils at Manchester schools took their GCSE exams in foreign languages in 2012. Mancheser values diversity in spoken language as they have started a project called Multilingual Manchester which celebrates the use of mulitple language being used in our spoken language. This article is useful if you are interested in the different languages spoke in certain places.

http://news.bbc.co.uk/today/hi/today/newsid_8311000/8311069.stm
last accessed 15/09/15
Around seven thousand languages are said to be being spoken around the world. Researchers have predicted that by the year 2100, 90% of the worlds lanuage will no longer exist. "Most people are not at all interested in the death of languages,"  "If we are not cautious about the way English is progressing it may eventually kill most other languages." This article talks about how so many countries are learning, speaking and listening English over their own country's laguage, for example some Vietnamese people are listening only to English music. It also says about how the English media has blown up so much influencing people from all countires to learn and speak the English language. They also say that in years to come English or Mandarian will dominate South East Asian. This article is useful if you are interested in the fading out of languages around the world. It explains how languages are becoming extinct around the world due to more dominantly spoken languages taking over.

English Language Patterns

The patterns I noticed about English language was that the majority of curse words/ taboo words were disliked. Also, the food related words were not disliked because of the actual food that they represent but the sound of the actual word or other things that the word reminded the person of, for example the word 'gravy' was disliked as it reminded someone of the word 'graves'. To investigate this, a list of food words which sound similar to other disliked words could be written and asked whether or not people like the words.