Coursework

In my coursework I plan to carry out how adults of different genders and ages talk to my niece Lyliee, and how the language they use differs and how far gender has an effect or whether it has an effect on this. I will use Lakoff's deficit language theory.


I'm going to collect and transcribe different daily activities in Lyliees routine and how my mum dad and sister speak to the baby. The problems that could occur is if different adults do different activities with Lyliee it is less comparable, and if the adults are made to do the same task it would skew the data as it would be forced and set up.


My sample data will hopefully show me what theory's I can expect to find in my actual data and highlight the problems or issues that could come up, like comparability issues or the participants acting different because they are aware they are being filmed.

Phonics

noun

noun: phonics

1. a method of teaching people to read by correlating sounds with symbols in an alphabetic writing system.

    

   Advantages of phonics-

    

   - helps children learn phonemes

   - helps children decipher words

   - helps children with progressive language

   - helps writing ability

    

   http://enlightenme.com/learning-phonics/

    

   Disadvantages of phonics-

    

    - Able readers damaged by phonics

    - 'Mechanical exercise' 

    - Approach to learning phonetics is strict

    - Over emphasis on phonics can do more harm than good

   
   

   http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-25917646

   http://www.theguardian.com/teacher-network/teacher-blog/2014/mar/04/reading-lessons-phonics-world-book-day

   
   

   
   The more up to date articles I read above^ in comparison with 'The sound and fury of the phonic boom' (1999) seem to suggest that teaching phonics can affect children adversly to previously suggested, and the children who already have the ability to read may be made worse by the implementation of phonic teaching.

   
   

Research

Chomsky:
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/12/10/opinion/fish-scholarship-and-politics-the-case-of-noam-chomsky.html?ref=topics&_r=0
http://www.simplypsychology.org/language.html


Chomsky argued that children will never acquire the tools needed for processing an infinite number of sentences if the language acquisition mechanism was dependent on language input alone.

Consequently, he proposed the theory of Universal Grammar: the idea that biological grammatical categories, such as a noun category and a verb category that facilitate the entire language development in children and overall language processing in adults.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xfiHd6DyuTU&feature=player_embedded

Twitter Investigation

my hypothesis:
I predict women will be more emotional over twitter, i will measure this using the word count and mixed modality

Methodology:
- women show more emotion
- longer tweets
- 10 random male and 10 random female tweets
- because its a small pool I had to randomise it to limit the bias in the data

Data:

feature                             girls                          boys                                 difference

non standard grammar      2                                7                                        5

emojis/ tech                      12                               5                                        7

words                                76                              35                                      41

percentage of
emojis used in                  16%                           14%                                    -
overall word count

Analysis:

my hypothesis is supported by a limited pool of data. For example 16% of the word count in female tweets are of mixed modalitycompared to 14% in male tweets only 2 percentage point difference this is limited however because I had limited tweets. The word count also may have effected my data as female tweets had 41 more words 85% higher than male tweets making the data difficult to judge.


Conclusion:

To conclude my hypothesis in the begging was irrelevant so i had to adapty it, when i had adapted it my data began to give me some results that slightly supported my hypothesis however because it is such a small pool of data and some of the data were retweets it may have been bias and inaccurate.

for the future:

Research first!
before deciding hypothesis and data
make sure your data cllection is precise and you limit flaws.

Transcript

Ricky and Vicky interview

I- Are we gunna see a geordie wedding this season?
V- no(.) we're not(.) I think(2)/
R-/you lost for words babe(.) is she feeling alright?(.) you feeling alright?
V- im not lost for words im just working out how to put it/
R- yeah OK!/
V- /shut up!
R- I cant believe this like
V- we dont have a wedding/
R-/its cus we're on camera this never happens/
V-/ no shut up!(.) we're having sorta like an engagement party(2) so its kinda like in the right direction for a wedding(.) but it's not a wedding(.) so we're moving towards a wedding[laughs](.)  but were still very far away from a wedding[laughs]stop putting so much pressure on us[laughs]
I- i cant think of anything worse than planing a wedding[inaudible]
V-I can't literally(.) i'm so dreading the point where i have to do something like that(.) in real life we're just said we're having an engagement party in where all our friends and all our family

in yellow- socialect, low level of formality
in Red- gives a reason for all the awkward two second pauses, gives an understanding of how people change when on camera (observers paradox)
"sorta like" not complying with relevance (grices maxims)
rhetorical questions used to imply humour

Novel

 

Their eyes met from across the room, she panicked instantly looking away but his eyes were burning a hole in the back of her pink laced top. The last time they had spoken he had chased her around the gardens in the close by nature reserve, he had dirtied his trousers and she kindly washed them. But now it felt awkward and forced, she approached him as she fled towards the exit of the gathering. She tripped, falling to the floor and her cheeks reddening with embarrassment. He quickly approached her and helped her up taking her hand, they caught eyes once more but again she quickly moved her eyes and found something else to look at. She thanked him and got on her way travelling home. When she arrived at her doorstop he was there waiting, ‘you forgot your hair pin’ he said, she thought to herself for a second, what a stupid thing to bring back to me she thought, they are only fifty pence in the shop. By the time all of this had whirled around her head twice over there was an awkward silence at the door to avoid more awkwardness she welcomed him in for a drink. They spoke for hours and it wasn’t until she glanced outside at the darkness that she realised the time. He left abruptly after this, paced out the door, they said their farewells and he left. She didn’t see him again after this it took weeks and weeks of thinking about him until he finally reappeared. By this point she had been waiting for so long she felt instantly attached, she did whatever he wanted to try and make him stay. She stayed at his beck and call, she stayed at home in case he needed her and didn’t make any plans.

language and gender theory overview

Trugill 1983

Women's pronunciation is more formal and is closer to RP than males.

Cheshire 1982

Boys tend to use more non-grammatical forms, like ain't and cuz, than girls.

Lakoff (Robin) 1975

Women use: hedges + fillers; tag questions; apologetic requests, indirect requests, speak less, use fewer expletives, more intensifiers. She argued that these features of speech make women seem more inferior, weak and needy and prevents women from being taken seriously. Apologetic requests: Im sorry for having to ask this....

indirect requests: could someone....

O'Barr and Atkins 1980

Disputed Lakoff, said that it was males and females of low social status who used these linguistic features.

Zimmerman and West 1975

found 96% of interruptions were made by men, suggesting male dominance and superiority in conversation.

Tanner 1990

Differences not similarities.

Men: more concerned with status - interrupt more; gives more direct orders - don't mind conflict; more intensifiers in getting facts and solving problems.

Females: more interested in for bonds - tend to talk less and agree more; more polite indirect orders - to avoid conflict; aim to show understanding by compromising and offering support rather than solutions.

Beattie 1982

Questioned Zimmerman and West's theory that men's interruptions were a sign of dominance. He said it could be to show support and understanding 

Cameron 2007

Argued all theories were biased because they concentrated on the differences between men and women's speech rather than the similarities.

Coates

'Women's talk' falls into four categories 

1) Bitching

2) Chatting

3) House Talk

4) Scandal