Language and occupation Theorists

Language&Occupation Theorists

Eakins&Eakins: In 1976, Eakins and Eakins studied 7 university meetings. The results were that men spoke for longer during these meetings and also started conversations, with men's turns ranging from 10.66 to 17.07 seconds and the women's from only 3 to 10. Men were also seen to ask questions more and make jokes more within these meetings compared to women. This suggests that men are more dominant in some occupations or most as they seem to be the ones that spoke for longer and gave more input within all conversations.

Edelsky: In 1981, Edelsky conducted research on men and women by observing face to face conversations on office floors in a university in America to try and look into how the different sexes speak to one another and who seems to take charge. In a series of meetings that were looked at, results showed that men were the more dominant speakers as they were the ones who took longer turns when speaking and made more jokes, had more arguments and done the most directly within the meetings. However, during the 'free for all', women and men talked equally, and women joked, argued, directed and solicited responses more than men. Coming to the conclusion that men and women within the work place speak equally and neither seems to overall be more dominant.

Herbert & Straight: 1989 - Herbert and Straight showed that compliments were more likely to flow from those of a higher rank compared to those of a lower rank.

Herring: In 1992, an email discussion took place with the participation of 30 men and 5 women. It took place on a linguistics distribution list. Only five women took part even though women make up nearly half the members of the linguistic society in America which didn’t show in this example. On average, the emails men sent were twice as long as those of women's showing that men feel they have more to say and try to be dominant in conversations. In an email, men adopted an assertive tone such as 'it is obvious that...' which shows their dominance.  On the other hand, women would use a more personal tone showing the personalities and the difference between the two.

Holmes: From 1998, various studies from Holmes were conducted on managers within particular occupations. These studies showed that managers who were female were more likely to negotiate consensus compared to male managers who are less likely as they take time to ensure everyone genuinely agrees with what has been decided. This is because people see women as the more caring and considerate sex which is shown here.

Tracy and Eisenberg: In a role play where the individual had to deliver criticism to a co - worker regarding errors in a business letter, men showed more concerns for the feelings of the person they were criticizing. This was only when they were in the subordinate role, whereas women showed more concern when in a superior role.

Holby City- Language in the work place

To what extent does the represented language of medical drama reflect real language use in this kind of work place, or language in the workplace more generally?

Holby City;
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6lv5Aep0WFg
In this clip from an episode of Holby City there are few surgeons doing an operation on a man. They are quite friendly amongst one another and talk mostly about their social lives within this scene and what’s going on outside of work which seems quite unexpected as they should be talking about what they are doing and concentrating on operating on this man.
They start the conversation talking about a relationship that involves one of the surgeons in this clip as soon as he enters the scene, this seems rather odd as normally you would expect them to tell him what they should be doing instead of talking about social life. They don’t use much grammatically complex words and seem quite relaxed with what they are saying. Going on from this they briefly talk about the patient and what is wrong with him and then mention what they need to do from then on, at this point their language is quite hard to understand but everyone involved in this clip seems to know what they mean as they are all part of the same occupation or discourse community. They use technical terms to briefly describe what they need to do and what has happened to this particular patient, they all acknowledge and understand what they are doing. They then carry on the conversation about what’s going on outside their lives of work, this is unusual as you wouldn’t expect this from people doing such a difficult procedure.
My selected clip from Holby City demonstrates the idea of equality in the dialogue between the speakers as they are all from the same occupation. There are overlaps in their speech as they all have equal power and want to input within the conversation so turn taking is less predictable and so is the content. There is slight use of technical jargon when they are actually talking about the operation in order to have a quick way of communicating.
At one point in the clip there is a use of Jargon from this particular discourse community when the doctors say “neurotic valve’, ‘powder please’, and ‘we may need to replace the ascending aorta”. This supports the idea that the language in hospitals can be general but can also be technical and that this technical talk binds the speakers together within their discourse community. It is hard for anyone who is not working in this occupation to understand particular terms and language that the doctors use as they haven’t learnt or have needed to understand. In some conversations where they feel they know what they’re doing the conversation is quite relaxed but at times it can be difficult and stressful.
Overall I believe that language in this work place and most likely most occupations speak quite generally when working. I think this because they feel they know what to do and get along and possibly know each other out side of work. It also shows that people within their work space speak quite generally and freely a lot of the time.

Additional questionnaire analysis

I asked just under 20 people a page of questions to find out their thoughts on influences of Standard English and Ethnicity. I also aske questions about how they believe the English Language has changed and adapted over the years. There were many links between respondents and they were usually in the same age group for example people in the age group of 31-40 seemed to all have similar views, this showed that their age and more knowledge helped them compared to teachers in the age group below (20-30).
Out of all the teachers I asked 80% of them believed that their is a correct and incorrect way to speak and that Standard English has been forced to adapt. Their reasoning for these views was because of people from different countries moving to live here and less racism within the country the language has been made to fit around other cultures as well. They also all identified that they believed slang works and negatives to be the incorrect way to speak and someone to speak like this would most likely be from a younger generation and that "the queens English" is well pronounced and posh but is the correct way to speak.
When asking in my questionnaire beliefs of what the word ethnicity would mean many didn't understand and just came to the conclusion that it is from where you originate from.
Also when asking about "proper English" many people couldn't explain what they believed this to be and just said that it was the right way to speak.

Black Vernacular

We looked into Black English vernacular. Black English" can refer to two different language varieties: (1) the type of English used by people of African and Caribbean descent who live in Britain; (2) the language of African-Americans in the United States. This is usually called Black English Vernacular. "Black English" in both senses has its historical roots in a creolised form of English which dates back to the time of slavery. Creoles are languages which evolve from Pidgins when the pidgins become first languages for some or all of their speakers. Black English Vernacular has a somewhat different history and is a different language from British Black English."

It is an error to suppose that Black English is spoken by all African Americans regardless of their background and where they have come from. So quick assumptions shouldn't be made. In fact, the English spoken by African Americans is highly varied—as varied as the English spoken by any other racial or ethnic group. Sometimes Black English is used to refer to other varieties of English spoken by black people outside of the United States, as in the Caribbean and the United Kingdom.

Black Vernacular also tends to omit the final -s ending of verbs. For instance, a speaker of Black Vernacular might say, "He hear you" rather than "He hears you." Also Black Vernacular often uses the emphatic done to stress completion of an act. For instance, "He done did it" provides a more forceful alternative to the Standard English "He's already done it."

Questionnaire conclusion

In conclusion it shows that many people create stereotypes of people by the way they speak and take judgemnt of who they are and where people would believe them to come from. Many people have also decided that there is a right or correct way that we should speak and that some people speak incorrectly and come to that conclusion. Standard English is seen as the correct way to speak or as some of my respondants said “the queens English”, people believe this to be the correct way to speak as many think it sounds better and is of a higher class. A lot of people also don’t fully understand the meaning of ethnicity, this shows that there isnt a wide understanding or importance of peoples cultures or where they orginate from, many think it is bad how many people don’t understand the right meaning. Standard English has been believed as the most significant and better way to speak and people have begun to identify other peoples accents and more aware of attitudes towards the English Language. This is because once people started beliving that one way to speak was right then everything else seewms wrong so it is easy to spot. My questionnare supports that many people have similar views and also lack knowledge on the english Language and other cultures. It also shows what people think to be correct and in some circumstances this could be taken as offensive. 

Questionnaire analysis- primary data

I wrote a questionnaire that I gave to teachers of Shenfield High School asking them questions on their thoughts of different cultures, accents and ethnicities. Not all questions had to be answered depending on if the respondent felt comfortable with the questions being asked.

All of the people that I asked were adults and were all teachers from Shenfield High School. Many of them said similar answers to their thoughts of Ethnicity and the way in which people speak. All of my participants where White British and all had similar answers.
The vast majority of my respondents (80%) where in the same age category which was 31-40. All of the participants within this age group believe that there is a proper and correct way to speak and referred to this as Standard English. They all said that the best way to speak is to pronounce all words well and speak clearly to enable everyone to understand what you’re saying. They also all believe that the wrong to speak is with made up words, dropping letters and use of slang. I gave the example of a sense that said “I aint become a part of younger generation’s identity.


The other 20% of my respondents were the age group of 41-50 or I had two participants in the age group 51+ and one in the age group 20-30. The two teachers that were in the age group of 51+ both wrote similar responses and showed that their age made a difference to their thoughts as language has changed over the years that they have been living, they also correct the questions and both say what they would believe to be true. The one teacher I asked in the age group of 20-30 had slightly different views. I think that this because they are younger and follow more current views on things and seemed to struggle with answering some questions.

Questionare

I am an English Language student at Shenfield High School and I am investigating stereotypes and the English Language. At some point in this questionnaire I will be asking about ethnicity and nationality. If you don’t feel comfortable with answering any of these questions you do not have to. There is no pressure for you to answer all or any of these questions. However, this is primary research and is needed as to complete the end results I need my own information.

1. What subject do you teach?

 

 

2. What is your age group? Tick the box that applies.

20-30	31-40
41-50	51+

 

 

3. What is your nationality or ethnicity?

 

 

 

4. Do you believe there is a correct way to speak? If so how?

 

 

 

5. What would you believe to be the wrong way speak?

 

 

 

6. Describe the type of person who would speak poor English.

 

 

 

7. “To whom are we attending dinner with tonight?”  What is your opinion on this speaker?

 

 

8. “I aint doing no more work” what is your opinion on this speaker compared to the last question?

Accents & dialect

Accents

An ‘accent’ is a distinctive way of pronouncing language and the way in which people from a particular area speak. They are usually associated with a particular country or area. Dialect however, refers to a form of language which different to a specific group or region.

The Uk is seen as the most dialect obsessed nation in the world. There are a significant amount of accents shapes by many people throughout history, with only few English-speaking nations with as many varieties of language in such a small space.

ACCENTS:

 Northern English: These are the accents and dialect spoken north of the midlands, in cities like Manchester, Leeds, and Liverpool. Related accents also found in Yorkshire, although there are some unique dialect features. Which are:

• ·         Non-rhoticity, ein most areas.
• ·         The dipthong in words like kite and ride is lengthened so that kite can become something like (i.e. it sounds a bit like “kaaaait”)
• ·         Unique vocab includes use of the word mam to mean mother, similar to Irish English.

Geordie: Geordie usually refers to both the people and dialect of Newcastle, in Northeast England. The word may also refer to accents and dialects in Northeast England in general. I would classify this as a separate region from the rest of Northern England because it’s very different from the language spoken in nearby cities. People can also see this accent as very different and distinct of where it comes from but is also seen as highly annoying.

·         

• ·         Non-rhoticity (in the cities)
• ·         The /ai/ dipthong in kite is raised, so it sounds a bit more like American or Standard British “kate.”
• ·         The /au/ dipthong in “about” is pronounced: (that is, “oo”) in strong dialects. Hence bout can sound like “boot.”

Scottish English: This is the broad definition used to describe English as it is spoken in the country of Scotland. Note that Scottish English is different than Scottish, a language derived from Northumbrian Old English that is spoken in Scotland as well. That being said, Scots has a strong influence on how English in Scotland is spoken. The accent used in Scotland makes many words hard to understand and can be irritating to people from other places.

• ·         Rhotic, with trilled or tapped r’s, hard to pronounce.
• ·         Glottal stopping of the letter t when in between vowels (similar to Cockney and related accents).
• ·         Monopthongal pronunciations of the /ei/ and /ou/

Transcript Analysis

The conversation that was written into transcript form was between my mum and dad and used various different techniques that all transcripts use. My mum begins all four conversations that i recorded and wrote about, she also talks the most within these conversations and asks most of the questions. This is because within these conversations at this time she has more power and seems to be in more of the dominant position. However, in this transcript they do use exchange structure as they both speak after each other and take turns, even though they interrupt each other a few times this shows they are eager to talk to one another. There are many times where adjacency pairs are used this is when questions are asked and are answered by the next speaker, in my transcript this was used many times and the questions where mainly asked by my mum and only once by my dad, this can show a lot about the way the relationship works or what kind of person they are. But there was also one adjacency pair which is called a flouting adjacency pair, it is called this because it is a question that doesn't get an answer an action is just done. In my transcript my mum asks my sister to get something from the kitchen, there is no reply from my sister you just know by the further conversation that she did what she was asked. Both of my parents but mainly my dad use fillers a lot when they are talking in a general conversation to someone they are comfortable and generally informal with. Many of his sentences begin with "erm" this is used when someone doesn't know what to say or could be thinking about what they are going to say before they say it. Neither of them tend to use swearing much in general conversation but my dad used it once during the transcript showing the general use of language and that he is comfortable talking that way with the other person in the conversation. All of these were used to show the relationship between the two speakers, what they are like in they way that they talk to one another in general conversation and what roles they take regarding on the one who takes more control in a conversation.

Grammar notes

Grammar is a set of structural rules that is in control of the way that language works, there are three parts or aspects of grammar which are word classes, syntax and morphology.
Word classes are the roles that a word would play in a sentence.
Syntax is the set of rules that control where each word class can appear in a sentence.
Morphology describes the building blocks of individual words.

There are eight main word classes:
nouns which are naming words such as the name of a person, place or thing.

adjectives which describe nouns so what the person or thing looks like or is like.

verbs which are doing words telling you to do something like jump.

adverbs which describe verbs like the word incredibly.

pronouns which take the place of nouns such as you, they, him or me.

conjunctions are connecting words that connect sentences for example and, or, but, because.

prepositions which define relationships between words in terms of time space or direction.

and finally determiners which give specific kinds of info about the nouns like a, the, two, his.

Word classes can take different positions in a sentence but there are rules about how they go and work with one another. it is straight forward for when a sentence doesn't make sense the order is wrong. Grammar rules effect word formation, (morphology) because extra parts sometimes has to be added to words to change things like number or tense. the extra parts are called inflections.
 Tense: events that happen in the past are usually described in past tense, sometimes however in both spoken or written discourse, past events are described using present tense forms. There is a clear sense that time has passed since the even happened, you can tell this by the words that are used.
Plurals: by using plurals in a sentence it can increase the scale of the scene or what is happening,
Adjectives: they are a good way to influence and persuade your target audience as they can be exaggerated especially combining plurals and adjectives.

Goffman

Goffman:
Face- Face is the public self-image that every adult tries to protect. Goffman wrote about face in conjunction with how people interact in day to day life. He decided that everyone is concerned, to some extent, with how others act towards them. We act socially, choosing to create this identity that others see and know us to have. This identity, self-image, is what we show when we interact among others socially. To lose face is to publicly change our self-image. Maintaining face is achieved by taking a line while interacting socially. A line is what the person says and does during that interaction showing how the person has an understanding of the situation and the person's evaluation of the others he or she interacts with. Social interaction is a process joined by line and face.

Positive face is the wan or need to be liked, appreciated, approved by others.

Negative face is the desire not to be imposed upon, intruded, or otherwise put upon and not effected by others thoughts about you.

Grice

Grice:


Paul Grice, was a British philosopher of language, who spent the final two decades of his career in the United States.
Grice's work on the nature of meaning has influenced the philosophical study of semantics. His theory of implicature is among the most important and influential contributions to contemporary pragmatics.
Grice's most influential contribution to philosophy and linguistics is his theory of implicature, which he first began developing in his 1961,‘The Causal Theory of Perception', but which is most fully explored in his 1967 William James Lectures on "Logic and Conversation".
The basic idea here is that the meaning of a word or sentence results from a regularity in what speakers use the word or sentence to mean. Grice would give a much more detailed theory of timeless meaning in his sixth Logic and Conversation lecture.

Grices Maxims discovered and created four maxims:

Quantity - Use of appropriate amount of detail when speaking to someone with right amount of conversational linguistics. 
Quality- Being truthful and speaking only the truth with no reason to knowingly mislead, meaning no lying and speaking truthful at all times during a conversation.
Relevance- Keep what is being discussed relevant and according to the topic of conversation. No need of changing the subject mid-way through conversation.
Manner- Avoid vagueness when talking and being full of enthusiasm and energy.

William Labov

William Labov:
The methods he used to collect data for his study of the varieties of English spoken in New York City. In the late 1960s and early 1970s, his studies of the linguistic features of African American Vernacular English were also influential: he argued that AAVE should not be stigmatized as substandard, but respected as a variety of English with its own grammatical rules. He has also pursued research in referential indeterminacy, and he is noted for his seminal studies of the way ordinary people structure narrative stories of their own lives.
More recently he has studied changes in the phonology of English as spoken in the United States today, and studied the origins and patterns of chain shifts of vowels, he and his co-authors find three major divergent chain shifts taking place today.
Labov was awarded the 2013 Benjamin Franklin Medal in Computer and Cognitive Science by the Franklin Institute with the citation "for establishing the cognitive basis of language variation and change through rigorous analysis of linguistic data, and for the study of non-standard dialects with significant social and cultural implications.