Summary for the language web

Summary:
Professor Jean Aitchison looks at the possibilities and the pitfalls of the way we use language, and how it can shape as well as distort our view of the world.

She examines how the big choice of words and sentences available to us also sets up possible snares and how humans may be subconsciously trapped by their language.

Jean Atitchison talks about how people speak and that our language has become sick. talks about how people speak English very informally quotes "we are plagued with idiots on radio and television  who speak English like the dregs of humanity" in this she also says that its almost embarrassing hearing people talk like this in Britain she says "one is almost ashamed to let foreigners hear it".

It also talks about the notation that change is due laziness. However, it has also been said the the only true lazy speech is drunken speech- where alcohol effects co-ordination and English is not getting like drunken speech.

Homework revision (HALF TERM)

MODE: The text type E.G electronic (emails,text) written and spoken communication.

TENOR:The relationship between writer and audience- there status ( who produced it for who?) "Dear Madam"

FIELD: The topic -what it's about E.G it's an apology letter.

FUNCTION: The purpose-why it was written E.G to entertain, to persuade.

MODE may affect language use such as grammer because the mode can be written in different formalitys therefore, the use of punctuation changes for example when the mode is electronic (sending a text to a friend) because it's a text between you and a friend it become informal as it's not work related or professional.

TENOR may affect language use due to the relationship between the writer and audience and who has a higher  status for example if there's a speech between a police officer and a young girl the police officer will have a higher status because of his authority.

FIELD may affect language use due to the topic, again for example if the field of a text is about an article on a president it's formality will have to be formal because the topic is of such high authority and so important ,however ,if the topic is about friends it's less formal.

FUNCTION may affect language use for example if the purpose of a text is to persuade it will use persuasive language in order to achieve that function.

First draft of my monologue

A clear mystic silence

only the sound of colorless drops

Dripping like a lonely tear 

Creating endless ripples of fear.

The warm Luke waves drifting without being tamed. 

The uprise of condensation lays upon my mirror

A visual disappearance….

The tiles on my wall all crispy and dry.

My Flaky pale surface with an unwanted guest 

A thigh high cover of newly born fluff

With an irritable response from the moment of touch. 

Something of my conscious that Kept me aware

it was time…. The edge of sanity…I needed a haircut

The cold hard steel on my flaky pale surface

A slip, a rip

A pause…

liquid ruby dripped down the side of my leg 

Splish, splash 

A stroke of emptiness 

A Tight congestion built up in my chest

My hand covered in Crimson red

My hand unconsciously tightened

Tonic of the vampires 

It was a blood bath

PAIN ! ..PAIN was all I felt.

I should have listened to my mother?   

Activity 19

At first what do you think the function is

I think the purpose of this extract is to persuade and show what people sacrifice just to get something they really want instead of spending money as they might not be able to afford it.

When you read to the end of the text, what do you think the function is?

The senctence "explore the world" at the end I think is trying to say look at how other people in the world live there lives and what they do just for a pair of fashionable shoes.

Do you think it is effective? How would it achieve its purpose and for whom?

I think this is very effective because it almost brings a sense of guilt and makes the reader feel guilty because it's showing how teenage girls are recruited to the army in Liberia by the promise of getting those fashionable expensive shoes. 

This text will achieve its purpose by making the reader (who may be middle class people) think twice about buying expensive shoes.

Section 2

The purpose of this text is to inform. The use of interrogative sentence structures makes the reader think more about the text, it also uses declarative language as it expresses a statement " in Liberia, the promise of fashionable shoes is used to recruit teenage girls". The text also used an ellipses "explore the world". The structure used is effective because it's short and snappy which makes the reader read on as it not too long and dull. The audience is readers of a broadsheet newspaper.

Plan for monologue

HAVING A CUT:

IDEAS:

⚫️being over dramatic about a small cut 

⚫️Inspired by "absently present" 

⚫️Feeling anxious scared 

⚫️Cutting your leg while shaving?

⚫️Describing how blood drips 

⚫️Really detailed words

⚫️Talking about how mother said its bad to shave your legs because you could cut yourself

⚫️Talk about the pain

⚫️Maybe first time shaving? Experience 

⚫️Hairy legs ? Metaphor (needed a haircut)

⚫️Use Alliteration 

Plain English campaign

I think this is aimed at people who have bad communication or written/spoken skills and also aimed at charities.

I think it is very important to write In a clear and simple style because people need to understand you and know what your talking about, for example instead of saying something like " the government has sovereignty over parliment" you just need to say " the government has a lot of power over the parliment" having simple language makes things easier because not every understands complicated English.

However maybe using complicated English May come in handy for example if your at a university interview they might want to know how deep your knowledge is of English language so you can use complicated English words then to make yourself sound very clever.

Activity 40

Extract A- is about a women wanting to become a doctor but didn't have the chance to.

Extract C- is about how being a doctor is hard work and it's really busy.

Extract D- is about a nurse who acres a lot about her patients but the patients never seem to be in a good mood as she tries very hard.

Extract E- is about a women talking about a doctor and being angry because she doesn't get enough time and attention from his as he gives to his patients.

Extract F- is about a person talking about how the doctors become really busy but she is relieved when she sees no one sitting on the chair.

Extract G- is about a receptionist talking about a phone call she had about a patient wanting a home visit from the doctor.

I think extract A " I should of been a doctor" is he most effective opening because it gets straight to the point. I would keep some of the paragraphs like extract F because it describes the feeling of a person who works at a doctors.

Dramatic monologue ' My Plum Your Plum'

My Plum Your Plum

Temptation was it?

Maybe greedyness?

Well, were they gently plucked?

My Plums

Did they soothe your buds?

The fresh, sweet, bitter taste 

Your plums?

Were they delicately bit into?

Did the exquisite red juice shower into your mouth?

WAS IT NICE?

My plums?

Did you scream softly with anxiety?

Take it.

Have them all

Your plums.

Conventions of a monologue ( Absently Present)

PRAGMATICS: implies that you should listen to your mother and that she is right. 

This monologue uses short sentences, ellipses, and an informal tone.

I could use short sentences in my monolgue to give an effect of someone being quick as it's short and snappy. I could use ellipses to show a pause or a thought I can use ellipses because it should be clear what I'm talking about through my context. I could use an informal tone to show lack of education or imply that the speaker is a child. I could use dialect to show where my character is from for example a Northern Ireland accent instead of " my mum" I can change it to " me mum" to show the different dialect.

Take it further box

VARIOUS FUNCTIONS OF THE WORD LIKE:

"I was like" = " I said"

"I'm like" = sets up a miniature performance of facial expression body language and attitude.

"And I'm like" = e.g represented on twitter in a picture 

"Like" = verb literally meaning attracted to something egg "I like you" 

"I was, like, so sad"= empathising "I was very sad"

INNIT

" isn't it "

" don't you think so " 

Invented

A secret language 

Keywords and definitions

PHATIC LANGUAGE-using it to be sociable (small talk, fillers)
FORMALITY- the way people adjust the tone of their language to suit the situation e.g formal , slang
DEIXIS- Word that refers to something else (point) Dietetic
PRONOUN- A word used in place of a noun e.g he , his , her , it 
CONTEXT DEPENDENT - need to know what going on (context) to understand it.
CONTEXT INDEPENDENT- clear piece of information and everyone can understand the context.
LOCUTION- (literal sense) e.g "I'm in the bath."
ILLOCUTION - (implied meaning) e.g"You get the phone."
PERLOCUTION- (perceived meaning) e.g "I'll have to get the phone."
CULTURAL ASSUMPTIONS - a person from another country/culture may not understand the things that we know
PRAGMATICS- the ways meaning is implied in a social context 

GRAPHOLOGY-visual marks on the page e.g ! 

SEMANTICS- the relationship between the words and meanings

PHONOLOGY- the sounds of the language e.g cAt cAR

LEXIS- choice of words

MORPHOLOGY- word structure

GRAMMAR- sentence structure

DISCOURSE- structure of whole text e.g layout

MODE- text type ( what it is)

FIELD- topic (what its about)

TENNOR- who/whom (relationship between writer and reader)

FUNCTION- purpose (why)

Conversation

S: oh my god Michelle! 

M: what?

S: did you see the question I got asked on ask.fm?

M: no let me check now.

S: I wonder who it is?

M: 'I know what you did last night' that's some dumb question!

S: init bare weird 

M: what did you do last night anyway ey?

S: ermm- 'I kissed a girl and I liked it' joke joke

M: ewwww you lez, seriously though what did you do? 

S: I'll tell you tomorrow I can't be bothered right now 

M: remember tomorrow at 8:10 yeah 

S: yeah okay and also don't forget on Sunday.

M: yeah what time you going on Sunday

S: ermm I don't know depends on you 

M: Ooo okay I'll tell you some other day 

S: ok well then I'm going to sleep see you tomorrow.

M: yeah goodnight

S: goodnight.

Different methods of communication (BBC)

The BBC website uses different ways to communicate these are:
written communication, spoken communication. The majority of the website consists of spoken communication as there are a lot of videos , there are some brief written things to tell you what its about. For example on the BBC news page there's a viewpoint on Russia's chemical weapon plan for Syria this is written so it uses written communication. There is also a video about Syria crisis and this uses spoken communication.
The BBC also uses different modes these are:
Telephone calls- at the bottom of the page to be contacted.
connected TV- this is to watch the news and see what is going on.
Email news- this is for the people who cant what the news on their TV's so they can watch it through email.

electronic modes

modern technological modes:

radio
TV
phone- use this interactive
computers
twitter- I use this one way communication
ipad- I use this one way communication

Analysis of a text

A text message:
''what you mean am funny? I put my alarm specially for you, fine don't appreciate it hahaha, you frog''

ANALYASIS OF TEXT:

LEXIS: I think the writer chose 'fine' instead of 'ok' to come make it seem as if he was angry or didn't care.
MORPHOLOGY: the writer uses the word 'frog' to put a bit of humour into the text and makes the text then seem like there's no tension.
GRAPHOLOGY: the writer's spelling is correct but it says 'am' instead of ' I am' this shows that this is an informal text.
GRAMMER: this piece of text is very informal and very casual and comfortable.

Expectations for This Course

I'm expecting this course to be challenging. over the next year i'm expecting to learn how to write and structure essays, read through articles and newspapers and pick information out of them, also how people use different dialect. I choose English language because i think its much more interesting to learn about also because its not much reading books based. At university i want to study a law and become a barrister i think English will help me achieve this as it will improve on my writing skills and writing in a more complex English using more complex words and also English opens up a broader range of subjects to pick from.

George Orwell

George Orwell's ''Politics and the English Language'' essay really confused me. I kind of got lost in the words i didn't understand and the fact that its such a long essay made it harder for me to understand what he was talking about However from the first paragraph i think George was trying to put across that as society develops the English language develops, it could be that people fear change so you will always find people arguing with and against it. The problem is people half consciously assume language is a natural growth and don't want to except that language is shaped by our purposes.