Word of Mouth Radio Broadcasts

Young Women as Linguistic Innovators

Post adolescent females lead language/linguistic change and is replicated in many different countries. People who speak Arabic  researched and found that men are behind in language and are more likely to use 'older' sounds. People speak the way they do to express identity, ambition a way of exerting authority status rejection -men has no motivation. Women pass on the way they speak to their children as they spend more time with the children in their early life, women also socialise and go out chatting more.

Social media-

new words that older people may not understand 'fleek' 'bae'

not the issue as everyone can coin words, more to do with how they perpetuate and get taken up from other generations.

LA has a change going on that a vocal feature known as 'vocal fry' is being used in young women at the full front and is young women using a creaky voice- nothing new change in progress?

Kim K uses this creaky voice when talking to Nick Grimeshaw at the end of her utterances.

This 'vocal fry' hasbeen around for along time and is used to seduce people and occurs in many languages.

why has it been picked up in LA? Is it due to reality stars like Kim K?

People in the USA have said that 'it sounds like hell' and that it 'may hurt womens job prospects and they wont get the job' . However language change is not always favoured and it is not just this vocal fry.

Women are a marked group and will attract a lot of attention via creaking.

giggling is also seen as attractive in young women and in the 1920's shrieking was seen as attractive.

Hallidays functions of speech

Hallidays Functions of speech

https://quizlet.com/21483539/child-language-acquisition-michael-hallidays-functions-of-speech-flash-cards/

Instrumental

Child uses language to express their needs.
Directly concerned with obtaining food, drink and comfort (e.g.) 'want juice.'

Regulatory

Child uses language to influence the behaviour of others.
Persuading/commanding/requesting others to do things (eg) 'go away.'

Interactional

Child uses language to develop social relationships and ease the process of interaction.
Concerned with the phatic dimension of talk (eg) 'I love you.'

Personal

Child uses language to express personal preferences and individual identity (eg) 'I am good.'
Sometimes referred to as the 'Here I am!' function - announcing oneself to the world.

Representational

Child uses language to exchange information. Concerned with relaying or requesting facts and information.

 Heuristic

Child uses language to learn of and explore the environment and to learn.
This may be questions and answers, or the kind of running commentary that frequently accompanies children's play (eg) 'What is the tractor doing?'

Imaginative

Child uses language to tell stories and jokes, and to create an imaginary environment.
May also accompany play as children create imaginary worlds, or may arise from storytelling.

In the Zachy transcript, Zachy uses a declarative to exchange information ‘I can’t get it up dere’. This is one of Hallidays representational functions of speech due to Zachy relaying information. Because Halla response with an interrogative ‘shall I help?’ implies that Zachy meant it as a cloaked imperative, making it seem as though Zachy was secretly asking for help. This therefore will convert the representational into an Instrumental as Zachy is using his language to express his needs.

Zachy uses Regulatory speech to influence the behaviour of Halla by using the verb ‘look’. This imperative Zachy uses requests Halla to ‘look’.

‘I don’t like bolognay’ is a form of Hallidays personal functions of speech due to Zachy expressing his personal preference. This declarative expresses how Zachy does not like Bolognese and uses a substitution for the concrete noun ‘Bolognese’ as he cannot pronounce it correctly.

Zachy uses an imperative to learn about his environment ‘mummy? What’s that lasagne?’ and uses the concrete noun ‘lasagne’ via over-expending category to understand why the food looks like lasagne. This is one of Hallidays Heuristic functions of speech.

When Halla talks to Zachy, she uses imaginative when talking to Zachy about the book ‘oh we’re in the railway station’. This uses imaginative as it creates an imaginary environment. Halla may of used this function to connect to Zachy more because children like to imagine themselves as being someone/somewhere else.

Stages of CLA

When a child is 2-4 months old, they start to make "comfort noises". These noises are usually for when the child is in contact with their caregiver therefore in response to them. This includes grunts and sighs being the earliest comfort sounds and 'coos' being later sounds.


When the child reaches around 7 months old, the infant extends their sounds to " canonical babbling" . This is when they extend their sounds by oral articulations and turning them into syllable-like sequences by opening and closing their jaws, lips and tongue.


At 10 months old, infants begin to utter words. They also use words that are not recognized in todays language. This word-like vocalizations  may consistently used by infants to express particular emotional states.

mini saga

She woke up. She forced the lies upon herself as she dressed. Going to school, facing the lies. Being accepted as someone she was not.

Now going to school I live the true me. My identity has been delayed by my body
But now he was born.
He is now me.

research - lifespan development

In the book 'Lifespan development' the third edition from Bee and Boyd I found out that at the age of 2 1/2 years, a child's average vocabulary at this age is 600 words which increases to 15,000 by the age of 5- 6.This was found by Pinker in 1994.
I also found out  that at 3 years old you have acquired the basic tools needed to form sentences and make conversation. This was found out by Bloom in 1991.
This book was published in the USA in 2001

10/05/2016 - paper one practice

Because ‘YouGov’ is a website which enables people to have an opinion on political issues, the use of engaging techniques allows the website to come across less dry. The form of address within the website name ‘YouGov’ shows how the receiver is their main priority because of the possessive pronoun ‘you’ , making the receiver feel important even if they were not the target audience as it is addressing you personally. By ‘you’ being in red emphasises the importance of the audience’s participation within this website. The interrogative ‘what would you like to do’ makes the audience want to engage within the website as it is asking about what you want but giving you options. The use of influential power will make the target audience of non ‘YouGov’ members feel excepted as well as them not using the governments lexical field when describing the group ‘YouGov members share their opinions…’. As it is partially to the right of the centre also highlights how significant it is for ‘YouGov’ to make you feel welcomed because the topic of politics is not very interesting.  Due to this, if this website was transferred into an article, it will only appeal to people who are already part of ‘YouGov’.

Because the ‘BBC News’ addresses the online article specifically to a target audience, the use of personal language will make the audience feel special. By the concrete noun ‘Bristol’ being included within the headline will connect to the discourse community of Bristolians straight away. Even though the topic of politics will narrow down the intrigued audience to people informed with the lexical field of politics, by the article being about ‘Bristol City Council’ could appeal to a wider audience of all Bristol residents as it could therefore affect them. This political power the article gains within the headline will make people want to read on and find out how this issue will affect them. This power is also obtained via the political party ‘Labour’ being included at the start. This is different to the ‘YouGov’ website which does not address a specific audience within its title therefore will appeal to a wider audience. This implies that the website is more desperate and in need of an audience as the audience’s participation is needed and the audience does not have to engage with the article. The purpose of the article and website could also effect this as the online article is to inform the audience and the website is to persuade the audience to express their view.

Accent and Dialect article

If it’s good enough for a potential Prime Minister its good enough for you!

Ed Milliband, along with many other people constantly in the public eye, wants to be able to connect with their audience if not with activities they embark on, but with their voice. Your accent can determine how well you are able to connect with these audiences and Milliband has realised this. To be able to ‘impress the voters’ he wants to vote for him in the upcoming election, Milliband uses regional dialect in his campaign and converges to their socailect. This shows how some accents are more appealing than others and in this case, Received Pronunciation is not favoured among the electorates. Giles, a professor from California, conducted some research on capital punishment and what accents are seen to be more persuasive. It was found that regional accents – like what Milliband is putting on to ‘impress the voters’- is seen as more persuasive than the prestigious accent of Received Pronunciation. Therefore showing how the ‘Oxford PPE-ist’ will be more appealing to a different type of socialect.

Your intelligence should not be determined on the accent you have obtained. Why should an accent such as Scouse or Geordie be looked down upon as being unwise and foolish, Making people from Liverpool and Newcastle gain a bad reputation? Ed Milliband is from an area which has an image of being an intelligent, middle-class, high end area of London, so obviously he needs all the help he can get to connect with ‘everyday’ people from working class backgrounds. But is the Labour leader mocking the non-standard English dialect by using statements like ‘it ain’t gonna be like that’ when trying to win over the public? Elisions such as ‘ain’t’ and ‘gonna’ can be used by a range of regional dialects along with Ed Milliband using it while his natural accent is Received Pronunciation. So why should slang be labelled as the working class socialect?

Transport and technology has been expanding for many years now allowing people to have access to connect with a wider range of people from different cities to countries. This development has therefore allowed accents to travel from place to place and now cities can have a mixture of different accents within them. So why should slang be labelled as the working class socialect? If people from Chelsea, a high end area of London, now being able to move to the Bristolian speaking city of Bristol easily, then surely these people will pick up some  ‘gurt lush’ Bristol dialect? Even if a Cambridge university graduate moves to Bristol and picks up some non-standard English phrases like ‘alright me lover’ and ‘proper job’, this does not mean that there intelligence has slipped. It just means that they are exploring new ways of communicating, and personally… I find it interesting learning new ways to say the same phrase.

The way you speak does not determine your intelligence and Berstein and Labov prove this. These researchers found that there is no clear link between spoken language and logical thoughts. So by Milliband using regional dialect, is he actually ‘mocking’ the working class intelligence? Surely he as a potential Prime Minister wants to seem wise and intellectual. By a frequently televised politician using laid back dialect and an approachable accent alongside it, surely people with these regional accents should also be seen as welcoming, intelligent and most of all…employable? Morrison’s don’t think so. They have quoted ‘nobody from Liverpool please’ when promoting job offers to the public. With Berstein and Labov’s results, it is proven that people with regional accents can be as intelligent as someone speaking in Received Pronunciation. If the Labour leader believes in using ‘everyday’ accents and dialect to ‘impress the voters’, why is the public themselves pushing away these unique accents?