Standardisation of Language

The introduction of Johnson's Dictionary in 1755 created a almost standardisation of the English language. People sought to 'fix' the English language and define what is 'correct', this was Johnson's primary goal at first when writing the dictionary but by the end realised that English is constantly changing by nature and that the best he could do is record the language of the day rather than form it. As well as Johnson's dictionary attempting to create a standardisation in English, Robert Lowth also created a book called 'A Short Introduction to English Grammar' which was published in 1765. This book was heavily inspired by the grammar used in Latin and as such Lowth admitted that it was problematic and he condemned "forcing the English under the rules of a foreign Language".


In modern society, the idea of standardising the English language is the cause of many debates, particularly between people with prescriptive and descriptive attitudes. Prescriptivists believe that the English language should be standardised and that the adaptation and change of language shouldn't be encouraged. While descriptivists believe that language is as used by the speaker and that an idea of standard English is impossible as language is ever changing. Descriptivists believe that the use of standardising English will remove some uniqueness in a person and that dialects are beneficial to a society. Prescriptivists see the use of a standard English as being uniform and allowing texts to be read and understood with everyone. Some believe that the use of standard English should be a addition to their current repertoire and should be used in formal situations, this allows people to keep their dialectal individuality while also understanding and being able to follow a standardised English.


Bibliographyhttps://courses.nus.edu.sg/course/elltankw/history/standardisation/c.htm
http://www.bl.uk/learning/langlit/dic/johnson/1755johnsonsdictionary.html
http://www.bl.uk/learning/timeline/item126709.html
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robert_Lowth#Notes
http://grammar.about.com/od/basicsentencegrammar/f/descpresgrammar.htm
https://languagedebates.wordpress.com/2013/04/11/jessica-holmes-discusses-the-pros-and-cons-of-using-standard-english-in-education/

The etymology and the stages of semantic development of the word 'gay'

Definitions of the word gay:-(of a person, especially a man) homosexual-light-hearted and carefree-brightly coloured; showy-foolish, stupid, or unimpressive

In todays' English the term 'gay' typically refers to a homosexual person but it was first coined to mean "full of joy" or "wanton" from the Old French word 'gai' which meant "joyful, pleasant, happy". The word 'gay' had always had a level of promiscuity surrounding it and brothels came to be known as 'a gay house', this gave the word 'gay' a idea of immorality and addiction. The term 'going gay' also meant to adopt a hedonistic lifestyle.

The first appearance in the English language of the word in in a poem titled 'Blow, Northerne Wind" which reads:

"She is precious in day

gracious, stout, and gay,

gentle, jolly as the jay"

The slang term for 'gay' meaning homosexual can be tracked back to earlier psychological writings of the 1940s. It can be tracked back further to the 1890s with the term 'gay cat' meaning 'young hobo'. These 'gay cats' (typically male) would follow more experienced hobos for protection and instruction typically in exchange for sexual favours. It mainly gained popularity for meaning 'homosexual' in the 1950s and since then has been adapted into other language such as Japanese, Swedish and Dutch to mean the same thing.

On early use of the word 'gay' to mean homosexual is found in the song "Gay Young Clerk in the Dry Goods Store" by female impersonator Will S. Hays in 1868 which says, "He’s a handsome man and he’s proud and poor, / This gay young clerk in the Dry-Goods Store". The lyrics so explicitly link to homosexuality but when sung by a man in drag it can be interpreted this way.

The first obvious use of the word gay to mean homosexual is from the 1929 play 'Bitter Sweet' in the song 'Green Carnation' with the lyrics:

"Pretty boys, witty boys, You may sneer

At our disintegration.

Haughty boys, naughty boys,

Dear, dear, dear!

Swooning with affectation...

And as we are the reason

For the “Nineties” being gay,

We all wear a green carnation."

The penultimate line refers to how the 1890s were called 'the gay nineties'.

Recently the term 'gay' has  become much less formal and is being linked to meaning "stupid" or "unimpressive" in the 2000s. This could be because terms meaning to be ‘gay’ have been seen as degrading previously using 'bender' and 'poofter' as they were considered to be more offensive than the neutral 'gay'. It was typically used by heterosexual people to single out someone in the group as being different, even when they weren't. The term 'gay' has lost its sexual meaning to younger boys who seem to use it to mean 'lame' and they seem to use it in situations which sexuality is irrelevant.

Terms that came from 'gay' are such words as 'gaydar' which means to be able to sense someone else's sexuality. This can also be from an idea of a stereotypical ‘gay’ person and how someone’s looks can affect their sexuality. This is typically seen as a negative thing in a 21^st century society. It is also a blend word between ‘gay’ and ‘radar’.

Evie Mini Investigation

According to Bruner, adults when talking to children will use Child Directed Speech (CDS). Some of the characteristics of CDS is repetition, tag questions, and modelling an adult/standard version (repair). I will look at the 'all the things' transcript and the 'castle' transcript to see if Evie's grandmother uses these CDS features.

When quantifying repetition I'm only going to count it if the first thing the grandmother says is the exact same as Evie, it still counts if she adds something on the end.

Quantified data:

I expected to find more CDS in the 'all the things' transcript as it was 4 minutes and 33 seconds long while the 'castle' transcript was 3 minutes long. This pattern was found in the quantified tag questions and the repairs but there was 3 more repetitions in the 'castle' transcript.

Analysis:

In both transcripts Evie's grandmother uses multiple tag questions to keep the conversations moving along. A common theme in both of the transcripts is that the grandmother likes to use very general questions such as "what else shall we do" in the 'all the things' transcript and "now what are you going to do" in the castle transcript. The grandmother also uses tag questions that are more typical to the conversation but repeats them multiple times. In the 'all the things' transcript she asks who else they should take a picture of 3 times in the transcript, and in the 'castle' transcript the grandmother asks who's going in the castle 3 times. By doing this it allows the grandmother to be not too intrusive into Evie's conversation and allows her to be more imaginative in her story. There is possible more tag questions in the 'all the thing' transcript as the story is more about Evie and her grandmother rather than just Evie as shown by the use of "you" in 'castle' and the inclusive "we" in 'all the things'. As the grandmother is using 'we' it shows that she recognises that she has an active role in the scenario as picture taker and so asks double the amount of tag questions. In the 'castle' transcript the grandmother could possibly want to get involved less and so would ask less tag questions.

The use of repetition forms a similar function to the tag questions. By repeating the same thing Evie says it shows that the grandmother is listening to her story and possibly helps Evie keep track of what she is talking about. There is possibly more repetition in the 'castle' transcript as Evie is 5 months younger in it so the grandmother would be using repetition as a form of positive reinforcement for her.

The 5 month age gap between the 2 transcripts could also be the reason behind why there is more repairs in the 'all the things' transcript. The grandmother could possibly feel that because Evie has a slightly stronger understanding of language that she doesn't need the positive reinforcement of repetition and that by modelling a standard it could help her learn easier, at Evie's age she probably wouldn't see repair as negative reinforcement and probably wouldn't recognise her grandmother is repairing her. The main use of repair in the 'all the tings' transcript is the repairing to the pronunciation of words, at first when Evie said 'picture' she said it more like 'pitter', however after her grandmother said it correctly Evie began to pronounce the 'c' more often. In the 'castle' transcript there is much less repairs with the main one being when the grandmother elaborates Evie's "sit sit sit" to "do you want grandma to sit there".

Jean Piaget's cognitive development

Jean Piaget looked into the way that children adapt, more specifically assimilation and accommodation. Assimilation is adding a new object into an old skill, whereas accommodation is adjusting an old skill on a new object. For example, assimilation is when a child goes from sucking on a small bottle, to a larger bottle. Accommodation is when a child has to adjust their skill of sucking on a pacifier to sucking on a bottle.
Piaget also noted that throughout a child's life, there are moments when accommodation dominates, when assimilation dominates, and when there is a equilibrium between the two.

From here, he developed the idea of stages of cognitive development:
-The sensorimotor stage (0-2 years) - some language is being developed around this point but the child is mainly learning that they are an agent of action e.g. they learn that they can shake the rattle to make a noise. They also begin to differentiate themselves from the object and around the age of 7 months, gain an idea of object permanence,
-The pre-operational stage (2-7 years) - their language use had matured and they begin to use their imagination and memory. The are still egocentric in the idea that they believe everyone knows what they do. Their thinking is typically done in a non-logical manner and they will classify objects by a single feature (red, big, small etc).
-The concrete operational stage (7-11 years) - they can now have conversations based around number, mass, weight, length, liquid, area, and volume. Their egocentric point of view diminishes. They can think in a more logical manner and can classify objects by multiple features.
-The formal operation stage (11+ years) - They can hypothesise and think about abstract thoughts. They begin to think about the future and ideological problems.

Bibliographyhttp://www.learningandteaching.info/learning/piaget.htm

http://www.edpsycinteractive.org/topics/cognition/piaget.htmlhttp://webspace.ship.edu/cgboer/genpsypiaget.html

Evie talking transcript questions

In this transcript Evie’s pronunciation of <picture> varies.  How many variations can you find?  Is there a pattern to them?  How might you explain them?

I counted 4 separate variations of the word ‘picture’. One of the patterns I found is that at first she said picture almost like ‘pitter’ but then as she heard her grandmother say it more she began to pronounce the ‘c’ sound more.

Evie’s grandma uses a variety of strategies to keep the conversation moving along.  How many can you find?  Why do you think these are important?

I counted about 5 different strategies the grandmother used to keep the conversations going. She asked Evie questions so that she will hopefully elaborate on the situation. She completed the sentences for Evie, for example when Evie said “cat” and then “in the picture” after the grandmother responded, the grandmother then said “we want cat in the picture okay” which possibly allows Evie to get an understanding of how sentences can be strung together. As show in the last example, the grandmother repeats Evie as shown when Evie says cat the grandmother then also says cat. As well as questioning Evie about the situation, she also asks her to do things such as choose more animals to take pictures of. And finally, the grandmother confirms what Evie is saying, this could suggests that she wants Evie to continue on talking.

In this sequence, grandma follows each of Evie’s utterances with an extended version of what she has said.  What does she add?  Why?

She usually adds either previous information given to her by Evie (for example the amount of cats) or she adds ‘right’. This is allowing Evie to continue the conversation without being intrusive and adding her own information. Evie is essentially having a conversation with herself since the grandmother isn’t adding anything so Evie. But, Evie is learning how to put all the information she has given into a sentence since that is what the grandmother is doing.

Grandma uses a lot of questions in this transcript.  What proportion of her utterances are questions?  How would you classify the functions of these questions? 

Over half of the utterances that the grandmother says are questions. The function of these questions is to allow Evie to continue on and elaborate on what she is saying. Another one of the functions could be that the grandmother is trying to gain more information from Evie so that she can be more involved in the conversation, if she was to say something that Evie wasn’t thinking it could imply that Evie or the grandmother was wrong and so the grandmother could be trying to avoid that by gaining correct information from her.

This sequence entails a misunderstanding about the bath.  How would you describe this misunderstanding?  How might you explain it?

In this sequence, Evie mistakes the toy bath for the actual bath in the bathroom. The way that the grandmother rectifies this is by saying, “no not that bath the house bath”. This could be confusing for Evie since the actual bath is still a house bath but the grandmother also points to the toy house to get Evie to understand that it was the toy bath she was referring to. The reason she might have misunderstood it is that the grandmother told her to ‘find’ the bath rather than to get it.

As you can see very clearly in the video, Evie is thoroughly enjoying playing to the camera and wants to see the video straight away.  How does this awareness of the camera shape the conversation?

This awareness of the camera allows the conversation to gravitate towards it often. Whether it is about taking pictures of how Evie is smiling. The grandmother wants Evie to continue playing with her toys as she is the one to change the conversation from the smiling to the toys. I doubt Evie is playing up to the camera as she doesn’t believe she is being recorded, but rather having pictures taken of the animals and herself.

As with <picture> we can see variations in Evie’s pronunciation of <kangaroo>.  Trying to get it right?  Creative experimentation with sounds and words?  To what extent do you agree with these ideas?

It could be that she is trying to get it right but her last utterance of kangaroo sounded like ‘camroo’ when he first sounded like ‘kaneeroo’ which would’ve sounded more similar because it has the ‘n’ sound. It could be a creative experiment of sounds and words which would’ve made some form of sense since each time they sound different/ Unlike ‘picture’, ‘kangaroo’ doesn’t become more accurate after each time she hears her grandmother say it. To me it sounds like she is making the word shorter and easier for her to say each time.

The Stages of Children's Langauge Development

The development of children's reading isn't based on age, rather it is based on their experience and how long they spend at each stage.


When a child is growing up it is common for a parent or carer to read to their child. Around the ages of 0-4 children are essentially memorising passages of books and focusing on the pictures in the book. This is building a foundation for the child to begin to understand language and patterns in language. The child may also begin to attempt to write by scribbling on a page.


Around the age of 5 the child begins to understand the sounds that construct words and those sounds have specific letter combinations. These early readers should be starting to learn to read short words and their own name. Possibly beginning to write their own name and some of the shorter words they can read. They might be able to read longer words if they are phonetically regular and also read new words which consist of one syllable.


Up until the age of 8, children should be reading at an increasing fluency. They should have a good strategy on figuring out what the next word will be but they may still need assistance for the harder words. They are able to write some of their own ideals down and possible answer questions about the text they read.


After this the child will begin to read more independently and will be seeking out books about their interests. They will begin to the exposed to unfamiliar syntax and vocabulary. They will begin to understand the impact of the text and have open discussions about it.


When they get to about 15 they should be about fluent in reading. They will be able to think analytically about the text and form their own opinions on it. They will be reading to gain information and for a variety of purposes. They may also be able to write essays about the texts they have read.  When they get to around the age of 18, reading should be more efficient for them than listening.


References:
-Pacific Resources for Education and Learning. (2012). Stages of Reading Development. Available: http://www.readingrockets.org/article/stages-reading-development. Last accessed 11th Sep 2015.
-Literacy Development. Available: http://literacy.nationaldb.org/index.php/literacy-development-continuum/. Last accessed: 11th Sep 2015
-Ramoso, K. (2012). Stages of Reading Development. Available: http://www.slideshare.net/KarRamoso/stages-of-reading-development. Last accessed 11th Sep 2015.

Mini Investigation into Language and Gender

The Know and the Fallout 4 trailer – Investigation into Language and Gender 

Hypothesis When looking at 2 transcripts about the same subject, one involving all women and the other all men, the men and women will follow Tannen’s difference pairs. 

-Status:     -Men - 1     -Women - 0 -Support:    -Men - 0    -Women - 0 

-Independence:    -Men - 0    -Women - 0 -Intimacy:    -Men - 1    -Women - 0 

-Advice:    -Men - 0    -Women - 0 -Understanding:    -Men - 0    -Women - 0 

-Information:*    -Men - 0    -Women - 0 -Feelings:    -Men - 2    -Women - 0 

-Orders:    -Men - 3    -Women - 1 -Proposals:     -Men - 1    -Women - 1 

-Conflict:    -Men - 2    -Women - 2 -Compromise:    -Men - 0    -Women - 0 

*as it is a news story I didn’t count this pairing in either transcript 

Key quotes Men  -“Have you heard of Nuzu” “No” - conflict -“We’re gonna be kind of down” - feelings -“I care about you Adam”- feelings and intimacy -“(2) Spoole (.) work”- status and orders 

Women -“let’s take a look and see what you think”- proposals -“but first”- orders -“come on|” “|hey come on”- conflict -“fuzzy and cute”- female topics/ baby talk 

PEE analysis According to Tannen’s difference pairings, men should prefer conflict whereas women should prefer to find compromise. In the transcript I have both men and women use conflict an equal number of times and never seek for compromise. This is shown in the male transcript with one of them saying “have you heard of Nuzu” and the other male saying “no” despite the fact that he was the one to bring up Nuzu and how they are going to talk about it. This shows that he had in fact heard of Nuzu and was only saying “no” to cause conflict between to two of them. In the female transcript they show conflict through interruptions. I would be compromise if it was co-operating interruptions but the first woman said “come on” and the other overlapped her with “hey come on” showing that she is disagreeing with her statement. One reason for the lack of compromise is because it is a news story and they are trying to raise different ideas about the game and cause conflict, not only among themselves, but also among the viewers. 

Another one of Tannen’s pairings is orders vs. proposals. In both of the transcript they both use orders and proposals. The men use three times more orders than the females though and they both use the same amount of proposals. While this does support Tannen’s pairing to an extent as they do follow the pairing, it also goes against Tannen’s theory as they aren’t exclusive in each side of the pairing. With the proposals in each of the transcripts they are referencing the audience with “let’s take a look and see what you think” in the female transcript and “you probably wanna stop” in the male one. The use of the personal pronoun “you” in each of the transcript includes the audience in the story making them more inclined to discuss the same as they are in the comment section of the video. While both of the transcripts use orders it is in a different manner in each transcript. In the female transcript she says “but first” as an order, more to move the conversation on rather than to control the other person. Whereas in the male transcript they use their orders in a more demanding and controlling way, an example of this is “(2) Spoole (.) work”. By telling him to continue working and now join in the conversation could be demeaning but it can be assumed that they are friends and that it is either playful chatter or an inside joke. 

Tannen also has the difference pairing of independence vs. intimacy which isn’t followed in these transcripts. In neither transcript independence is shown and the only time intimacy is shown is in the male transcript. In the male transcript it says, “I care about you Adam”, this admittance of care isn’t something which is stereotypical of male language and thus makes it odd. The people in this video could be friends so this admittance could be common between them but typically this declaration of feelings is something of a female trait. The person who the quote is directed to does respond with an order which is a part of Tannen’s male pairing and could also be a show of status but as explained in the last paragraph it could just be playful conversation amongst friends. 

While it is not a part of Tannen’s pairings, it is interesting to look at the difference in the language they used to describe the dog in the trailer. In the male transcript they don’t boost up the dog and even go as far to say that they have seen a better dog in a different trailer, but in the female trailer they use completely different language to describe the dog. One of the females describes it as “fuzzy and cute” which is a form of baby talk and is stereotypical of females to be on the topic of cute animals. It can also be assumed that when the female spoke this in the transcript that she changed her tone of voice to sound higher as if she was talking to a baby or animal.  

Evaluation and whether or not my hypothesis was supported There are aspects of the transcripts that do follow Tannen’s difference pairings but as a whole they don’t. The two transcripts tend to follow the stereotypically male traits more, possibly because of the topic of the videos which is video games. The rare times when female traits are used are mainly by the men rather than the females. It could be possible that these videos were lightly scripted and so the language would’ve been adapted to fit the assumed to be primarily male audience, however by the interruptions and stutter over words it can be assumed that some of the script was to be improvised. In order to get results without this restriction I could’ve recorded males and females talking about the same subject that aren’t from YouTube, but this could be affected by the ‘observer’s paradox’.