Accents are still a problem

Guardian paper

People have multiple attitudes to accent that can make them very opinionated. 

When people talk about accents they can have very strong views that not everyone agrees with. There are many accent over the UK that are very diffrent from one another, there are people with strong accents to their area or ones that are a mixture. A lot of people love their accent and how it is different from other places in UK and the thought of it spreading is a horrible thought. 

We are judged by how we speak every day, whether its just in a conversation with friends or in a job interview. In the past accent were very separated and you could easily tell where they were from due to their dialect and accent. However, as social media is growing bigger the differences in dialect are becoming smaller and things that used to only be used in one place are now all over the UK. In this day an age those with the wronger accents are either old or they're trying to show pride in where they come from and showing it off whenever they talk to someone. People sometimes change their accents when speaking do different people whether its converging or diverging them. 

A study in the west midlands show that people in places such as Liverpool, Bristol and Newcastle choose their dialect and accent forms self-consciously. Although people may change their accent they also may not want to completely discard them as some suggest that it is a connection to their family and home town.

Even though the strictness of accents have loosened up influential places still have a problem with some. An example is Granny Weatherwax said "my cousin being told when he got a job at the Natwest bank that if he didn't lose his Lincolnshire accent he would never do well in the company". This comment just shows that accents still play an important role in people lives. To some accents may not matter but to others it could show intelligence and that could be very important to employers.

Class survey: Accents & Dialect

                                        Very   Fairly    Neither...nor..   Not very    Not at all
Received Pronunciation
Friendly                           0         3           3                       6                1
Intelligent                        10       4           0                       0                0
Trustworthy                     1        6            6                       1                0
Brummie
Friendly                          0         8            4                       2                0
Intelligent                       0         0            2                       9                3
Trustworthy                    0         4            7                       2                1
Scouse
Friendly                          0         7            4                       1(from Liverpool) 0
Intelligent      (From Liverpool)1        4            5                        4                 0
Trustworthy                    1        6            4                        2                 1

The recieved pronunciation (RP) came across as more intelligent compared to scouse and brummie. The results of the class survey also suggests that the majority believe that they are not friendly. This could indicate a connection between intelligence and friendliness as it seem that people find RP to sound intelligent but not too friendly and brummie to sound friendly but not intelligent. The trustworthiness of RP is a little in the middle with a sway to the positive side.

In the scouse section it is more middle/positive. When it comes to the friendliness of the scouse accent most people were positive but there was an anomaly with a single per on saying that they did not find the accent friendly. However, this may be because she is from Liverpool which is allowing her to have experiences with that accent that others don't, thus the different idea of the accent. This happens again with intelligence, there was one person who voted scouse to sound very intelligent. Although this was different to the others decision it wasn't that different as the rest were very middle orientated not really picking one side from the other.

The recorded voices were 2 men (brummie and scouse) and a women (received pronunciation). This may have swayed people opinions on how they felt about the accents. Something to take into account when looking at these results is that there is not an even ratio of boys to girls in the class which could have made a difference to the results as people may feel more positive or negative to someone who is of the same sex.

Labov's 1966 New York department store research

Labov studied people in department stores in New York it showed that speech patterns were something of a highly systematic structure of social/stylistic stratification. Labov studied how the letter 'r' is pronounced with a word and where it was placed in the word.The letter 'r' had only been reintroduced into the new york accent in 1960. He studied the language of employees in 3 different stores which were all different class. This was because he found that the pronunciation of 'r' occurred and its "frequent of use depended on the speakers’ membership to particular socioeconomic status"

The three locations he used were:

• Saks Fifth Avenue (Expensive upper middle-class store)
• Macy's (Less expensive middle-class store)
• S.Klein ( Discount store used mainly by working-class store)

He made each employee say 'r' four times by getting them to answer questions which lead them to say 'fourth floor'.

Findings: New York was found to be stratified in class, pronounciaion of the 'r' depended on their social status within the employees. People pronounced their 'r's more frequently if they were higher within their social class. 

• Does not work in this day an age as there has been a change within accents (accents merging due to the increase of technology and a change in time - language gradually changing as the years go on)
• Hard to generalise his results (multiple accents)

Bibliography:
http://www.ello.uos.de/field.php/Sociolinguistics/Exemplarystudylabov

http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/labovny.html

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

What are the important contextual features of this text?
The context of this piece is Jennifer Lawrence talking about how after the sony incident she found out that she earned significantly less that her male co-star workers even though she had a leading role as well as them. She shows how she extremely disagrees with the situation and suggests how some things girls say can come across completely different to if a man said it. For example, asking to be payed more could come across as 'spoiled' or 'difficult' but a man would not have to worry about this. Showing aggression in her text as she explains that men and women should get payed the same and have equal job opportunities.

Comment on the 'male' and 'female' language features in this text. What is their effect on the reader?
Jennifer Lawrence uses both 'male' and 'female' language features frequently in her text. The first thing i noticed was she swears multiple times and according to Lakoff's ideas that support the deficit model it is more of a male thing to swear loads in stead of things like empty adjectives which she suggested is more likely for a woman. Even though she does use 'male' language features she also uses 'women' language feature too. Throughout the whole text she lack humour which Lakoff says is a tendency in women's language features. The lack of humour however could just be because of the subject as it is obvious that she is not happy and is trying to prove a point. She also goes towards the male suggestions by Tannen and the difference model, Jennifer Lawrence is showing more conflict within her writing that compromise which is suggested as what women usually do. This is shown as the text comes across as pretty aggressive rather than a calm suggestive tone which you would expect if you believed Tannen's pairs. The use of both 'male' and 'female' features could show that she is trying to reach out to both sexes, the use of both features could relate to the reader and so it could allow them too understand and relate more.

Do you agree with her conclusion? Justify your answer making reference to the language and gender theories we have looked at in class.
I do agree with Jennifer's points as they are very true and i like that she has spoken in a way that agrees with Deborah Cameron's point on how men and women speaking differently is a myth. It is obvious that Jennifer has used both 'male' and 'female' language features according to Lakoff and Tannen's theories. In this text it is going against most of the ideas said by Tannen and Lakoff, For example, Tannen put the way men and women talk into pairs and one of them is 'orders and proposals'. The text goes against this suggestion as it is obvious that Jennifer Lawrence isn't just suggesting that this is happen and proposing we should do something about it, no, she is stating that its happening and ordering that people think about it.

Dialects are changing

Dialect is language variety in regions, a certain vocabulary and grammar belonging to a particular area (not to be confused with accents). However, dialects are changing, peoples distinct dialects are taking features of other dialect/sociolects. The local variations becoming less distinct is called dialect levelling. There are multiple reasons for dialect levelling, for example geographical mobility, social mobility, economic change and the children/young people of today. 

How much do you use technology? Did you know technology is also a cause for dialect levelling? When doing daily things such as watching youtube or a TV show you are coming into contact with other types of dialect. Listening to podcasts or the radio and even playing music is increasing your interaction with other speech varieties. These social medias are allowing people from young ages to grow up hear other dialects which they could adapt to their own changing it without even fully knowing that they are doing it. 

Other reasons for the change could be that the young people/children of today are conforming to peer pressure. If one person in a group of five talks differently than the rest they are more likely to change how they talk, they'll want to fit in meaning they lose some of their original dialect thats been adopted from parents.

Geographical mobility is people moving around and this allow people to come in contact with other types of dialect. Its a very popular thing to do nowadays; this allows a greater contact of language communities, meaning that it is easier to pick up parts of others dialect. People moving from one end of Great Britain to the other is introducing two different dialect. An example of this would be a person moving from London to Liverpool. Another is social mobility, this is when people moving within social statuses. A study in 1964 by Trudgill found that working class people had the stronger dialects. Even though language has always changed over time the mass in movement between countries and regions within country has created a faster movement of this development.

Language and power transcripts

Proper nouns are used by the barrister when referring to Mr Peterson and 2nd person personal pronouns when referring to Mr N. Using second person personal pronouns with Mr N is like the barrister is talking in an accusing tone, with the repetition of Mr N's name the barrister is putting Mr N under pressure. The purpose of using the proper nouns could be to show that he is addressing Mr N specifically and using Mr Peterson's name is like he is trying to remind Mr N of what he did.

The barristers talk and language is more like court room talk and seems planned whereas Mr N's doesn't, "according to you Mr Neil (.) this ill feeling (.) this grudge". The barrister only uses micro-pauses which are probably just him breaking up his sentences where as Mr Neil uses pauses from the shortest of 0.5 seconds and the longest of 2.5. The long pauses coming from Mr Neil could show that he is nervous and trying to come up with answers. His longest pause of 2.5 seconds was before he simply answered 'no' which could imply that he may have been considering a different answer.

Normally the barrister should have the power in this situation but at points it seems that Mr Neil actually has the power. When Mr Neil overlaps the barristers talk with his answer it's showing that he's not scared and is not afraid to give his answer. For example, the barrister says "you can't remember whether they came to see you or not?" and Mr Neil replies over the top "I don't think they did no". This could show power, however, it could also mean that he is rushing to say his answer as he is afraid that the barrister may be catching on that he's worried or afriad. Although the overlapping may actually be Mr Neil being nervous an afraid. This would suggest that the barrister has more power because he is making Mr Neil scared. The rushing of answers could show that he doesn't want the barrister to catch on to his hesitations and is almost being defensive about his answers.

Another way the barrister is showing more power is the way he puts across his sentences. The barrister has an obvious advantage to Mr Neil because it shows in his language the he is prepared whereas Mr Neil is not. This shows power because the barrister can have confidence as he is prepared and confidence allows power.

An interesting thing about this transcript is that even though you would think that it would be serious. The paralinguistic features used in this make it seem like Mr Neil is taking it as a joke as he laughs. However, the paralinguistic features could show that he is amazed with what the barrister is coming up with as he is asking Mr Neil if he has been having multiple problems with the police.

Commentary on controversial issue

I chose gun laws in America because it is a key subject people are talking about due to the mass shooting in Oregon.

The first blog uses longer sentences suggesting that the audience the person is expecting is a more mature audience. The longer sentences allow the writing to flow. The blogger uses multiple rhetorical questions trying to engage the reader in their piece and get them to think about the subject. If they already have their own view on the problem and if it is different from the bloggers it is kind of trying to get them to re-think their ideas. It asks the reader twice if guns are helping, again making them think well do I need a gun? Am I using it for the right reasons? The reader could start to question themselves.

The purpose of this blog was to just to show some ideas that this blogger had and to reach out to the target audience and persuade them. The audience may be shocked when they read the blog as they may have been just expecting some views on the topic but by the time they finished reading it their views may have changed even though they were 100% sure on their choice.

The blogger has wrote "Think logically people" which could make the reader feel like they are being stupid and not thinking correctly. The quote was intending to make the reader believe they are thinking irrationally. If the reader is for guns it may make them take a step back and think about the other side for a second. It is creating a more persuasive piece of writing. This first blog shows more about all the bad things guns are doing and how they are affecting the country in a bad way. Whereas the second blog is thinking about how people use it in a day to day way and how it is benefiting us. For example, it talks about how they are used for sporting events. 


On the second blog the blogger has used short more snappy sentences. This is because they are trying to grab the reader's attention; it is making every sentence a new point for the reader to think about. The short sentences are allowing the blogger to change the topic or direction of his points faster and without fully explaining the point. The short sentences are making it a better way to communicate with the reader as the blogger is getting straight to the point and making it easier to remember as well as being easy to read. However, the short sentences are over used within the piece which doesn't allow the writing to flow. The purpose of the short sentences is to make it obvious that the blogger is writing to an audience that may not have the best reading skills as well as them not being the most advanced in English. 

There is an increase and overuse of exclamation marks near the end of the blog post. It's the blogger trying to show the reader the importance of what they are saying and making sure they pay attention to the message. Through his piece he is showing that guns are used for more than what the media show. Blogger two repeats the idea of protection and safety throughout his piece and always refers back to it. "Protect the county" and "protect themselves". The repetition of these ideas shows that he is actually thinking about the use of the guns and why the majority of America may use one. The blogger is always mentioning the real reasons for most of the public reasons for guns and mentioning it slightly without it being the main point could be putting it into the readers unconsciousness. This would make the reader keep thinking about it with not really knowing why and maybe even changing their min on how they see the use of guns.

The blogger makes it personal by saying ''I feel more secure when I have a gun'' which shows the audience that he is a real person that is benefiting from the guns which could be adding emphasis to his points. There is actually a repetition of 'I' which is because it's a blog. However, this is also to convince his target audience and make it feel like he is pleading to them, trying to make them understand and see where he is coming from.