In the background

Screams are all I can hear these days. They're 

there when I go to the bathroom and when I 

trying to make food. I can't get rid of it. You'd 

think that it will be easy to live with but it is not.

 Never should have left the hospital. 

Investigation

Language is used differently on the news when different audiences are addressed

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0BFSJRH1q-A   - David Cameron on Sky News discussing the EU referendum


https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=VTLzRHrGHds    - Davis Cameron on BBC News discussing the EU referendum

Giles communication and accommodation theory

Research

In the book 'How children think + learn' (1998), an argument was created on the idea that children are not taught to speak from Chomsky's theory. A question asked do they learn through imitation or 'acquire their mothers tongue'? A difference in language is accents and although people may think that a specific accent is better than another there is no real justification to show that specific accents are better or worse. Languages are not taught in schools but picked up gradually over every day social contact,different language and new customs have been blended over time to form British culture and English language.

An opinion article discussing the idea that women should change their language

Intended audience: women of all ages
Guardian post

Should women change their language? 

It has always been suggested that women are lower than men and the only way to get on top is to change, change the way you talk, change the way you dress, to be/act more masculine.

There are many people who believe that the only way women will ever be able to gain power is by changing their language, an example of this would be Margaret Thatcher. The former Prime Minister had lessons to deepen her voice, a key reason for this may have been because a deeper tone may have more connotations towards power and dominance (which is needed when you are running a country) whereas if she had a feminine voice she may not have been respected or taken seriously. Being a woman I think it is absurd that people believe we should change and that without changes, in things such as language, we are being held back from our full potential. A well know linguist called Robin Lakoff made a very strong assumption on the trends in the spoken language of a female. These were things such as polite forms, hedges (eg. maybe, could and feel) and use question intonation in declarative statements. These all could suggest that a woman's language is weaker than a male's because they are polite and can sometimes come across unsure or though they need reassurance. This idea is supported by a linguist expert Dr Judith Baxter, who found that found that in board rooms women were adjusting their language so impact their colleagues in a good way, they were second guessing their language. This lead to them using phrases such as "I am probably speaking out of tum, but...", this comes across as them lowering their social power which could seem weak or as suggested by Dr Baxter it could be a way of manipulating those around them.

On the other hand changing your language, in an effective way, may not be too bad if it allows you to reach your full potential instead of letting the use of tag questions be the reason you do not get the manager job. So although I don't agree that you should have to change to get where you want to go it does work. If you were more straightforward in your speech you may have the ability to be more respected that if you were turning commands into questions.

In this generation, it may take a woman changing her language to allow her to climb social ladders but I do hope that one day a woman will be able to reach her best without changing her language.

Analysing and comparing

Part A) Text A is a website, YouGov is to inform the public about the government affairs and seek the public's opinions on such topics. The purpose of the website could be to engage people who are part of the younger generation with the use of affordances such as the line that goes down the whole page and links all the information together. This 'tech savvy' website may attract those who are interested in finding out a range of information within one website. However, there are slight constraints with the fact that those under 18 may not feel like they can take part in the website due to voting age being 18. This may mean that the websites ultimate aim to get clicks on their website may not be achieved due to it not appealing to those of all ages.

The website starts off with an interrogative asking the audience 'what would you like to do?', this could suggest that they are trying to mitigate their language due to the fact that the person has had to come to a website to find out the information they need. This could be seen as face threatening as they cannot do it face to face, so they have mitigated their language to show the audience that  they are respect and important. It is an interrogative that offers you options and allows you to make your own decisions.

Part B) Text B  is on the BBC online news page informing people about the recent mayor elections.

Compare) Text A is from the YouGov website and it talks about what is available within the website and gives you lots of options to search around and find what might interest you. The purpose is to not only inform but to educate both the reader and the creators of the website. Text B is from the BBC online news page and it is being very concise about the results of the mayor elections and focusing on the Labor party. The purpose of the article is to inform people about the election results in a way that is going to get them more clicks as it is an online article.

As text B is the BBC people would expect it to be to be very formal yet they use hypercorrect grammar, such as saying 70 instead of seventy. However, this may just be to help make the text much easier to read and it goes with the almost summary style that it is written in. Text A is written quite formally despite it being short sentaces that are straight to the point. The formality would be almost expected as it is a political website however they put it in a way that may appeal to young people. This being that they split the paragraph so it is much shorter and does not seem like it would be as much effort to read as a whole paragraph.

The first text focuses more on the synthetic personalisation whereas the second text is all about the statistics. The first text uses the repetition of 'you' and focuses on getting you interactive with the website which could show that they are looking for more than clicks, they are there to help and the most interesting way they can and this is through things such as questionnaires.

Opinionated article about the use of work language in other contexts

Target audience- The Guardian

All Day, Everyday

Has the language you use at work started to follow you home? Have you been talking in a professional manner to your friends?

It is very often that people use the same language from work in their social life, this should stop. It is really not a healthy thing to use the language from your occupation outside of that area due to it may reduce the love you have for your career and confuse others that are not within that discourse community. This could happen as if you talk as though you are at work it will probably start to feel as though you are always at work and you can't relax. Nobody likes to feel they are working all the time.

Associating work with home can make life stressful.

As a lawyer, I very frequently use language from my profession in my social life. Cases are always going around in my head and this very frequently makes me tired of the job. Recently I have been noticing it more and how it is affecting my life. In work, I mostly use bald on-record as this fits the type of work I do however when I leave and use it in other contexts, such as the supermarket, I just come across rude.

Having occupational power does not mean that you will have social power and you may not notice that you are not in the same position of one hierarchy as the other. This could lead to awkward situations or people feeling that their face needs are being threatened. There are politeness strategies laid out by Goffman to protect the face needs from being threatened. So if at work you are a boss and at the top of your occupational hierarchy then you may use bald on record however outside of work you could be very low on the social hierarchy and so using a more direct way of talk may be seen as rude.

Bringing your work language to other aspects of your life could be a good thing as you may influence those around you do broaden their vocabulary and knowledge. However, they may not enjoy this, it could make people feel trapped. I definitely would not enjoy if my brother continuously used language from the lexical field of lift engineering it would make everything so much harder. The worst thing about taking your work language into other contexts is the effect it could have on the children that are around it. I believe the use of occupational language could have a bad effect on children as the use could make them feel as though they are in a place of work at home. For example, in care homes having words such as office and staffroom. They are cold and impersonal which is not good for the development of the child they may always feel as though their home is not their home.

Work should stay in work. Don't negatively affect yourself and those around you because you cannot separate occupational language from social language.

Does you accent and dialect really matter?

It is very often that people will change their accent or dialect when they talk, whether it be to fit in or to stand out.

Travelling has become a more frequent thing to do, this increase has meant that people with different dialects mix. The mix of different dialects allows people to pick up words which they would not normally use. The more people the more language is swapping and people are using dialect from other regions, this is causing dialect levelling, the swapping of dialects could create dialects to become more similar. We are influenced in many different ways to use other regional dialects and accents. These influences come from books, TV, music, films, etc... This creates a wider range of accents and dialects mixing because these different media's do not require you to leave your region or even house. You get the experience of hearing multiple dialects within TV shows or music. 

How people would like to be perceived has a big effect on how they talk. People are more likely to converge their language to those around them so they are not different, they would like to fit in. Although this may not seem true, it is actually a very frequent thing. People may also diverge their language to make as different from others as they can, like in Martha's Vineyard study (by Labov), this showed that the locals strengthened their pronunciations to make themselves an independent social group that are superior to the tourists. This suggests that people in Martha's Vineyard see that them changing their language is making their status higher than the tourists, so they are seen as more superior. Talking in the same way as those close to you could allow you to feel closer to them and them to accept you more.  There was a study done in 1987 in Belfast, it found that men lived in a much more close-knit friendship than women which showed that they spoke the same way within the group (linguistically homogenous) and due to peer pressure used more non-standard English when talking.  

It is common for people to judge a person on their accent or dialect. Should your accent matter? Should the words you use contribute to how someone sees you? People are still discriminated against for how they speak, but does that really mean they should change? 

Accents should not matter or affect how people see you, but they do. There have been multiple studies that show how accent effect what people think. 

Giles 1970's matched guise technique: People evaluated their personal qualities base on their voices. However what they didn't know that it was the same person doing different accents, this found that people were most impressed with received pronunciation and least impressed with the Birmingham accent. 

Giles capital punishment study: found that people preferred accents which are like their own.

People also judge how smart someone is due to their accent, received pronunciation is the most common to hear when watching the news as people perceive it as sounding smart. Berstein and Labov disproved this idea though as they did a study which found that there was not a clear link between intelligence and spoken language. This study shows that even though people may be prejudice towards certain accents, how they speak actually has nothing to do with how smart they are or how well they will do compared to those who have an accent that is associated with being smart.