Funny clip of attempt of English Accent

French man learning to speak in English accent

CLA Notes Further Research

• Children’s ability to pronounce words and to use the English sound system develops much slower than comprehension: a one-year-old child, for example, can recognise perhaps 50 words but pronounce only about 3 consonants and a vowel.
•  Children’s acquisition of phonology is gradual and occurs step by step:  they start with a restricted set of words and gradually increase their repertoire, just as they start with one-word utterances and slowly build up longer sentences.   
• One feature of child language aquisition is that children master language by making mistakes until they fully aquire the skills.
• REDUBLICATION - something which caregivers often hear around the second year. Turning words like 'water', 'bottle' and 'window' into WO-WO, BO-BO and MU-MU. CRYSTAL ssuggests that the repetition and simplified pronunciation in these words helps children to recognise and learn bit by bit.
•  CONSONANT CLUSTERS - caregivers notice around the age of four. When children fail to speak words with several consonants next to each other. 
•  INTONATION - one of the first strategies to be used to make up for a lack of grammar. children of about 12 months quickly pick up the formal patterns of intonation (e.g rising intonation to form a question). However it still take until the early teens to grasp all the meanings behind these patterns. SHOWN BY ALLAN CRUTTENDEN who found that adults could judge how voice affects meaning whereas seven year olds were hardly able to do this at all. Intonation is important because it gives a listener clues to the meanings of a speaker’s message.
•  MISMATCH - choosing an unrelated meaning (labelling a phone as a tractor)
•  SEMANTIC ERRORS show that children do not learn a word complete with meaning (as we might when learning a different language) but actively negotiate it's usage through trail, error and observation.
   

CLA Terminology

Language Change Terminology

Borrowings 
English has absorbed thousands of words from other cultures throughout its history. From 597AD Latin loan words were used in law (‘conviction', ‘legitimate'), science (‘abacus', ‘mechanical') and religion (‘infinite', ‘limbo').

The Norman Conquest in 1066 resulted in a huge influx of French borrowings such as ‘mister', ‘mistress', and ‘blue', and ‘brown'. Old English archaisms were replaced by newly borrowed French words. ‘People' replaced ‘leod', ‘beautiful' supplanted ‘wlitig'. 
Trade and travel overseas brought thousands more lexical items including tea from Chinese (‘te' and ‘cha'), ‘ski' from Norwegian, ‘coach' from Hungarian, ‘khaki' from Urdu and ‘robot' from Czech.

Back Formation
The removal of a real or assumed affix from a word results in the formation of new words. The word ‘surreal' is a back formation of ‘surrealist'; ‘beefburger' and ‘vegeburger' are back formations of hamburger, originally derived from the name of a German town! ‘Pease' was originally singular, but because it sounded plural a process of back formation resulted in the formation of a new singular form ‘pea'!
The -er affix is often removed in this process. Examples include swindle from swindler and stoke from stoker.

Compounding
 Two or more words become bonded together. Examples include ‘woodland', ‘sunbeam' and ‘boyfriend'. Window is a compound formed from the Scandinavian ‘vindr' (wind) and ‘augr' (eye). Lady originated from an OE compound of ‘loaf' (half) and ‘dige' (digger) which denoted ‘bread kneader'!
Familiar examples today include ‘megastore', ‘laptop', ‘videocam', ‘skinhead', ‘houseboat', ‘paperback' and ‘daredevil'

 

Blends
Two or more words are merged into a new word. There is a less distinctive ‘join' between the words as in compounding. Examples include:
‘smog' (smoke + fog)
‘chunnel' (channel + tunnel)
‘docudrama' (documentary + drama)
‘vegeburger' (vegetarian + hamburger)
‘bash' (bang + smash)

 

Shortening
There is a natural tendency for words to be shortened for ease of articulation and simplicity. Clipping is one such process. Examples include ‘exam(ination)', ‘(omni)bus' and ‘gym(nasium)'. Another form of shortening is abbreviation: ‘bike' (bicycle), ‘fave' (favourite) and ‘flu' (influenza). Words are frequently shortened into acronyms: ‘UN' (United Nations), ‘EU' (European Union). Finally there is the process of derivation. Here words are created from the initial letters of other words, for example, ‘yuppie' (Young Urban Professional), ‘dinkies' (Double Income No Kids), ‘laser' (Light Amplification by Simulated Emission of Radiation).

Archaism
Language reflects changes in society. Just as words are continually entering the English language, so words are gradually becoming redundant and disappearing. We are all familiar with the archaic pronouns of Shakespeare's time: ‘ye', ‘thee', ‘thou', and words such as ‘varlet', ‘forsooth' and ‘yonder' which are no longer in use. In the C19th, words such as ‘rantipole' (to behave rudely) ‘wittles' (food), ‘gaole' (prison) and ‘bobbish' (to be in good health) were all widely known yet are archaic today. We can already detect words that are dating and in some cases close to becoming extinct: ‘wireless' (radio), ‘breeches' (trousers) and ‘luncheon'. Slang often falls in and out of currency and can very quickly become dated. Words such as ‘square', ‘fab' and ‘groovy' are associated with the hippy era of the 60s and hardly used today.

Is dumb the new cool?

We all know, in one way or another, that the two reality television shows of Made in Chelsea and The Only Way Is Essex have escalated massively in the past year in the lives of teenage TV lovers. It’s the topic of conversation of their everyday lives, sometimes a little too much. But how much do these programmes influence everyday language of Great Britain?

The phrase ‘dumb blonde’ is an understatement for the Essex television celebrities as they strut the streets in their ten inch heels and mile-long cheesy puff legs. The way they speak in a slow moving strong Essex accent creates an image of the audience which either they can relate too or laugh at, but for most, the programme is just a hilarious sitcom whereby people can laugh at the misfortune of the Essex stars. The light, fun and exciting television show allows us to escape into the lives of the airy-fairy Essex characters.

Introducing the ‘vajazzle’ and ‘glamping’ to the English vocabulary, the reality TV stars of ‘The Only Way Is Essex’ have created a buzz of new language to the teenage population all around Britain. It is very peculiar how the contemporary culture of the programme has such a strong influence on modern day slang of young adults. Not to mention the latest addition of ‘reem’, a term of endearment meaning ‘cool’  created by Joey Essex. His input to the teenage terminology system is tremendous, his catch phrase being ‘Don’t be jel, be reem.’ I suppose it doesn’t help with his charming good looks and warm personality. You will be surprised at the amount of us who use this phrase after it was leaked on television just months ago. 

Made in Chelsea is the latest addition to the reality TV soap opera collection and seems to be one of the most popular. Including over ten twenty something’s frolicking around in the high society of Chelsea’s embankment, they enjoy wining and dining each other to the highest of standards. The wealthy lives of the Made in Chelsea participants are only ones we dream of. Endless parties, holidays, dates and shopping trips are all they seem to do in their spare time whilst having moments of trouble with relationships on the way. In comparison to The Only Way is Essex, this programme contains a larger drama element, with ideology of what the highest point of life could be like if we lived in a society like theirs. This entertainment is supposedly ‘reality’ TV with undoubtedly a pinch of salt thrown into the mix.

The Only Way Is Essex cast aren’t the only victims of having contributions to the English language.  A donation of the word ‘wa*h’ (*add extra ‘As’ for emphasis) has been given to us by MIC star Jamie Laing. Meaning ‘good-looking’, the Chelsea boys often use this phrase to describe a girl they look for in a sexual partner. A very popular one given by the Made in Chelsea cast is ‘totes’, meaning ‘totally’. This contraction is said in a strong English accent and adds a hint of arrogance to the conversations within the Chelsea characters.

The interesting thing is, is that the language of Made in Chelsea characters does not seem to rub off on us television lovers as much as the language of TOWIE. Why is it that the working class dialogue is more influential than the higher class dialogue? Why is the RP accent, the language of power, rejected by young people? That’s what I would like to know. It’s almost as if we don’t want to sound intelligent or use a powerful and dominant accent but would rather speak in a way that familiarises ourselves with the middle class language, as if we don’t want to be anything but ordinary.

It is clear that the media influences contemporary slang in a way that no other popular culture can. It has become socially acceptable to dumb ourselves down in the language which we chose to speak. Surely we should all be aiming to be the best we can be, instead of laughing at those who are supposedly in a ‘higher’ class. It is strange that we chose to adopt the language of those who are less intelligent. In my opinion, the media is to blame. Why is it that the language of the higher class society is made fun of in the media? The emphasis on the stereotyping of higher class language users is tremendous. They play polo and drink tea whilst talking about splashing out money on useless and unnecessary items. We ‘make fun’ at those who are more successful.

What does this say about our society?

 

Useful Blogs

Other useful blogs for revision of English Language A Level:
http://matt-stinson.blogspot.co.uk/
http://amyjonesenglishlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/
http://natasharaffill.blogspot.co.uk/
http://scribble-spot.blogspot.co.uk/?view=classic
http://pheaventenglish.blogspot.co.uk/
http://graycharlotte4.blogspot.co.uk/
http://ellebenthamsorohan.blogspot.co.uk/
http://annaenglishlanguage.blogspot.co.uk/
http://www.a2englishlanguagejottings.blogspot.co.uk/
www.sianacaine.blogspot.com
http://sixteensecondsbeforesunrise.blogspot.co.uk
http://jamest-english.blogspot.co.uk/

CLA Babbling Babies

Babbling Babies

A2 Past Papers

Past Papers

Learn English with Ricky Gervais

3D's Essay English Language AS

The idea of language and gender combined together to create one idea of how men and women differ is an extremely interesting topic. It deals with the likes of Robyn Lakoff, Jennifer Coates, Zimmerman and West and many other interesting linguistic wizards. The main approach to the topic of language and gender is the 3 D’s. That’s right the deficit, dominance and difference approaches to language and gender. All three ideas give us the ability to create an understanding and opinion of the how and why we speak in particular ways. It asks us whether we are socially created as a ‘man’ or ‘woman’ or whether we do it because it’s in our genes. There are plenty of arguments to suggest why we behave in the way we do and how language is a lot more complex than you might think.
So, let us begin with the first D! HOORAY FOR DEFINCIENCY! This is my favourite D. It all began with Robyn Lakoff and her observation that language is defined by women being discouraged by society to speak in a way that is inappropriate. She says that women are socialised into sounding like ‘ladies’. Women, according to Lakoff, tend to use a greater range of colour terms. By this, she means that instead of saying ‘That tree looks green’ they would precisely say ‘That tree looks a lovely shade of lime’. She also says that women use vague language and hedges in their language. This like ‘stuff’ are used to describe something or to over-exaggerate a comment. Hedges are words like ‘uh’ and ‘um’ which we use to fill the silence of a conversation. The only problem with Robyn Lakoff’s research was that she did not use a big enough sample and so we may not be able to fully rely on what she states as fact.
Another main point made by Robyn Lakoff is that women use tag questions, such as ‘you know?’, during conversation as a sign of uncertainty. However, other researchers have questioned this theory. Fishman said that women carry out conversational labour, and that tag questions simply encourage others to participate. Janet Holmes agreed with Fishman and said that tag questions were simply a way of showing that the woman is maintaining the discussion and is simply being polite. She says that tag questions are multi-functional.
Another main individual who contributed to the deficiency approach was John Locke. He was a strong supporter who said that men use language in a very competitive manner, whereas females use language to collaborate with each other. He said that men are ‘duellers’ and women are ‘duetters’. Locke stated that men’s language is adversarial, goal-directed and focused n factual information, differing from women’s, which is more cooperative, inter-personal and emotional. He also said that women’s language supports their need for a collaborative society for children to help them survive, implying that it is in their nature to use language inclusively.
The second approach to language and gender is the dominance approach. This approach simply states that during mixed-gender conversation, the male dominates it; also finding that parents dominate conversation with themselves and their children.  Zimmerman and West state that men and women do not hold equal conversational rights. The pair committed further research into this theory of men dominating conversation and found extremely interesting data. They found that overall out of their research 98% of all interruptions came from men. This data is shocking yet supports the dominance approach perfectly. I agree massively with this idea that men dominate conversation. Throughout my life I have, myself, noticed this happening all around me.
Deborah Tannen also agrees with this point but states that men interrupt women in order to help them. For example if a woman is telling a story, the man might interrupt to help her along with it. This could also be seen as the man ‘stealing the limelight’ also. It is simply a matter of opinion.
The third and final D is the difference theory of language and gender. This is the simplest theory of all. It merely states that men and women are biologically different and have also been brought up differently to each other. It is the idea that women use language to be friendly, suggesting that they care more about what others think of them.  Some people argue that women are more collaborative because of their maternal instincts. Jenifer Coates found that language is cooperative when all female. She said that women negotiate and support each other’s rights as speakers. In support, Koenraad Kuiper found that during all-male conversation (in a rugby team) the participants were less likely to save face but used insults as a way of expressing solidarity.
The difference approach to language and gender suggest that language is androcentric – male dominant- and that women are emotionally unstable.  It suggests that language has a sexist nature. For example Spender said that ‘boats, as well as cars, are seen as female because they have traditionally been placed under the control of men and are physically attractive objects’.
Conversation between both male and female is very different all together. I feel that the deficit theory applies the most to this idea. It gives the most examples to why and how we speak in the way we do and uses examples to support each point. I feel that in the exam I will have the most to write about the deficit approach because there has been the most information given by it. I feel that the dominance approach is very one sided. This is because females can also dominate conversations as we all know from our day to day lives. I think that this approach to language and gender could be specifically defined and altered to show more examples. Finally, I feel that the difference approach does support the idea that we are biologically different because of maternal instincts etc but does not give enough examples of researchers and opinions from scientists. I feel very supportive of each theory however and find it extremely interesting to study.