accent article analysis- Miss kelly

Teacher ‘told to sound less northern’ after southern Ofsted inspection

A school in Berkshire has argued that one of their employees should alter her northern accent when she’s interacting with children. There has been much debate around the topic but I couldn’t agree more. Before I observe hateful comments about how I could be so ignorant, I do not think she should change her accent so to speak but I do agree that certain accents can impact how an individual pronounces certain words, and this can alter whether they are speaking in standard English or not.

Would you want your child to pick up incorrect lexical habits from their teachers? Isn’t a teacher supposed to be a role model for our children in every aspect of the word? We are putting our children in the care of these teachers in the hope that they will develop our children’s vocabulary not tarnish it. You may not think that the way in which a teacher speaks will impact the way your child does but you couldn’t be more wrong. Regardless of how you may be speaking in the home, your children spend on average 6 hours a day at school with their teachers and peers, that’s 30 hours a week. That isn’t including any additional time they spend at school by doing extra-curricular activities. Regardless of if your child hasn’t picked up on the way in which their teacher speaks, if their friends speak using elision then they will most likely alter their language to feel socially accepted in their group of friends.

I can completely appreciate that the way in which someone speaks is a form of identity. However a teacher’s job is to educate our children, your children. The way in which we speak can impact us on so many levels. A job interview for example. It comes down to two people, both male, one articulates himself to a very high standard, and he has a subtle regional North London accent and doesn’t use any colloquial language. On the other hand, there’s the other man going for the job who has a very strong regional North London accent who uses colloquial language frequently and doesn’t pronounce his lexical choices fully. Who would you hire?

If all teachers spoke using non-standard English similarly to the teacher in Berkshire then there would be no hope. What type of a world is it going to be if everyone speaks using slang and colloquial language because of the way they were taught in school? An uneducated one.

When a first impression occurs we subconsciously judge each other on a variety of phenomenon’s. One of them is the way in which someone speaks, for example, if they use colloquial language, we assume that they lack an expected standard of intelligence. Similarly, I guarantee, the students of this teacher have doubted their teacher’s intelligence at one point or another due to her incorrect pronunciation of her lexical choices because of her strong accent.

Of course embrace where you’re from do not disguise apart of yourself to please others! But speak correctly; you can obtain a strong regional accent, regardless of where you’re from as well as speaking with Standard English.

Research task

Research Task

Accent relates only to pronunciation and intonation rather than grammar or vocabulary. If there's two people speaking the same language, who use the same grammar and lexical choices and the only difference between the way they speak is their accent then this indicates their social and regional origins, ethnic group membership or class. As listeners, we naturally pick up these indications about people’s ethnic, socioeconomic and geographical background. In addition, experimental research has shown that listeners can also make judgements on others’ intelligence, warmth and even height just by listening to recordings of accented speech.

Many studies from the UK, USA and Australia from the past six decades all show that foreign accented speech is negatively evaluated by native speakers of a language. People who view their own group or culture as the centre of everything are said to be ethnocentric. Ethnocentric people tend to
strongly identify with people in their own group and are biased against outsiders.

Sociolinguists have traditionally argued that accent accommodation can only happen through face to face interaction. However recent evidence from a number of studies is suggesting that this isn't the case and that engagement with TV programmes can have an influence on the way young peoples' speech develops.

Eckert and Cheshire

Eckert focused her observational research on social groups in America and what language they use to interact with one another. In order to do this she distinguished two groups within the high school, the 'jocks' who participated with school activities and were enthusiastic when doing so. The second group she decided to study was 'the burnouts' who refused to take part in school activities and had a negative attitude towards school life. She purposely choose groups of opposite characteristics in order for her results to be more distinctive. She found that people tended to speak similarly to the people that they interact with most often because they are the people they share the same social values as.

She found that 'the jocks' spoke with a sophisticated vocabulary to reflect their middle class background, whereas 'the burnouts' were not as concerned to how they may come across to other people when they speak so they used more exaggerated pronunciation associated with the urban accents of their neighbourhood.

She also studied the attitudes to language within the school, and found that 'the jocks' had preconceptions of 'the burnouts' because of their grammatical incorrect language and lack of articulation. Whilst 'the jocks' were seen as sounding like their parents.

Cheshire studied the use of grammatical variables and they link that has to peer groups culture by boys and girls in reading. She found that girls who didn't agree with the use of taboo words and the acts of violent behaviour tended to speak using standard English. However the girls who did agree with that type of behaviour spoke using incorrect grammar and pronunciation in their speech.

This study is similar to my findings of everyday life at school. I have recognised that there's a distinctive difference between they way people speak depending on what social group they are from. For example, when studying the way people in my year speak I looked at the differences between the way people on the school council speak in regards to the language they use, their pronunciation and their dialect as opposed to how the boys that are apart of he football academy speak. I noticed immediately that the two groups had completely different ways of speaking but the individuals amongst the same group spoke almost Identical to one another. This implies that your peers/ the people you surround yourself with on a daily basis have a significant influence on how you speak. I recognised that the people on the school council used language of a high register as well as pronouncing all of their words to a level considered to be standard English, which links to another feature that I picked up on, how strong their accents were. The people on the school council had a much less prominent 'Essex' accent in comparison to the boys that are apart of football academy. Due to the strong accent majority of the football academy boys obtain, this leads on to why the way they speak wouldn't be considered standard English because they do not pronounce their words in a way that is deemed correct. I also noticed that they used a lot of non fluency features in their speech such as 'like, err, umm' as well as a lot of colloquial language and taboo words. Finally they also shortened their sentences by using Ellison in their speech, for example 'gonna' instead of 'going to'. Whereas I noticed someone who is apart of the school council will use the full words instead of shortening them to speed up their conversation.

Accent and dialect analysis

Dialect

 Dialect is the actual lexis that is used within speech, it differs from other varieties of language in three specific ways, these are; lexis, grammar, and phonology. English dialects may be different from each other, but all speakers within the English-speaking language can still generally understand them. An example of this would be a speaker from Newcastle who might use localised language such as, “gan” instead of “to go”. Another example may be if the individual uses regional grammatical constructions, such as the past tense sentences like “i’ve went” or “i’ve drank”. Finally they may also use a range of local vocabulary which leads to someone referring to them as a Geordie dialect speaker.

Accents

Accents however refers to the differences in the sound patterns of specific dialect. It comes under dialect aswell as many other linguistic features. An example of this is someone from Newcastle who generally uses vocabulary and grammar of a high frequency but their pronunciation is distinctively different from someone who lives in East London for example because they obtain a hint of Tyneside to their voice when pronouncing words. This would be described as a Geordie accent, despite the popular debate, everyone speaks with an accent.

Conversation Analysis

J: I was stalking his insta today actually(.) not even gonna lie(laughs)

O:(laughs)

Je:(laughs)

Ol:(laughs)

J: What's it like working there/

Je:                                           / yeah what's it like?

O: Urm it;s alright(.) the pays good which is the main thing.

Ol: Work at The Fat Turk doesn't even count as work to be honest (.) everyone working their is so peng and the money's good/

Je:                                            /and they give you alcohol on the job(.)i need to come work there/

Ol:                                                                                                                                                  /same! and the man who served me last time i was in there(.)i need to see him again.(laughs)

O:(laughs)

Je:(laughs)go on! 

J:(laughs)

This conversation consists of four people, speaker Ol and Je are the most dominant speakers within the conversation because they have used the most context throughout. The conversation obtains language of a low register and high frequency throughout, with words such as 'gonna' used, instead of 'going to', this is a representation of informal language called elision, where the speaker is being lazy or out of  bad habit they choose to slur together two sounds or syllables to increase the speed of the conversation.The conversation begins with a declarative sentence from speaker J, within this sentence there's elision language for example, 'gonna' and there's also use of abbreviation. Instead of the speaker naming the app by its full name, i.e Instagram, they have decided to shorten it to 'insta' to save time. The response to this sentence is laughter from the other 3 participants in the conversation,this is a common response to a sentence throughout the conversation, and this magnifies the relaxed relationship between the participants and conveys the informality of the conversation aswell as giving a more accurate representation of who the participants may be and what environment they are in. For example a couple of friends having a general chat as opposed to an interview type scenario. Furthermore, there's over-lapping of speech several times throughout the conversation, for example when speaker Je interrupts speaker J and again when speaker Je interrupts speaker Ol etc. This again emphasises the informality of the conversation because turn taking is being used but participants over-lapping speech within the conversation is still very common. Another example of where the informality of the conversation is conveyed is through the use of hiatus and non fluency features, for example 'urm' used by speaker O. By speaker O using this language it implies the speaker was unprepared which is expected because they were responding to the use of transactional language from speaker J and Je.

Miss kelly, transcript analysis

The purpose of this conversation is to provide information, this is called transactional language. I have come to the conclusion that person A is a policeman, who's seeking information about the car crash that has just taken place from person B, who I believe to be an eye witness of the incident. The form of this piece of writing is a conversation, there's an individual giving a statement, whilst the policeman listens and asks them more questions. The tone of this piece of writing is varied, as the policeman uses language of high register because as a policeman he obtains authority in his role and would of been in similar circumstances to this a numerous amount of times, and therefore the questions he's asking are almost a second language to him. On the other hand the eye witness is using language of a low register, this can be seen through the use of multiple monosyllabic words and colloquial language.


There are many non-fluency features throughout the piece of writing that can be seen by the several pauses and hesitation from the eye witness, aswell as uses of "er" and "um".This illustrates that the individual may still be in shock from the accident, and therefore can't respond with the level of language that they would normally use. This also indicates that they may be intimidated by the interrogaative sentences used by the poilceman, such as "Did you see what happened?".Finally this also implies that the eye witness may simply be uneducated, and therefore stuggles to artiuclate longer sentences, especially when put under pressure by an authoritive figure. i can also depict this from the multiple uses of conversion fillers from the eye-wtiness, such as "like". Person B also uses hedging language, this is where the speaker is showing unceratainty in their speech, implying that they are unconfident in what they are saying,"he must have had it". It is clear when analysing the conversation that person A is in contorl of where the conversation will lead and the topic of conversation because he is using interrogative sentences. This again shows person A in an authrotive way because they are dominating the conversation, this links to their job role of a poilceman and their aim in the conversation, to seek information(transactional language). It is clear that there's turn taking throughout the conversation although it is certainly visable that one person is more dominating than the other.

Mr Clifford homework- analysis of leaflet produced by local protest group(language and power)

The primary audience for this leaflet would be the people in the area of Bishops Waltham who will be affected by the Sainsburys being built. Therefore the secondary audience for the leaflet would be Winchester City council because if the campaign gets enough attention and publicity, and the people receiving the leaflet do write a letter to the City Council then the Council will have to refer back to the source of where the numerous amount of people that have decided to write a letter have got the idea from. The purpose of this text is to raise awareness of the potential problems of the Sainsburys being built whilst also persuading people to write a letter to the City Council to make sure the build of the Sainsburys doesn't occur. the tone of this text is high register, meaning that it's formal, this is due to the serious context the piece of writing obtains. The form of this piece of writing is a leaflet, although within the leaflet it is laid out in the the form of a letter, this is called the discourse structure.

The graphology is the first part of the text to capture my attention, there's big bold writing that reads 'Time's running out...write a letter today' with a clock about to strike 12 to the right of it. This portrays a sense of urgency to the reader, especially with the image of the clock about to hit 12, a connotation of this, is in the fairytale Cinderella where she has to get home before 12 o' clock otherwise everything will turn to chaos. Furthermore i think this image of the clock with that particular time has been chosen deliberately because the writer knows that people associate 12 o' clock with that sense of urgency that Cinderella felt, in addition leaving the readers to feel the same sense of urgency subconsciously when looking at the image of the clock. Further down the leaflet there's a logo image of a heart made out of ribbon surrounding the words 'Love Bishops Waltham'. The heart image has been chosen because a heart connotes passion and love, this therefore shows the readers that these people are passionate about Bishops Waltham and want the absolute best for the community. The use of the image also just puts a visual to the language used for dramatic effect because the word within the heart reads 'Love' and the image surrounding it is a love heart just to mentally consolidate to the reader how serious they are about protecting Bishops Waltham from expansion, such as a Sainsbury's super store. This logo has also been used to convey the professionalism of the people that have made this leaflet, in order for the locals/ council reading it to take them seriously with their campaign.

I have acknowledged that majority of the lexicals used come under the semantic field of war, for example vitality, opposition, destroy, juggernaut and battle. All of these lexicals have been specifically chosen because it is superlative language and it conveys to the reader how urgent the need is for them to write a letter to the city council. The word 'jaggernaut' for example means to destroy everything in its path, lexically this has been chosen to dehumanise Sainsburys and convey the damage it will do to the community if it's built. Through using these words they're implying to the reader that if they do not write a letter then there will be devastation in the town of Bishops Waltham, just like there would be if there was a war. In addition, throughout the passage there's examples of exclamatory sentences to once again emphasise the urgency to the local people of writing a letter. For example, 'This is where the fight starts!' the word fight also comes under the semantic field of war, implying to the reader that if nothing is done then there will be similar consequences to a war.

The leaflet begins with 'Dear Resident', immediately setting the formality of the leaflet/letter, as well as giving a personal and direct feel to the reader, and therefore enticing them in more. In addition, the use of personal pronouns throughout such as, 'we' and 'our' allows the reader to gage a sense of community and inclusiveness from the leaflet, which may therefore encourage them to write a letter to the city council. Later in the passage there's a distinctive use of a compound sentence, 'Even if you are not sure whether the planned Sainsbury's superstore will destroy the vitality and visibility of Bishops Waltham town centre, OR that the huge increase in traffic will cause severe problems on our narrow B roads OR that the town's medieval heritage in the palace ruins and the south pond will be diminished forever...' This sentence has been used to exaggerate the amount of problems that will be caused by the Sainsburys by listing them, this in turn makes it seem like there is more problems then there actually is, therefore encouraging people to write a letter and stop it from happening. The use of the word 'OR' in capitals also helps to solidify to the reader that the list of issues the Sainsburys will cause if built is endless.

Miss Kelly Homework

i also chose line 6, the words included in line 6 were; demonstrator, rioter and protester.

demonstrator: the connotations of the word 'demonstrator' to me is someone that can express their opinion in a very reasonable way, i also envision a good listener and someone that is passionate about many things but won't push it upon anyone else to have the same opinion.

rioter: the connotations of the word 'rioter' is also someone who is extremely passionate, much like the word 'demonstrator' but they don't express it in the correct way. i imagine someone who is very violent and corrupt, and someone that is really unreasonable if you were to ever try and approach them, the only thing they want is violence.

protester: the connotations of the word 'protester', again i imagine someone to be very passionate but can still express themselves in the correct way without offending anyone. i have the same connotations for a demonstrator as i do a protester.

Euphemisms

i would use the euphemism 'to let someone go' if i was most likely talking to the person that had been fired from their job or to someone that knew them because it saves someone getting offended or upset. To say someone was fired from their job comes across quite sharp and harsh and the person may find it upsetting because serious consequences can develop from someone being fired, for example can't pay the bills, worst case scenario, they could end of homeless, Therefore the subject is quite touchy and in my opinion it's more polite to say the euphemism 'to let someone go'

i would use the euphemism 'to sleep with someone' if i was talking to a family member or anyone other then my close friends for a variety of reasons. i wouldn't want to come across as crude to someone that barely knows me because that's not the best first impression. i then would  use the term to my family as-well just because it's more respectful towards them rather then me using words that they would most likely prefer me not to say.

i would use the euphemism pre-owned instead of second hand if i was selling the product myself just because it makes it appear more attractive to the buyer rather than the term 'second hand'. other than that i wouldn't use the euphemism. 

Miss Kelly's homework.

i chose line 3 to discuss the connotations of the words, the words included in line 3 are; boy, man, gentleman, male and lad.

Boy: when i envision the word boy i think of someone between the ages of of 0 and 20, i also stereotypically imagine something to do with football, whether that's them playing it or watching it because football it's a sport we most often associate with boys. i also think of bad behaviour or a boy messing around in class to get attention, as the word boy is sometimes used in a negative way towards boys in school if they are misbehaving, for example 'stop acting like little boys'.

Man: when i think of the word man the connotations are very different in comparison to the lexical boy, i don't envision someone my age i think of someone between the ages of 20 to 55. i think of a successful business man or someone with a wife and kids who handles a lot of responsibility. Overall i recognise that i immediately think of respect and power when i think of the lexical 'man' in comparison to the lexical 'boy'.

Gentleman: i think the connotations of the word gentleman is someone that is kind, polite and very respectful. i also imagine them to be successful, even more so then when i think of the word 'man'. i think of someone who has done very well in life through the respect he has for people. i also envision someone with wife and kids, who treats them with the up most respect.

male: i think the connotations of the word male are quite simple, i envision the sign on the door of a toilet and an ordinary man standing with all the correct anatomy. i think that i think of such basic connotations for this word because the lexical 'male' is there for us to identify the different types of gender and not much else.

lad: the connotations of the word lad to me is a man or boy that has slept with a lot of women, or cheated on his girlfriend on various occasions and hasn't been caught. i think these are the things i associate with the word because whenever i hear any of the scenarios i've listed above, the word 'lad' is the quickest to be said by many people. so now i subconsciously associate the word 'lad' with these things as-well.

Miss Kelly- Homework

My puppy is a Cockapoo,
he searches and experiments with everything new,
My puppy is a fluffy ball,
he curls up next to me round and small,
My puppy is a lover of toys,
when I throw them he leaps for joy,
My puppy is the centre of attention,
although that's something I shouldn't mention,
I know I must be patient because without him my life would be vacant.


I chose to do a children's rhyme about a puppy in first person narrative, in this case being the child's perspective. I did this in order for the target audience( children) to be to find it more relatable and be able to read and understand the rhyme. Furthermore I used concrete nouns throughout the poem such as, ball and puppy. another reason I used this minimalistic language was so the whole aim of the children's poem was achieved. The aim being that, children can understand the poem and therefore enjoy reading it.

All english work so far, part 2.

The weary painter took off his blue, green and white overalls and had a day old Chinese meal because he felt ravenous.

Adjectives( in pink)= words of phrases that modify or describe nouns or phrases.

Function= evaluate, emotive and descriptive.

Comparative= compare

Superlative= exaggerate

Clauses

In the same way that words form phrases, phrases form larger structure called clauses. These are groups of words centred around a verb phrase.

It will include:

• The subject (acts as the key focus-generally the actor/agency)
• The verb (this includes adverbs and auxiliaries
• The object
  S             V                 O

Co ordinate clauses

This is when two clauses are joined together by using a conjunction(and, furthermore, etc)

However, coordinated, clause must make sense on their own if you remove the conjunction.

Such as: I went ice-skating but I didn’t like it.

I really want to buy a puppy and call him Rufus.

Subordinate clauses

A subordinate clause means there will be a main clause(a unit that can stand on its own and make complete sense) and by phrases that only make sense when linked to the main clause.

Such as: although I was hungry, I couldn’t be bothered to make myself food.

Even though I love football, I decided not to play next week because I’m injured.

Active voice: the actor/agency is responsible for carrying out the verb is placed in the subject position(usually at the start)

Passive voice: accentuates the negative most of the time, what is the point?

We don’t know the subject, we don’t want to talk about the subject and the subject is not the focus of the story.

Examples:  John Lennon shot dead(passive), john Lennon shot dead by twisted fan(passive) , twisted fan shot john Lennon dead(active)

All english work so far.

Verbs

Deontic model verbs- must, will, can (no movement). Epistemic- may, might(more choice within the words). Imperative language- demand words e.g. must, go etc. Verb phrases are built around a head word, the main. verb Model auxiliary can be placed along a continuum to show degrees of strength towards commitment. Present tense language ends in S. Past tense language usually ends in ed but not always(depending on the verb). Future tense language- adds a modle auxiliary, e.g. will or shall. Auxiliary means how something is changed. Active voice- ahmed kicked the ball(ahmed is the main focus of text). Passive voice- the ball was kicked by ahmed(the ball is the main focus of text).

Auxiliary verbs(give extra information about the main verb, can affect the meaning also.

Primary auxiliary e.g. do, have, be

Model auxiliary e.g. can, ay, should, shall and will.

                                               main verbs (what the action is e.g. jump, sing, gave)

Based form of verbs