British Library

Lewis Carroll’s ‘Alice’s Adventures Under Ground’ – Synch Lang Change

 

http://www.bl.uk/turning-the-pages/?id=86825520-a671-11db-a264-0050c2490048&type=book

Good resource, with examples of lexical change, grammatical change etc.

Analysis:

The sentences constructed by Carroll are complex in comparison to those most frequently seen in modern texts, and the length and complexity of each is in part a result of the represented speech used throughout, as well as parentheses and  semicolons, which are less common in modern English texts than they would have been at the time of Carroll’s writing (1862). For example, one sentence “There was nothing very remarkable […] a large rabbit-hole under the hedge,” is fourteen and half lines, and contains the embedded exclamatory speech “’Dear, dear! I shall be too late!’”. The modal auxiliary verb “shall” has become lower frequency lexis since the book was first written, and more commonly the contraction “I’ll be too late!” is now seen. This form of elision has become more common even in modern written texts within the same genre as ‘Alice’, which may support Fairclough’s informalisation theory, as ‘I’ll’ is seen as more informal, and may be seen as proof for prescriptivists that the English language is a ‘crumbling castle’, once perfect, and now undergoing degradation. It may be that the contraction has become more common because of our increased reliance upon technology, and our growing desire for instant gratification – for most, it is quicker to type ‘I’ll’ than ‘I shall’, especially as most operating systems now spell-check and insert the apostrophe automatically. The lexis ‘shall’ in fact, is almost exclusively used when making suggestions nowadays e.g. “shall we go?” Once again, this is likely for ease of expression, as it is quicker than “Do you want to go?”

   The exclamation “Dear, dear!” is also much lower frequency in modern language use. When the book was written, it’s likely that the phrases that we might use more commonly today (e.g. ‘Oh my God!’) were considered blasphemous and therefore unsuitable for a children’s book. These phrases might have been considered to be as bad as profanities like ‘fuck’ are today, especially with the more commonly shared religious ideologies of the 1800s.

60s

The 1960s are often seen as a mix of peace & love and rock & roll, but  in reality it was a decade for and about freedom, including freedom of speech. Because of this, there were many changes to language use during the decade.

Research prior to the 60s, done by Margaret Meade, suggested that for the first time there was definitive evidence of ‘nurture’ over ruling ‘nature’ in a debate that had long plagued anthropologists, psychologists and sociologists alike. Her book ‘Coming of Age in Samoa’ seemed to have enlightened the world, and it finally made young people feel that they had choices in the way that they were going to live their lives. Young women, in particular, felt a new freedom in the way they could express their sexuality. In her book, Meade had talked a lot about the freedom of Samoan teens, and the lack of judgement that was made about young men and women who wanted to experiment with their own. For adolescent girls in the western world, this information was liberating and powerful.

Perhaps because of this change in power – young people were taking hold of their lives – and the newfound freedom that came with it, new words and phrases developed. The language evolved into something that allowed teens to express themselves, which is something they now realised was in their power to do.

The coined euphemism “birth control seats,” which was used to describe a car with bucket seats, demonstrates the changed attitude towards sex and perhaps even religion (as some religions prohibit the use of contraception). That sex and contraception were topics to be spoken openly about was new to the decade. They made new words, which were used equally by the sexes: love bite, hickey, make out, go all the way, score etc. The word score has undergone widening, having already had other meanings with connotations of sport, or being used synonymously for total or tally, or even mark making/cutting.

While the sixties may have made it more acceptable for girls to talk about sexuality and be more open about their own, sexist language was still coined – words like slut, skirt and skag (an ugly girl). “Slut” sort of underwent a semantic shift, first meaning a woman with “low standards of cleanliness” and then, in the sixties, a derogatory term for a woman “who has many casual sexual partners.”

And although people could be more open, lexis such as “queer” underwent pejoration and widening – it became both an insult, a way of calling something dorky, and derogatory slang word for homosexuals.

Many additions to language also now have connotations with the increased drug use during the decade. Words and phrases like: far-out, flower child, outta-sight, bitchin’ etc. “Bitchin’” has been clipped and “ing” has been affixed to the root word, bitch. Bitch already had different meanings – female dog (or wolf/fox/otter), an unpleasant woman, and its verb form – “to make spitefully critical comments”. In the sixties “bitch” underwent amelioration in its new, extended form, which meant good, great or awesome.

Words which are still used now and were considered “cool” to teens of the era – like the abstract noun “blast” (I had a blast) – are no longer seen as impressive to current adolescents, suggesting that in language change, it is the youth that have the most influence and impact.

....?

Analysis Para

At a glance it may seem that because of the higher proportion of imperatives, females tend to be more bald, on record and therefore perhaps a little more confrontational, despite Tannen’s theory. In some cases, this is the case (e.g. “calm down (.) put your tits away”, “pipe down” and “shut up (.) just shut up”), however sometimes these imperatives are also mitigated by the use of politeness strategies, as is the case with “so then stop (1) please”. Here, there is a pause in which the speaker may have realised her request would be better responded to with the addition of the face-saving adverb “please”. This form of politeness also complies with Lakoff's theory that women's language is inherently more polite – but since there is only one example of such language, there is no way to say Lakoff is correct.

Teaching Children to Read

There are four main methods of teaching children to read (phonics, look and say, language experience approach, context support), the most popular of which is currently phonics. This method is said to be the most effective in teaching young children to read for the first time, though methods are constantly evolving and approaches do not necessarily have to be employed exclusively. Throughout much of the twentieth century, "look and say" was the method of choice, with children memorizing specific whole words through rote memorisation. This proved to be a fairly poor approach when it came to actually teaching children HOW to read, and so if a child who learnt this way were to come across an unfamiliar word, they may well have found it difficult to pronounce and understand it.

Phonics (or synthetic phonics), as the name implies, involves breaking words down into their individual phonemes in order to sound them out (cat = c-a-t). Teachers/parents begin with simple, single-letter sounds and later move onto the more complex sounds (ou, oi, ea) and then the sounds become even more complex (eigh, ough, etc.). For this method to be effective, it's important that the child has already learned the alphabet, but is ready to use the sounds differently ("c" said "see" in the alphabet song, but "k" in the word cat). It is also important that while learning, children memorize skills, words and sounds on a semantic level - this is done by conveying meaning and telling the child what words mean so that the child does not become disconnected. Without semantics, it is easy for the child to see each word as a croup of sounds that needn't be pulled together, as they have no meaning anyway. Attaching meaning adds purpose and increases the memory trace.

The phonics method has however been criticised, largely for ignoring the fact that the English language is often phonetically irregular, and so when "sounding out" the child may come into some difficulty with particular words. ("GH" can be pronounced in eight different ways - so it's not so clear cut.) David Crystal has said that only around 400 words in English are pronounced irregularly, but he pointed out that among these were some of the most commonly used. Perhaps unfortunately for children learning to read, though, it seems the phonics method is here to stay (at least for now), as it has been hole-heartedly backed by the government.

An opinion shared by many, including the BBC, is that the teaching of such an important skill should "encompass a balance of teaching strategies including a systematic approach to phonics and other word reading strategies, and a significant emphasis on children experiencing a wide range of texts, including moving image and digital - all available to read from the very beginning."

Children should engage with what they are reading if they are to learn effectively - reading schemes are helpful for this, as they tailor texts and topics to specific age groups. Louisa Combs, marketing executive for Collins Big Cat, explained "For example, Key Stage 1 books are written with a mix of high-frequency and decodable words to develop a range of reading strategies, while Key Stage 2 books cover a wide range of genres and subjects, linking to the curriculum." Children should also be reinforced for their achievements, rather than punished for their mistakes. They should be given time to get to grips with materials and explore context cues, including pictures, graphemes and the way that their teachers or parents interact with them and the text. It's also been suggested that reading will better develop if children are aware of the behaviour being modelled by see adults reading and enjoying the experience.

Bibliography:

http://www.readingrockets.org/teaching/reading101
http://www.teachingtreasures.com.au/homeschool/reading-methods/reading-methods.htm
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/education-19812961
http://www.nichd.nih.gov/health/topics/reading/conditioninfo/pages/teach.aspx
http://www.howtospell.co.uk/spelling-tip-number-2
http://www.theschoolrun.com/school-reading-schemes-explained

Phonological Development (CLA)

Important: No two children develop at the same rate, and so no data charting the development of language and phonetics can be taken as gospel.

On average, spoken language begins to develop when children reach roughly the age of one. This is usually the point at which they utter their very first words, and is called the Holophrastic stage of child language acquisition (CLA). At first, words are not likely to sound exactly as the child intended, but often they still hold some sort of "phonetic resemblance" and are still used to convey a particular meaning consistently. Often a child's lexis will initially revolve around local topics, things they can see or touch, and their vocabulary will be primarily or entirely comprised of high-frequency lexis.
   
Because some sounds or phonemes are harder to produce than others, they develop differently. Vowel sounds are often mastered before consonants, with the average child having learnt and polished all the vowel sounds by two and a half, and only two thirds of the consonants. When consonants occur at the beginning of a word, children are often much more able to pick them up. They also tend to favour consonants when they are 'stops' (p, t, k, b, d, g), 'nasals' (m, n) or 'glides' (y, w), as they are easier to replicate and pronounce. The last consonants a child is likely to produce correctly are fricatives like 'v' or 'z'. The 'th' sounds also prove difficult.

It makes sense that those sounds which occur most commonly are learnt faster, as the child is more able to practise with them. One or two syllable words are most likely to be used by a child in the early stages of development, and 'a' is often the vowel first mastered.

Children often attempt to simplify sounds in order to make their replication easier:

Deletion - codas (end consonants) can by dropped by the clipping of words, syllables which are not stressed can by dropped (banana = nana), and consonant clusters can be reduced to make pronunciation easier (sleep = seep). Consonant clusters tend to be the thing children most struggle with, as they find it difficult to produce all the sounds needed easily and quickly, as their adult models do.   

Substitution - also known as the fis phenomenon, children substitute more difficult sounds with those they have already mastered. For example, 'there' can be changed to 'dere', 'that' to 'nat', 'thumb' to 'fumb'. The fis phenomenon helps to demonstrate that speech and language are independent of each other, as a child can understand the word fish and believe they have produced it correctly, when in actual fact the word they are producing is 'fis'. An example from The Linguist List: "Is that your fis?" "No, it's my fis!"


Bibliography(ish):

http://www.education.com/reference/article/stages-language-development-first-words/
http://quizlet.com/4967917/stages-of-child-language-acquisition-flash-cards/
http://www.kidshealth.org.nz/speech-sound-development
http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/phonological-development
http://linguistlist.org/ask-ling/lang-acq.cfm

CLA - Zach

Zach's non-standard language:

 

-          Omission of auxiliary, stative, copula verb, ‘am’  -  “I cutting around the edge”

-          Omission of determiners - “you don’t want to eat skins”

-          Non-standard use of tense due to imitation of model – “I think I don’t” (follows “I don’t think you wanted those…”

-          Fis phenomenon present in non-standard pronunciation of lexis – “frough” rather than through, “dose” rather than those, “dere” rather than there etc.  Although these are often repaired by the model, research suggests that the child is unaware they are even pronouncing the word any differently or in a non-standard way

-          Clipping either die to ease or because Zach has misheard/misremembered the way that the model used the word– “bolognay”

-          Over extension by category – “lasagne” for bolognaise over potatoes

-          Non-standard use of plural – “and here’s the skins”

-          Deictic referencing in a non-standard way – “what’s this lasagne” – it is still an effective way of communicating as the parents understand that he is referencing the bolognaise

 

CDS:

 

-          Positive reinforcement through echoing – “nah I think you don’t” (follows “I think I don’t”)

-          Positive reinforcement through praise – “you are a star” “very good” “okay brilliant”

-          Simplified sentences/interrogatives e.g. “what are you doing now?” “Here it is”

-          Repairs – “and bolognay” -> “and bolognaise”, “I got food on the floor” -> “yeah you threw food on the floor”, “frough” -> “through”

-          Talking in 3^rd person to reinforce titles that the parents would like their child to use – “got a feeling this is one of Daddy’s…”

-          Graduating to 1^st person to help his understanding of pronouns – this is important as young children are egotistical  and may otherwise believe that they are the only “I” – “shall I (.) help?”

-          Tag/open/closed questions to encourage discussion and effective cooperative communication – “it doesn’t go through? (.) why not?” (In this case, the model changes her question from closed to open to encourage Zach into further discussion and conversation. If he is thinking about his actions and surroundings, he is more likely to want to find and use suitable language and grow his communicative abilities.)

-          Exaggerated intonation – probably exaggerated because of Cruttendun’s theory that children find tones difficult to pick up/catch

-          High frequency lexis

-          Keeping discourse on local topics – “what are you doing now?” “what can you see?”

-          Time allowed for activities/thinking – we see this in the indicated pauses, which are as long as 12 seconds

-          Terms of endearment to encourage and poisitively reinforce Zach – “what darling?”

 

CDS used by the parents works subtly to encourage the growth of Zach’s language skills without him feeling as though he is being punished for experimenting with techniques/ new terms in a non-standard way. Speech is positive so that Zach feels comfortable enough to try and imitate adult language and learn from it.

 

Fis phenomenon occurs 3 times

The mother uses 32 interrogatives

HR Magazine

Talking language and gender – celebrating the diversity of office conversation

 

Research from English language experts indicates that gender differences may be innate, with neither gender’s approach to conversation being superior or inferior to the other. That being the case, we looked into why conversations had by different genders should garner equal respect in the work place.

According to research conducted in the field, men and women speak in languages so different that they may as well be countries apart. But, contrary to popular belief, this isn’t necessarily a bad thing, just something to make our everyday communications a little more interesting.

As an example, women – who are said by experts to talk in a supportive, cooperative manner – supposedly use more tag questions (rhetorical questions that hang on the end of a statement, e.g. ‘I think we need to order a larger quantity of paper clips next month, don’t you?’). Reportedly, females are far more likely than men to use this technique during the average conversation, and its alleged function is to build relationships. That being so, it’s important that in the future when a co-worker makes use of a tag question, male or female, we look at it as an olive branch, rather than uncertainty or a sign of weakness.

 

Commentary:

I wanted the article to be positive, so I focussed mainly on the difference theory being about variances in the languages of the two genders, rather than one being weaker or more dominant. Because I wanted this feeling, I used the dynamic verb ‘celebrating’ within the title so as to introduce the topic of ‘diversity of office conversation’ in a good light. If it’s worth celebrating, it’s surely worth reading about.

Because I was addressing non-specialists, I tried mainly to use high frequency lexis in this excerpt, for example ‘conversation’ rather than discourse. Where I did use jargon – such was the case with ‘tag question’, I explained myself fully, hopefully without patronising readers who are likely to be mature adults. The use of parentheses means that if readers are familiar with the term, they don’t have to read me definition. When I used an English language term, such as ‘rhetorical’ it was one that I felt was high frequency enough that any reader would know what I meant.

I also tried to steer away from the word ‘theory’ while talking about difference, as I didn’t want this explicitly to be a lesson. I thought that if readers of HR magazine felt they were being talked down to or taught something, they might be less inclined to continue reading.