Article analysis

Broken homes damage brains of infant children, this article bringing many opinions towards my conclusion and analysis. I used my understanding of the larger scale linguistic concepts and the language levels in order to analyse the article.


First of all PURPOSE - the purpose of this article being that stereotypically, people and families who live on the poorer scale will 'always' have problems with their children's learning development due to family abuse and neglect.


TONE - I noticed that their was bias language used in an argument form with high register and no colloquialism.


MODE - Written form as it is typed in an article form.


AUDIENCE - Adults with children, teachers and the education committee.


GENRE - Serious, factual and personal opinion consisting of opinions from Katherine Rake and Duncan Smith.


CONTEXT - Reasons why people from a less affluent background with families of young children are more likely to be surrounded by drugs, abuse and learning difficulties causing money problems for the government as more children have the brain of a 1 year old in a 4 year olds body.


Key features from this article that I have found is repetitive language, graphology with capital letters and bold headlines with meets the codes and conventions of an article.

Oxford Dictionary research

This research was in corporation with the English Oxford dictionary, where I used the online dictionary to see how language has changed through representation with gender.

English Dictionary

Analysis of print advert

The status of Standard English and how it has changed since the last century

Standard English is a variety of language that is used by governments, in the media, in schools and for international communication. There are different standard varieties of English in the world, such as North American English, Australian English and Indian English. These standard varieties differ in terms of their pronunciation; there are a few differences in grammar between them, the difference between non-standard forms of language that are used, for example in different regional dialects and these non standard varieties differentiate from each other.

 

 From my personal opinion of the change in Standard English, I think the status in Standard English has changed dramatically. Here are a few of my opinions why. 1) Due to the growth in population, it means the more confined areas of Britain flee from their birthplace or area of accent and divert to other areas of the country, meaning that more people pick up the accent that has been brought to them but also the people migrating to other parts of the country also pick up the new accent, which means the ‘standard English’ vocabulary is changed in order for people to understand the change in dialect. 2) With English being one of the most used languages for communication than other languages, this means that the language is changed depending on how it has been learnt, this goes back from centuries ago when people would learn English through the area they lived in and didn’t learn it through standard English. 3) Another thing that has affected the status of Standard English is the status of the British people, according to the class and status of wealth, this regarding that if you were of a higher class, you were more demanding and of authority, therefore meaning they should take the example of Standard English.

 

Furthermore these are only a few reasons as to why I think standard English has changed but first I done more research into why class and wealth has affected the change in standard English from the past century. According to International English: A guide to the varieties of Standard English. ‘ The upper class quite normally wrote in their own dialect, and then were in a position to impose this way of writing on society at large. This was rather widely accepted because the variety was associated with power and status.’ This linking with my own view on the status of Standard English that it has changed dramatically over the last century, due to the demand in status and being put in a category. In association with physiographic and demographics. The guide to the varieties of Standard English also said, ‘ Standard English is the kind of English which all native speakers learn to read and write, most people do not actually speak Standard English but is due to the change in population within English social origins, and accent and dialect.

 

This linking to my next point in migration within a country and moving to another country. This can affect the change in status and authority of Standard English. Firstly if an individual from central London for example, moved down to Essex, the accent would be different and stronger from the Essex region. This is because of the accent and dialect, which is one of the main causes of the change in Standard English. The way this works, which is in most case not just migration within your own country, but also with moving to new countries, whom also speak the English language, is that you change your dialect to what would be known as ‘standard’ with basic words to represent a conversation In order to be understood by the other people speaking English of their origin. The way this works for example is a conversation between a Standard English speaker and someone of a Black English vernacular origin. The standard way of saying ‘where may I find the towels’ and the black English vernacular way being ‘where the towels’ this shows the change in Standard English with the shortening of words and the lack of nouns and pronunciation. Examples of accents that have changed the Standard English’s status are cockney, scouse, creole and Jamaican, (only listing a few). This way of only using basic words in order to string a sentence together is then carried on through other people and then become the normal way of speaking. This is how Standard English is being changed due to the society and people being able to understand each other.

 

Another example which had made the language of standard English change is due to technologies, this is because words are now having to be used in order for people to understand the meaning of the new technologies but most importantly, text messaging. Text messaging has influences the change the most with the constant use of acronyms and abbreviations of words in order for texting to be quick and easy, although this isn’t the problem, the problem occurring is that children of a younger age are now using technologies to text and then being brought into their way of writing and speaking. Examples being lol or the word ‘you’ changed to be spelt as ‘u’. This has also affected the way in communication and how the generation the teenagers are in 2015, now have a whole new vocabulary in order for communication, which the older generations don’t understand. This is due to the shift in language and dialect, the change within a society.

 

Overall I think the language has changed a lot since the last centaury. According to the website http://www.linguisticsociety.org/content/english-changing.

English began to undergo a major change in the way its vowels were pronounced. Before that, geese would have rhymed with today's pronunciation of face, while mice would have rhymed with today's peace. However, a 'Great Vowel Shift' began to occur, during which the ay sound (as in pay) changed to ee (as in fee) in all the words containing it, while the ee sound changed to i (as in pie). Overall, seven different vowel sounds were affected. If you've ever wondered why most other European languages spell the sound ay with an ‘e’ (as in fiancé), and the sound ee with an ‘i’ (as in aria), it's because those languages didn't undergo the Great Vowel Shift, only English did.

language in the work place with males and female

The workplace we use has become more and more diverse with immigration into the UK bringing a richness of different cultures. Historically, some members have complained that some workers are not always using English in the workplace and similarly, some migrant workers complain that they have been prevented from speaking in their mother tongue to their compatriots anywhere in the workplace. This can become a problem if representatives are unsure of how to advise members; can lead to resentment in the workplace and can fuel racism and racial harassment.

 

Employers generally regard communication skills in employees as the most important set of soft skills. Use of appropriate workplace language aligns with good communication. Profanity, excessive slang or other crude or vulgar language may seem acceptable with friends, it but doesn't support your image as a good communicator at work. Using vulgar or sexual language could lead to a sexual harassment claim by a colleague. Body language also affects your communication. Your entrance and carriage, posture and handshake all project a level of confidence, respect and professionalism that help or hinder your verbal language. Workplaces have become more diverse; some employees speak native languages that are not English. Workplace human rights speaker and author Stephen Hammond identifies co-workers who speak different languages as one of the greatest workplace challenges in 2012. Employees should not be offended if colleagues engage in casual conversation in another language. Some employers hire translators to help global colleagues interact effectively. Being a bilingual speaker can significantly increase your value to employers in many instances. It can also help you build better relationships with colleagues and clients.

In Edelsky’s data, most participants in F1 floors were male, while F2 floors were participated in equally by males and females. Moreover, “men took more and longer turns and did more of the joking, arguing, directing, and soliciting of responses in F1's, while women “outstripped men in the increase of certain language functions in F2's (joking, arguing, suggesting, soliciting responses, validating, directing) and thus [were] more proactive and on center stage in F2's and reactive and on the sidelines in F1”.

Other researchers have proposed that more than two floor types exist. Schultz, Florio, and Erickson (1982) identified four types of floor at family dinners. Hiyashi (1991) created a taxonomy of eight floor types based on analysis of conversations among native Japanese and among native English speakers, including “prime-time-at-a-time” floors such as lectures, “speaker and supporter” floors, and “non-propositional” floors, or self-centred floors of speakers entirely preoccupied with their own thoughts, all under the broad heading of “single-speaker” floors. These were contrasted with “collaborative” floors, including “ensembles,” “joint floors,” and “multiple floors.” Similarly, Jones and Thorn borrow (2004) argue for the existence of multiple flexible and locally-negotiated floors in classroom discourse, ranging from “tight” or “constrained” floors, such as when the teacher calls the roll, to “loose” floors, such as when the teacher and a group of students are walking along a street, conducting an outdoor activity. The authors also identify “incipient” floors, in which silence is the main activity but some talking occurs, and “multiple floors,” in which multiple activities are taking place in a single setting, each with their own floor organization, “and with some fluidity among conversational groups”. None of these studies considered gender as a variable in relation to floor type.

Researcher(s)	Date	Key findings
Eakins & Eakins	1976	In seven university faculty meetings, the men spoke for longer.  The men’s turns ranged from 10.66 to 17.07 seconds, the women’s from 3 to 10 seconds.
Edelsky	1981	In a series of meetings of a university department faculty committee, men took more and longer turns and did more joking, arguing, directing, and soliciting of responses during the more structured segments of meetings.  During the ‘free-for-all’ parts of the meetings, women and men talked equally, and women joked, argued, directed, and solicited responses more than men.
Herbert & Straight	1989	Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank.
Herring	1992	In an email discussion which took place on a linguistics ‘distribution list’, five women and 30 men took part, even though women make up nearly half the members of the Linguistic Society of America and 36% of subscribers to the list.  Men’s messages were twice as long, on average, as women’s.  Women tended to use a personal voice, e.g. ‘I am intrigued by your comment …’.  The tone adopted by the men who dominated the discussion was assertive: ‘It is obvious that …’.

Holmes	Various studies from 1998	Women managers seem to be more likely to negotiate consensus than male managers, they are less likely to just ‘plough through the agenda’, taking time to make sure everyone genuinely agrees with what has been decided.
Holmes Holmes and Marra	2005 2002	Contrary to popular belief, women use just as much humour as men, and use it for the same functions, to control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors, although they are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative humour.
Hornyak	1994?	The shift from work talk to personal talk is always initiated by the highest-ranking person in the room.
Tracy and Eisenberg	1990/1991	When role-playing delivering criticism to a co-worker about errors in a business letter, men showed more concern for the feelings of the person they were criticizing when in the subordinate role, while women showed more concern when in the superior role.
Various cited on http://www.vuw.ac.nz/lals/research/lwp/research/directives.aspx	Various 1998–2004	When giving a directive to an equal, workers tend to use more indirect devices (such as we instead of you, hedged structures and modals).  When giving directions to a subordinate, workers are often more direct.