Ochs and Taylor 1992

Ochs and Taylor 1992:

Examines how the family is constituted as a political institution through conversational interaction. Families are political bodies in that certain members review, judge, formulate codes of conduct, make decisions and impose sanctions that evaluate and impact the actions, thoughts and feelings of other members.

Dinner-time narratives:

-Usually the first time the whole family can interact with each other

-We give stories and reports from the day

-These stories can draw in the participation of other members

Participant Roles:

Protagonist – hero/report

Introducer –someone who starts the conversation

Primary recipient –who is the story aimed at?

Problematizer –someone who creates a problem or challenge –being unfair, rude etc#

Problematizee –the recipient of the problem –they have to respond

According to Ochs and Taylor:

During family dinnertime stories, the most empowering roles are

1) Introducer

2) Problem identifier

3) Ratified recipient –which shows they are valued

Distribution of Roles:

-Children usually only introduce one third of all the reports/stories. Mothers introduce the most.

-Mothers are introducers for  children, mother selects father as primary recipient

-Fathers were often the problematizers and rarely problematizees.

-Mothers would often try to solve the problems set by the fathers.

For my primary research I recorded a conversation at the dinner and transcribed it. From this transcript I found out that my mum was the most dominant in the conversation as she was the introducer of the conversation. This proves Ochs and Taylors theory because they said that mother introduces the most and this happened. However, my research disproves their theory as they said that dinner time is where the whole family sit down and see each other and tell their stories. However, my primary research disproves this as my parents asked how my day was as soon as I got in from school so at dinner there wasn't really much to talk about. There was no problematizer in this conversation.  From my research, I can disprove Ochs and Taylor’s theory that usually the first time the whole family can interact with each other. We give stories and reports from the day because from my research this isnt the first time we interact with eachother as my parents asked how my day was as soon as I got home from school. We didn’t really have a long conversation at the table as they were only short conversation. My mum introduced all of the conversations, showing that she is the dominant one of the conversation; this subverts gender as it is usually the males who are more dominant in conversation. 

Fairlcough and Critical Discourse Analysis

Norman Fairclough – Language and Power Theory (discourse)

Norman Fairclough shows that many communications are ‘unequal encounters’. This means that language choice is created and controlled by certain social ‘power’ situations or ‘power type’ discourse of kinds accepted as ‘normal’ for that kind of encounter. Fairclough also shows how texts are persuasive due to the ideologies which they rely on to create an effect. For example, when the text makes ‘natural’ assumptions about its reader’s values and beliefs, about what is ‘normal’ or ‘common sense’.

SYNTHETIC PERSONALISATION (only in advertising)

Critical Discourse Analysis

Critical discourse analysis is a discourse analytical research that focuses on the way that social power abuse, dominance and inequality are portrayed, reproduced and resisted by text and talk in the social and political context.

Critical discourse analysis needs to please a number of requirements in order realize its aims to successfully:

-CDA research has to be ‘better’ than other research in order to be accepted.

-It focuses mainly on social problems and political issues, rather than on current models and fashions.

-Provisionally sufficient critical analysis of social problems is usually combining.

-Rather than just describing discourse structures, it tries to explain them in terms of properties of social interaction and especially social structure.

-More specifically, CDA focuses on the ways in which discourse structures portray, confirm, legitimate, reproduce or challenge relations of power and dominance in society.

Fairclough and Wodak (1997: 271-80) summarize the main views of CDA as the following:

1. CDA addresses social problems

2. Power relations are discursive

3. Discourse constitutes society and culture

4. Discourse does ideological work

5. Discourse is historical

6. The link between text and society is mediated

7. Discourse analysis is interpretative and explanatory

8. Discourse is a form of social action.

Critical discourse analysis is the use of a collection of techniques of the study of textual practice and language use as social and cultural practices (Fairclough 19992b). This is created from three broad theoretical orientations. First is poststructuralism which is that discourse progresses logical across local institutional sites and also texts have a beneficial function in forming and shaping human identities and actions. Then there is Bourdieu's sociology which is assuming that the real textual practices and interactions with texts become personified forms of cultural capital with substituted value in certain social fields. Finally, there is neomarxist cultural theory which assumes that these discourses are created and used within political economies and they create and articulate wider ideological interests, social stricture and movements within those fields. The practical techniques of CDA are copied from a variety of penalizing fields. Within pragmatics, narratology and speech act theory; this disputes that texts are forms of social action which arise in complex social contexts. 

Advert Analysis

Advert Analysis from Damita D

Standard English Essay

English Language Essay-Standard English

I think that the status of Standard English has changed since the turn of the century to some extent; this is due to advancements in technology (smartphones, text messages etc), social media (Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc). It isn’t just technology that has caused an impact, its abbreviations of words and the use of slang words and social class is also a factor. However, Standard English hasn’t lost its status as it is still accepted and used within the society.

Standard English has changed due to people using word abbreviations, for example using ‘lol’ instead of laugh out loud, ‘brb’ for be right back and ‘l8r’ for later. People may use these words as it saves time and is easier, however is can make people become lazy when using technology. These words wouldn’t be used in everyday speech just in texting or on social media. Some examples of slang words are bee’s knees, quid (money), telly (television), skiving (skipping school), chap (man), dodgy, ace and many more. Aswell as word abbreviations and slang words, new words have been introduced such as bae and selfie, these words are used by mainly teenagers and have become a trend due to the amount of people using them and putting them on social media. These new words and meanings that have been introduced can cause people to make up words and use them or people have used words and made different meanings.

I think that technology has had a major impact on Standard English. Hundreds of years ago there was no technology available so people had to either write or use typewriters. One example of this is text messaging which is a quick and easy way to communicate with friends but it can cause people to become lazy due to using word abbreviations and emojis. Emojis are used in order to express someone emotions through a small picture icon. There are loads of emojis including laughing, crying, kissing, hugging, shocked, angry and many more. This is a simple and easier way to express emotions. These are widely used on texting and social media by millions of people. They have become the latest trend. Text messaging has auto correct which changes the word if it is spelt wrong to the correct spelling. This causes people to just type without actually looking at how the word is spelt, so this may cause them to forget how to spell a word if they haven’t got auto correct, if they are writing. Also in text informal language is often used, for example people shorten words – gonna, tryna, wanna ain’t etc. This causes a decline in Standard English as people are not saying the whole word and not saying it correctly.

Due to the invention of social media such as Facebook, twitter, Instagram etc, Standard English has changed. Social media is another way for people to communicate with their friends. However there are some cons to these, one con is that on twitter many people decided to follow the latest trends which cause them to use informal language because it is easier and more casual when using social media. Hashtags and certain words that friends/famous people use can become a trend causing loads of people to use them. Social media allows users to use swear words which isn’t a good idea because this causes people to get aggressive and make a bad impressions. This also impacts on getting jobs as if your employer wants to look on your social media site and they see this then they may think that this person isn’t right for the job if they say things like that. Many arguments are caused due to social media and informal language is used a lot in these arguments.

Peter Trudgill explored the dialect of Norwich by analysing the –ing e.g. shopping/shoppin’. He found out that working class speaker and men used this non-standard variation. This implies that social class has an impact on the change of Standard English. Standard English is known as the Queens English and is spoken by people of an upper class – they use Received Pronunciation. The features of RP are CURE lowering which is the use of /Ο:/ vs. the diphthong /Υ≅/ in words like sure, cure, pure, tour, Europe, etc, also /r/ is the use of linking and disturbing /r/ in phrases like far/r/ away, India/r/ and China, another feature is withdraw/r/al which is  the use of the affricates /t/ and /d/ for /tj/ and /dj/ in stressed syllables, making Tuesday sound like choose-day and dune like June and finally T voicing - the use of a voiced tap for intervocalic /t/ in e.g. British, a lot of.  Each social class has different ways of saying different words, for example people from middle class would say a tour whereas upper class people would say a towa and people from working class would say an ouse whereas people from middle class would say a house. Furthermore, social class and status has changed the use of Standard English. People that work in manual employment belong to the working class and to work in this employment minimal demands of literacy and educational qualifications are needed and it was not paid very well. Belonging to the middle class are teachers, lawyers, administrators etc, for this occupation a high degree of literacy and educational qualification are needed and this was better paid. Due to increased educational opportunity and economic wealth, more and more young people are exposed to Standard English than ever before.

I think that nowadays, it is common for people to use non-standard forms of English rather than Standard English forms. Some of the examples of non-standard English used is I ‘were’ instead of I was, ‘them’ books instead of those books, he ‘done’ it instead of he did it and he ‘ain’t’ finished instead of he hasn’t finished. This type of speech could have been influenced by upbringing, education or social class. This is proved by Graeme Paton who said that “Many GCSE English students did not realise that phrases such as "get off of" and "she was stood" were grammatically incorrect. Also in the latest study by Cambridge Assessment with more than 2,000 teenagers in 26 English secondary schools surveyed. This survey found out that only 41% of these teenagers realised that an adjective had been used in place of an adverb in the phrase "come quick" and around a quarter of GCSE students failed to spot errors in the phrases "it wasn't me who done it", "couldn't hardly move", "Tom had gotten cold" and "three mile". This means that 59% of teenagers didn’t realise that these sentences were grammatically incorrect – this is a large variety. Peter Trudgill said that people of a lower socio economic status are more likely o use non-Standard linguistic variants than people of a higher socio-economic status.

Finally, Standard English is changing whenever speakers come into contact with each other. People from different geographical places speak differently and there are variations according to a speakers, age, gender, ethnicity and social/education background. Due to interaction with these different speakers, new words, expressions and pronunciations are introduced and these are used into our own speech.

To conclude, Standard English has changed dramatically due to social media - Facebook, Twitter, Instagram etc, texting - using emojis and word abbreviations making people become lazy and social class – this influences the way in which people speak. Standard English may carry on changing in the future as technology may develop further and more people from different countries will interact with eachother. 

Language and Occupation Theories

Language and Occupation Theories

Eakins and Eakins 1976:

They found out that in seven university faculty meetings, men spoke for the longest. Their turn ranged from 10.66 to 17.07 seconds and the women’s were from 3 to 10 seconds.

Edelsky 1981:

Edelsky’s (1981) conducted his research in office floors and face to face. On the F1 floors (linear, hierarchical) there was mostly male participants and on the F2 (collaborative, democratic) floors there were an equal amount of male and women participants. On the F1 floor type, male pre-dominant discussions took place, however female-predominant discussions took place on a mixed floor type (F1, F2). A combined account of his findings that were based on the predictable mapping of gender and floor onto power relations is suggested and raised to explain singularities that appear inconsistent under a simple floor or gender based view. In conclusion, the implications of this account for the notion in the floor in CMC and for floor-based accounts of participation and response patterns in conversational interaction more generally.

Herbert and Straight 1989:

People from a higher status tend to have flowing comments than those people of a lower status.

Compliments tend to flow from those of higher rank to those of lower rank. They said that from a young age, children are taught to say thank you to a compliment, whereas adult speakers think that responding to compliments is embarrassing. They believe that when people are responding to a compliment they should choose their strategy carefully so they avoid appearing arrogant, rude or too eager to please. Regardless of the allegation that adults have been taught to say thank you, research shows that a huge amount of speakers do whatever they can to avoid accepting compliments. Gender is analysed as a variable in mainly all compliments, women give and receive many more compliments than men. This study is especially concerned with the responses used by women in all female compliment exchanges in an undergraduate level university setting and uses a cross-cultural comparison of German and Italian to highlight any similarities or differences in compliment response strategy preference and compliment function between the two cultures.

Herring 1992:

Herring constructed her investigation in an email discussion that took place on a linguistics distribution list, five women and 30 men took part even though women make up nearly half of the Linguistic Society of America. The men’s messages on average were twice as long as women’s. The women tended to use a personal voice, for example – “I am intrigued by your comment…” The men dominated the conversation and their tone was confident – “It is obvious that…”

Holmes 1998 onwards:

Holmes believes that women use compliments positively affective speech acts to build relationship. Its absence would be seen as impolite in situations where a compliment may be expected.

Holmes and Marra 2002 and Holmes 2005:

Women use just as much humour as men and they use it for the same functions – to control discourse and subordinates and to contest superiors even though they are more likely to encourage supportive and collaborative humour. They came to the conclusion that the use, type and style of humour reflect the unseen relations to the organizations.

Tracy and Eisenberg 1990/1991:

Men showed more concern for the feelings of the person they were criticizing when in the subordination course when role-playing delivering criticism to a co-worker about errors in a business letter. Women showed more concern when in the superior role.

Various theories 1998-2004:

Workers tend to use more indirect devices such as ‘we’ instead of you, hedged strictures and modals when giving an instruction to an equal. Workers are often more direct when giving directions to a subsidiary.

Occupational therapist theory (Melbourne, Australia):

There was a participatory action research study into the experience and use of occupation, theory and evidence in the everyday practice of a group of occupational therapists working in a large metropolitan hospital delivering a range of sensitive services, in Melbourne in Australia. The occupational therapists decided to change the language they used to describe their practice to a function focus to an occupation focus. The therapist’s confidence levels were improved from this change and their professional identities where strengthened and a sense of renewed empowerment within the organisation was provided. In conclusion, these findings suggest that in sensitive settings occupational therapists can develop their language more successfully to expand their ability to promote the vital and unique contribution that occupational therapy has to make. These small, powerful changes can allow occupational therapist to address long standing dilemmas of representation and allow life forming practices. 

Race and Ethnicity Theories

Major Sociological Theories of Race and Ethnicity

There are several sociological theories about why prejudice, discrimination, and racism exist. Current sociological theories focus mainly on explaining the existence of racism, particular institutional racism. The three major sociological perspectives each have their own explanations to the existence of racism.

Functionalist theorists 

These theorists argue that in order for race and ethnic relations to be functional and contribute to the pleasant behaviour and stability of society, racial and ethnic minorities must understand into that society. Incorporation is a process in which a minority becomes engaged into the main society – socially, economically, and culturally.

Symbolic interaction

Symbolic interaction theorists look at two issues in relation to race and ethnicity. First, they look at the role of social interaction and how it reduces racial and ethnic hostility. Second, they look at how race and ethnicity are socially constructed. Symbolic interactionists ask the question, “What happens when two people of different race or ethnicity come in contact with one another and how such interracial can or interethnic contact reduce hostility and conflict?”

Conflict

The basic argument made by conflict theorists is that class-based conflict is a characteristic and original part of society. These theorists also argue that racial and ethnic conflict is tied to class conflict and that in order to reduce racial and ethnic conflict, class conflict must first be reduced.

Questionnaire Analysis

Questionnaire Analysis

All of my respondents are White British apart from one who is Welsh. This implies that the Welsh respondent’s attitude is different because they believe that they are not part of Britain even though Wales is part of Britain. This suggests that all of my respondents apart from one are of the same ethnicity.

From my results, there were more male respondents than females. The majority of my respondents are in the age group between 31-40 (8 people) with four people in the 41-50 age range, two people in the 20-30 age range and the 51+. This shows that my respondents are of a similar age group. 

All of my respondents have the roughly the same opinion on what the word ethnicity meant as they thought it was to do with culture or origins. This same view on the word could have been influenced by upbringing or education.

The overall opinion of my respondents was that they think the use of Standard English has decreased, this could suggest that people in society are not using the correct Standard English, as they are using abbreviation of words or even using slang words. Some examples of the people who said yes, expressed their view by saying “Yes due to the culture of technology and social networking”, “Yes – the evolution of language. Trends impact on language so words are adapted” and another view was “Yes because lots of diversity has caused the language to evolve.” Of the people that said no, there responses were “No I think it has developed/changed and “No; it is a universal language but clearly each year new words linked to common culture become added to the term Standard English.” This is common with teenagers as they are picking up all these different words and using slang and abbreviation of words. One answer refers to The Only Way Is Essex, this suggests that some TV programs have influenced the way in which people talk.

The overall view on the question 5 that says “Please read these two sentences and express your opinion of these sentences and which social class you think they belong to?” Most of the respondents said that the sentence “Why ain’t you gonna come out tomorrow?” was someone of a low/working class and the other sentence “My Lord, what time will we be attending the ball tonight?”was someone from an upper class. This implies that they all have the same attitude and they can decide what social class that people belong to just by the way they speak and what their dialect and accent is.

Out of all the respondents, one person knew someone of an Afro-Caribbean origin and said that they think their dialect wasn’t different to British peoples.

There was a mixture of opinions on question 6 which read “do you think that the language used by Black British people is standard or not?” This means that all my respondents have a different view about Black British peoples standard English, this could be because they were brought up to know that they speak standard English are that where they live there is a variety of different cultures. One example was that “Yes, everyone has their own ‘version’ or ‘style’ and “I was at university with some incredible well spoken black British people. I don’t think colour can be an indication of how well someone speaks or an assumption that they don’t speak correctly. This person has a very strong opinion. Other examples are “dependent on individuals not ethnicity” and two people said no.

My results have shown that Standard English has not completely been forgotten about and it is being more widely accepted within different cultural/regional varieties. Standard English is also taught in school - written and spoken.