Accents and Dialects - notes

Notes: Accents and Dialects

• a school in Essex "discouraging students from using words likes ain't, geezer, whatever, like and literally"
• "native speakers of English are generally at least bidialectal"
• Julia Snell argues that “to learn and develop, children must participate actively in classroom discussion; they must think out loud, answer and ask questions”

Quotes to support:

• the head teacher, David Grant says that students’ dialect “may not favourably reflect on them when they attend college and job interviews”
• David Grant also says we should “ensure the way the pupils talk gives a positive impression”
• James Sledd: “To use slang is to deny allegiance to the existing order … by refusing even the words which represent convention and signal status.”

Quotes against:

• been tried for over 100 years but not worked
• "there’s nowt wrong with regional dialects, nothing broke ass about slang. They’re part of our identities, connecting us to time, place, community, and self-image. They needn’t be displaced by formal English – we can have both"
• "because children are sensitive to how they’re perceived, stigmatising their everyday speech can be harmful"
• "educating them about linguistic diversity instead of proscribing it, we can empower students and deter misguided pedantry"
• "research shows that gradual transition towards standard English works better. But because dialect prejudice is so prevalent, this must be done in such a way that children understand there’s nothing inherently wrong with their natural expression"
• "learning different Englishes gives us command of different domains, a skill we can then put to creative and appropriate use"
• "facility with slang is a real advantage in some jobs"
• "we pick up linguistic norms and learn to code-switch according to context"

Language Change

Language Change -

• Old English - 5th Century

The languages of Britain were Celtic. English developed from Angles, Jutes and Saxons (Anglo-Saxons). Both Anglo-Saxon and Old Norse had a big influence on the English language. Latin was regarded as the language of the upper class and had a big influence from this point onwards.

• Middle English - 11th Century

French was the verbal language while Latin remained in written documents. English came to prominence towards the end of the Middle English period.

• Early Modern English - 15th Century

Caxton introduced the printing press (1476), printing many works in English which helped contribute to the standard form of English. using South East Dialect as the basis for this new standard. Shakespeare produced his work, growing interest and pride in English as a language.

• Modern English - 18th Century

The English language had grown very quickly. Borrowed words from Greek, Latin and around the world. Grammarians studied the grammar of the language which helped them work out correct ways of speaking and writing.

• Present-day English - 20th Century

Influence from the media, technology and travel has helped to develop the English language further and establish it as a global language.

•  English = hybrid language (product of the invasions from German tribes, Vikings and Norman French)
•  Latin has a big influence also

CLA Task

CLA Task:




1. Cooing, babbling, holophrastic, two word, telegraphic, post telegraphic.




2. Nativist - N.Chomsky
    Cognitive - J.Piaget
    Behaviourist - B.F.Skinner
    Interactional - J.Bruner
    Critical period - E.Lenneberg




3. Overextension - she refers to the fruit as the shape she sees.


4. under extension - she cant relate it to other things


5. Overgeneralisation


6. Telegraphic stage


7. She is using it in the right order but is using 'me' instead of 'I'.


8. Substitution - may be harder to say 'oh'.


9. Deletion - may not hear/be able to say it


10. Deletion of unstressed syllables 'ba'.


11. Instrumental - using language to express needs e.g. "want juice"
      Regulatory - using language to influence the behaviour of others e.g. "go away"
      Interactional - using language to develop social relationships e.g. "I love you"
      Personal - using language to express personal preferences e.g. "I am good"
      Representational - using language to exchange information e.g. "I had toast for breakfast"
      Heuristic - using language to learn off and explore the environment e.g. "what is the tractor
      doing"
      Imaginative - using language to tell stories and create an imaginary environment e.g. "there's a
      dinosaur"


12. 'Wugs' - researched by Jean Burko, she made up an animal and children used 's' at the end to
       make
       it plural.


13. Concrete nouns - common items around them.


14. Conversations and games.


15. CDS- tag questions, simplified grammar and vocabulary.


16. Feral girl - only knew about 20 words at 13, critical learning period.


17. Child born to deaf parents, was sat in front of the TV to pick up language but didn't, due to not
      being interacted with.


18. David Crystal and Steven Pinker.


19. Language Acquisition Device


20. Determiners - e.g. the, a
      Auxillary verbs - e.g. is doing, am going


The formation of negatives:
- does not
- do not


e.g. she works (affirmative)
      she does not work (negative)

Halliday's Functions

Halliday's Functions:


Instrumental -
Child uses language to express their needs, usually concerned with food, drink and comfort E.G. 'want juice'


Regulatory -
Child uses language to influence the behaviour of others, persuading/commanding E.G. 'go away'


Interactional -
Child uses language to develop social relationships and ease the process of interaction E.G. 'I love you'


Personal -
Child uses language to express personal preferences and individual identity E.G. 'I am good'


Representational -
Child uses language to exchange information, concerned with requesting facts or information


Heuristic -
 Child uses language to learn of and explore the environment, this could be questions and answers  E.G. 'what is the tractor doing?'


Imaginative -
 Child uses language to tell stories and jokes, may also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling

Mini investigation: Evie 'all the things'

Evie mini investigation 'all the things' - 

Title:
Investigation into how the caregivers language influences Evie's linguistic development in the 'all the things' video transcript

Introduction:

• Bruner's LASS theory says that by caregivers interacting with children and encouraging them to respond, it supports their linguistic development in social situations. Vygotsky supports this and says that children take in the language used by adults and apply it to their own situations, this is referred to as scaffolding. 
• Theory would predict that in this investigation, i will find that the caregivers language helps to develop that of Evie's. I will therefore expect to find the caregivers language being supportive and prompting Evie for answers, as well as positive reinforcement, interrogatives,open questions, closed questions, repair and possible echoing. 

Methodology:

• For my investigation i picked the 'all the things' video transcript between Evie and her Grandmother and i analysed it, counting the amount of interrogatives, open questions, closed questions and repeats/prompts from the Grandmother. This way i could look at the caregivers language with the child and how this helps develop her linguistic skills.
• Due to not knowing Evie nor her Grandmother, it made sure that i was not biased in the investigation.
• Benefits of the investigation would be that i did not have to ask for consent when using the data and also the speech from Evie was natural
• Limitations of the investigation however would be that it is not truly representative due to only having a limited data sample, being one recording. Also since the Grandmother was recording, she was aware of what she was saying which could have resulted in demand characteristics. 

Analysis:

• In total, Evie's Grandmother asked 42 interrogatives, 19 open questions, 22 closed questions and 10 repeats/prompts.
• By asking so many interrogatives/ open questions it allows Evie to expand on her point and develop her language by speaking in more detail and depth.
• This also shows that her Grandmother initiates conversation with Evie which would help her also do the same in future conversations as she will take it on board, this is scaffolding. 

Conclusion and Evaluation:

• As i only had a small pool of data there was of course massive limitations in what i could do and also what i could find as it wasn't truly representative. 
• My findings proved my hypothesis since Evie's Grandmother did ask many interrogatives, open and closed questions and repairs/prompts which helps develop Evie's language.

Twitter Investigation

Investigating Language on Twitter - 

Introduction:
I think that men are more likely to show dominance than women in their tweets
- can study women's language feature (empty adjectives, uncertainty features) and mens dominance (use of imperatives etc)
- links to Robin Lakoff's deficit theory

Methodology:
-We picked two celebrities of each gender and picked every fifth tweet
- It is not biased as we don't know the person and picked the tweets at random
- Benefits: don't have to ask for consent because they're tweeting publicly
- Limitations: not truly representative as only got 10 tweets, small sample

Analysis:
- Taylor (female)
   showed a higher amount of empty adjectives and uncertainty feature
- Taylor uses 'so much' which is two uncertainty feature however do we count as one as they are used and work together?
- Zac (male)
  uses higher amount of multi modality pictures and also imperatives
(we did average per tweet as two of Taylor's tweets were retweets so we didn't count them)
- This could show that women are more descriptive in their writing as opposed to men who are more concise. Could suggest men are more dominant because of imperatives

Conclusion and Evaluation: 
- massive limitations as only a small pool of data
- finding prove our hypothesis because men use more imperatives and women use more empty adjectives

For the Future:
- choose larger pool of data
- keep random DONT cherry pick

transcript

Geordie Shore Transcript - Language and Gender

R & V: [ laughs ]
I: will we be seeing a geordie wedding this season(.)or coming up
V: (1)no(.) we're not um i think(.) we'll(.)in(.)oh(.)
R: you lost for words babe
V: [ laughs ]
R: is she feeling alright(.) are you feeling alright(.)
V: i'm not lost for words im just tryna work out|how to put it
R:                                                                        |yeah|ok
V:                                                                                |shutup
R: i can't believe this like
V: |we don't have a wedding
R: |when she's on camera this never happens