Department of Applied Linguistics

University of Reading

School of Languages and European Studies

Part 1 Module Handbook:

2008/9

Contents

Page Introduction iii General Structure of Part 1 v Timetable vii-ix LS1ELU Module Description xi Schedule of Lectures and Seminars xiv The Assignments xvi Language in the Individual - Lectures 1-57 Language in the Individual - Seminars 58-68 Language as a Social Phenomenon- Lectures 69-126 Language as a Social Phenomenon – Seminars 127-135

Version/Date

September 2008

Disclaimer

This is an informal guide for the convenience of students and staff. Formal Ordinances and Regulations are given in the University Calendar ( http://www.reading.ac.uk/calendar/ ) and in the Programme Specification; should there be, or appear to be, any conflict between statements in this handbook and the full Ordinances, Regulations and Programme Specifications, the latter shall prevail.

Although the information in this Handbook is accurate at the time of publication, aspects of the programme and of School practice may be subject to modification and revision. Information provided by the School in the course of the year should be regarded, where appropriate, as superseding the information contained in the handbook.

Please keep this handbook in a safe place as you will need to refer to it throughout your programme.

iii INTRODUCTION Welcome …

… to the School of Languages & European Studies, and particularly to the Part 1 course.

This handbook contains some general information about the Part 1 modules in the Department of Applied Linguistics. Most importantly, it contains everything you need for following one particular module, LS1ELU English Language in Use.

You should bring this handbook with you to each and every lecture and seminar session for the module – it contains essential material for your satisfactory attendance at the module.

For those of you registered for the BA in Applied English Language Studies and associated programmes, the School of Languages and European Studies General Handbook contains all essential information and documentation regarding your programme. Please read this through now, and keep it for reference throughout the year.

The members of staff who are most concerned with Part 1 in the School are:

The Senior Tutor, Applied Linguistics: Dr. Jane Setter Part 1 Coordinator, Applied Linguistics : Dr. Lisa Atalianis

Module Teaching Staff LS1SG Sounds, Grammar & Meaning : Dr. Jane Setter (Autumn term) Dr. Jacqueline Laws (Spring term) LS1ELS English Language and Society : Dr. Dominka Baran (Autumn term) Dr. Judith Baxter ( Spring term) LS1ELU English Language in Use Dr. Lisa Atalianis (Autumn & Spring terms)

If you have any queries at any time, please contact any of these members of staff, or speak in the first instance to the Secretary, Mrs Lesley Owen (see The School General Handbook for details of their offices and email addresses).

Module textbooks: we advise you to buy the following book, which is essential for the module described in this handbook. The price is approximate. Cook, G. (2003) Applied Linguistics. OUP, £8.95

We also strongly recommend: Bloomer, A., Griffiths, P. & Merrison, A. J. (2005) Introducing language in use: a coursebook. Routledge, £16.99 Fromkin, V., Rodman, R. & Hyams, N. M. (2002). An introduction to language . Thomson Learning (7th edition). £21.95 Trask, R. L. (1999). Language: the basics . Routledge (3 rd edition). £10.99 Yule, G. (2005). The study of language. Cambridge (3 rd edition). £14.99

The main School website is at: http://www.reading.ac.uk/languages . The website for the Department of Applied Linguistics can be found at http://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/appling/

From here, click on the link 'For Current Students'. The Part 1 Blackboard site can be accessed by clicking on the 'Blackboard' link on the left-hand side. This contains information about the material covered in the Part 1modules and helpful suggestions about academic writing. The site is always being updated, so you should consult it regularly.

v GENERAL STRUCTURE OF PART 1

The following is a summary of the Programme Specification for Part 1 of the BA Applied English Language Studies (BA AELS) by full time study:

Part 1 (three terms) Certificate Level Credits Level Students are required to take 120 credits at Part 1, of which at least 40 must be made up from the compulsory modules below. The remaining credits may be made up of any combination of 10- and 20-credit modules offered in the university, subject to the requirement for Part 1 examination.

Compulsory modules Autumn, Spring and Summer terms: LS1SG Sounds, Grammar and Meaning 20 C LS1ELS English Language in Society 20 C Optional modules Autumn, Spring and Summer terms: LS1ELU English Language in Use 20 C

Additionally, for students who wish to follow FT2TVA TV Drama at Part 2, it will be necessary for them to select the following two modules as prerequisites: FT1TFC Introduction to TV Studies 20 C FT1CPT Introduction to Critical Practice in Television 20 C and for students who wish to follow EN2LCT Literary Criticism and Theory at Part 2, it will be necessary to select the following as prerequisite, and have at least a C in A-level English Literature or Language and Literature: EN1LL Languages of Literature 20 C The examination of these modules will take place in weeks 5-7 of the Summer term, save that assessed coursework will be undertaken either during term time or in the Christmas and Easter vacation.

For students who are not registered for the BA AELS or related programmes, each of the three modules LS1SG, LS1ELS, LS1ELU may taken as a subsidiary subject at Part 1, but please note that you must be taking both LS1SG and LS1ELS to be able to take LS1ELU.

Your Remaining Part 1 Modules outside the Department

If you are registered for the BA AELS as a single subject degree, this will leave you with up to 80 credits to find which may be made up of any combination of 10- and 20-credit modules offered in the University for the Part 1 examination.

For students following BA AELS with a Modern Foreign Language , 40 credits will be made up as follows: In French Studies either FR101 Advanced French Language 20 C or FR102 Intermediate French Language 20 C and one of the following: FR103 Contemporary France: Politics and Literature 20 C FR104 French Cinema 20 C In German Studies GM1ICI Icons of Modern Germany 20 C For those with ‘A’ or ‘AS’ Level German: GM1AGL Advanced German Language 20 C For those with GCSE German: LA1PG4 German Language Level 4 20 C

v In Italian Studies For those with ‘A’ Level Italian IT1001 Advanced Italian Language I 20 C IT1002 Twentieth Century Italian Culture 20 C For those without ‘A’ Level Italian IT1003 Italian Language (Elementary) and Culture 40 C

If you are registered on the BA in English Language and Literature , 60 of your remaining credits will be made up as follows:

EN1LL The Languages of Literature 20 C EN1RS Revisioning Shakespeare 20 C EN1WKT What Kind of Text is This? 20 C

You will receive more information on these modules from the Departments offering them.

Please note the additional modules listed on page v above, which serve as prerequisites for choices at Part 2 of the BA AELS as a single subject degree. If you are in any doubt, please speak to your personal tutor.

Our Approach Taken together, Part 1 modules in The Department of Applied Linguistics will seek to motivate the study of language by raising a number of language-related issues, including those of human communication, linguistic description and social organisation. The modules offer a wide range of topics, including grammar, phonetics, language development, language pathology and sociolinguistics, as well as the applied areas of English language studies.

Teaching Teaching is carried out by a series of lectures, which will cover the issues and materials as they are presented in this Handbook. The Handbook is therefore an indispensable aid to your following the module. Small-group seminars are used to expand on and follow up points of interest; the seminars are largely centred on specific tasks, for which the materials are presented in this Handbook, and it will be essential for you to bring the Handbook to the seminars.

Attendance Attendance is required in all lectures and seminar sessions. If you attend fewer than 75% of classes without good cause, this may be taken into account in borderline pass/fail cases.

Have you got all the right handbooks? If you are registered on our BA degree programmes please ensure that you also receive: • The School General Handbook • The Module Handbook for LS1SG Sounds, Grammar & Meaning • The Module Handbook for LS1ELS English Language & Society

vi The Part 1 Timetable in the Department of Applied Linguistics

This is set out in tabular form on the following pages. Each entry contains the Module code, Room, and Teaching staff (initials – see below).

Key to Abbreviations:

DB: Dr. Dominka Baran (LS1ELS English Language & Society, Autumn term) JB: Dr. Judith Baxter (LS1ELS English Language and Society, Spring term) JL: Dr. Jackie Laws (LS1SG Sounds, Grammar & Meaning , Spring term) JS: Dr. Jane Setter (LS1SG Sounds, Grammar & Meanin, Autumn term) LA: Dr. Lisa Atalianis (LS1ELU English Language in Use, Autumn and Spring terms)

Autumn term, 2008

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 9 LS1SG Large Lecture Theatre Urban & Regional Studies Building 10 11 Academic Writing: week 1 only Van Emden Lecture Theatre, HumSS

Seminar (alternative) LS1SG/LS1ELS * 12 Seminar LS1ELU 1 2 LS1ELS Room 109, Palmer Building DB 3 LS1ELU Room 109 Palmer Building LA 4 Seminar (alternative) LS1SG/LS1ELS *

* Seminars for LS1SG/ELS (Thursday 11 or 4): You will be allocated to one of four parallel small groups in either the morning or the afternoon. Seminar group details will be posed on Blackboard during the first week of term.

Please note the plenary session on Academic Writing in the first week of the Autumn term.

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Spring term, 2009

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 9 LS1SG Van Emden Lecture Theatre, HumSS JL 10 11 Seminar (alternative) LS1SG/LS1ELS * 12 Seminar, LS1ELU 1 2 LS1ELS Room 109, Palmer Building JB 3 LS1ELU Room 2S21 Urban and Regional Studies Building LA 4 Seminar (alternative) LS1SG/LS1ELS *

viii Summer term, 2009

The Summer term is divided into pre-exam, exam and post-exam periods. The pre-exam period is weeks 1-4: revision lectures and seminars will be held as set out below. The exam period is weeks 5-7: a separate timetable will be sent to you by the University Examinations Office. The post-exam period is weeks 8-10: a separate timetable of lectures, seminars and tutorial appointments will be held as set out below.

NB attendance at all the summer term timetabled sessions is compulsory.

Monday Tuesday Wednesday Thursday Friday 9 Grammar Sessions LS1SG Week 8, JL Wks 1 & 2 Nike Lecture Theatre, Agriculture JS/JL

Grammar Sessions, Week 8, JL 10 Grammar Sessions Grammar Sessions Week, JL Week 8, JL 11 Study Skills Seminar Week 8, (alternative) LS1SG/LS1ELS * Wks 1-4

Study Skills Week 8 12 Study Skills Seminar, LS1ELU Week 8 Wks 1-2

Study Skills Week 8 1 2 LS1ELS Wks 1 & 2 URS Large Lecture Theatre, DB/JB 3 LS1ELU Wks 1 & 2 Room 1L08, Agriculture, LA 4 Seminar (alternative) LS1SG/LS1ELS * Wks 1-4

ix Assessment

For LS1ELU, assessment is carried out in two forms, by coursework and by final examination.

Coursework assessment consists of two written assignments for this module. Final examination consists of a written paper requiring answers to two essay questions, one from each term’s content area.

We would like here to draw your attention to the details of the length, timing and weighting of these assessments, and the penalties for late submission, in the Module Description in the next section.

Details of the assignments are set out in the next section.

Progression requirements

To proceed to Part 2, a student must (a) obtain an average of at least 40% in each of the compulsory modules, LS1SG and LS1ELS, and (b) achieve an overall average of at least 40% in 120 credits taken in the examination, with a mark of no less than 30% in any one module.

x LS1ELU ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN USE

Module Description

We provide in this section the module description, and the schedule of teaching, relating just to the Part 1 Module LS1ELU English Language in Use .

As you will see from the General Structure section (above), Part 1 modules LS1SG Sounds, Grammar & Meaning and LS1ELS English Language and Society are compulsory for the BA programme in Applied English Language Studies, and LS1ELU English Language in Use is an optional module available to those taking both LS1SG and LS1ELS.

Each of these modules has a separate handbook which you will receive as you sign up for the modules. These handbooks contain the detailed information relating to the lecture course, and the associated back up seminars that is essential for you to be in the right places at the right times, to follow these modules to your and our satisfaction. You must bring the right handbook with you to each and every module lecture, and seminar.

Students proceeding to Part 2 of the BA programme in Applied English Language Studies and related programmes will receive a separate handbook for that Part at the appropriate time.

xi Module title: English Language in Use

Module code: LS1ELU Providing Department: SLES Part/Level: Part 1/Certificate Number of credits: 20

Terms in which taught: Autumn, Spring, Summer Module convenor: Lisa Atalianis

Pre-requisites: Co-requisites: LS1SG, LS1ELS Modules excluded: none Current from: 2007-2008

Aims: This module aims to provide students with an understanding of how English-speaking individuals acquire and use their language abilities, both in the context of the individual’s biological capacities and in terms of the language user’s context individually, in larger social groups and across communication types. It also aims to provide a general appreciation of the different modalities of spoken and written human language.

Intended learning outcomes: Assessable outcomes By the end of the module it is expected that the student will be able to: • identify and explain the features that distinguish and relate individual and social aspects of English language use • locate and assemble information on individual and social aspects of English language behaviour • appraise the evidence for theories of language performance and use across a variety of text and context types • organise their knowledge and articulate their arguments effectively in writing, in assessed essays

Additional outcomes The module also aims to encourage the development of academic writing abilities and note-taking skills and to reinforce what is learned in large lecture groups by facilitating students’ involvement in small group seminars that support the main lectures. Students will also develop their bibliographic and IT skills by use of indicated resources.

Outline content: The content is organised around two main themes, the English language user as an individual, and as a member of larger social groups. An appreciation of these aspects of language behaviour is important for many applied areas of linguistic science such as child language acquisition, psycholinguistics, language pathology, dialectology, sociolinguistics and language variation. The study of language in the individual begins by looking at the characteristics of communication systems, and introduces the proposed ‘design features’ for comparison of human language with different types of animal communication. This leads to consideration of the design features of the language user, taking in neurological, physiological and anatomical aspects. Particular attention is given to documented evidence of sign language abilities in chimpanzees. We then consider three phases of language behaviour in the individual: pre-school child language development, giving detailed attention to grammar, vocabulary and sound system development; real-time language processes in the adult language user, from hesitation phenomena and speech

xii errors to comprehension strategies and parsing; and finally how mature language abilities may be compromised as a result of brain injury. The complementary theme of language as a social phenomenon explores the ways in which we use language as members of different social groups. We examine how spoken, written and multi-modal interactions are governed by a range of codes and conventions that become formalised, and sometimes ritualised in different private and public contexts. We also consider the skills that are needed to communicate effectively in different social contexts such as public speaking, interviewing and engaging with others. Touching on a range of theories to analyse stretches of discourse (such as Conversation Analysis and Critical Discourse Analysis), we look at language in such varying settings as: relationships, the family, the workplace, the media, play, teaching and learning, and politics.

Brief description of teaching and learning methods: Lectures with back-up seminar groups based on prepared practical work and reading and involving structured group discussion.

Contact hours Autumn Spring Summer Lectures 10 10 2 Tutorials/seminars 4 4 2 Practicals n/a n/a n/a

Total hours 14 14 4

Number of essays or 1 1 n/a assignments Other (e.g. major n/a n/a n/a seminar paper)

Assessment: Coursework Two 1,500 word essays. Each essay will be set in the 7 th week of term, and must be submitted by the last Wednesday of the term in which they are set.

Relative percentage of coursework: 33%

Penalties for late submission: 10% of the total marks available will be deducted where the piece of work is submitted up to one calendar week after the original deadline (or any formally agreed extension to the deadline). Once this period has elapsed, a mark of zero will be recorded.

Examinations: One 2-hour paper requiring answers to two essay questions, one from Section A (‘The English language user as an individual’) and one from Section B (‘The English Language user as a member of a social group’). The paper will be taken at the same time as the Part 1 examinations.

Requirements for a pass: A mark of 40% overall.

Reassessment arrangements: Re-examination in September. Coursework will be carried forward, if it bears a mark of 40% or more overall. Otherwise it must be submitted by 1 st September.

xiii The schedule of lectures and seminars

Optional module LS1ELU English Language in Use 20 lectures, 8 practicals, 4 revision sessions = 32 sessions

Weeks Staff Lectures – Monday 3pm Seminars - Thursday 12 noon Autumn 1 LA 1 The Origin of Language & the Human (Academic writing – Plenary lecture, Communication System 11am, Van Emden LT, HumSS) 2 LA 2 Animal Communication 3 LA 3 Child Language Acquisition – “Chimp Talk” Theoretical Accounts Harborne Lecture Theatre, Plant Sciences Building 4 LA 4 Child Language Acquisition – the Development of the Sound System 5 LA 5 Child Language Acquisition – Child Phonology Vocabulary Development 6 LA 6 Child Language Acquisition – Grammatical Development 7 LA 7 Adult Language: Planning & Speech Errors Production 1st Assignment set 8 LA 8 Language & the Brain: Language Areas & Broca’s Aphasia 9 LA 9 Language & the Brain: ‘Atypical’ & Aphasic Speech ‘Typical’ Populations 10 LA 10 Language & the Brain III 1st Assignment submitted, Wednesday, Week 10 Spring Lectures – Monday 3pm Seminars - Thursday 12 noon 1 LA 11 Language & the Family: the Development of Early Conversation 2 LA 12 Language and Education 3 LA 13 Language use in Bilingual Contexts Language and Education 4 LA 14 Language use in special minorities: the case of the Deaf community in the UK 5 LA 15 Language and the Media Language and the Media 6 LA 16 ‘Silent Children New Language’ 7 LA 17 Language Play Language Play 2nd Assignment set 8 LA 18 Gender Differences in Conversation 9 LA 19 Language Planning Language Standardisation 10 LA 20 Language and the Workplace 2nd Assignment submitted, Wednesday, Week 10

xiv Summer 1 JS Revision (Individual) Revision (Individual) 2 LA Revision (Social Phenomenon) Revision (Social Phenomenon)

xv The Assignments

The two assignments which follow are formally ‘set’ in the 7 th week of the appropriate term; by this we mean that at that stage you will have covered enough ground to make a start on them, and to discuss them with your seminar tutors. This does not prevent you from preparing them earlier.

Assignments should be word-processed using the font Times New Roman 12 point, and double line-spaced. Appropriate referencing conventions must be used.

Assignments should be submitted to Lesley Owen in HSS 178 by 5pm on the last Wednesday of the term in which they are set. You should submit one copy of each assignment with two copies of the coversheet (see below), and also submit the assignment digitally via the Digital Drop Box on the Blackboard course for this module.

Assignment 1 (Language in the Individual): Write 1500 words on ONE of the following topics: 1. Chimpanzees can use signs, but do they have language? 2. The period of the first 50 words is the first significant landmark in the child’s acquisition of language. 3. Provide an account of Broca’s Aphasia. Detail how this syndrome was first identified and detail its neurological and linguistic characteristics.

You should refer to at least THREE different sources (i.e. books or journal articles) in your assignment. Wikipedia should not be used. Length: 1500 words. Work more than 10% under or more than 10% over the stated word limit will be penalised.

Assignment 2 (Language as a Social Phenomenon): Write 1500 words on ONE of the following topics: 1. Taking as a source a TV programme, radio drama or book, investigate how female and male speech is portrayed. Ensure you provide relevant excerpts of dialogue/monologue to support your discussion (these extracts will not be included in the final word count). What characterises the speech of each and what differentiates it? 2. Educational disadvantage may emerge from an inability to acquire/learn a ‘standard’ language. Discuss this in relation to a minority group discussed in lectures/seminars or reported in the literature. 3. Select three newspaper or magazine articles targeting different audiences (e.g. The Times, Guardian, The Sun). Comment on linguistic differences in their construction of the same event/story. Include the articles with your essay submission.

xvi

Supposing you need an extension or statement of Extenuating Circumstances?

Occasionally, domestic, health or other issues arise which make it reasonable for a student to request an extension to the deadline for coursework or a statement of Extenuating Circumstances for non-submission of work. Such requests are only granted where there is good reason. This is for the benefit of both staff and students.

Request for an extension for submission of coursework Requests for an extension must : 1) be made prior to the deadline for a piece of work; 2) be submitted on an extension request form; 3) be accompanied by suitable documentation, typically a doctor’s certificate, or support from your personal tutor in instances where there are strong reasons due to academic work pressures. Good reasons include illness or bereavement affecting a student or a student’s close family member, or an unforeseen large number of assignments due on the same date owing to the demands of departments outside our own. Extensions are not granted for reasons such as lack of organisation, or because you did not allow time to compete the work by the deadline, a computer is not available or its printer is broken.

Extenuating Circumstances If you have already missed a deadline or been unable to attend an examination due to domestic or health issues, or wish any other serious circumstances to be taken into account, you may fill in an Extenuating Circumstances form. Requests for consideration due to Extenuating Circumstances must : 1) be submitted on an Extenuating Circumstances Form; and 2) be accompanied by suitable documentation, typically a doctor’s certificate or support from your personal tutor in instances where there are strong reasons due to academic work pressures. Good reasons include illness or bereavement affecting a student or a student’s close family member. Extenuating Circumstances do not include reasons such as lack of organisation, or because you did not allow time to compete the work by the deadline, a computer is not available or its printer is broken.

Reasons for the above policy include: • Students do not like to feel, if they have submitted their work on time, that other students are allowed to have extra time for trivial reasons. • Students who submit work late are failing to keep to their deadlines, which is an important skill in the undergraduate programme and also in life. • Staff find it inconvenient to have extra assignments coming in after they have marked the ones that were submitted on time.

xvii

Having said that, if you have a good reason for requesting an extension or wish to be considered as having Extenuating Circumstances, you must contact your personal tutor to discuss the matter. Your case will then be referred to the Senior Tutor, who is Dr Jane Setter. Her office is Room 177 in the Humanities and Social Sciences Building. Her email is [email protected]. You should submit your extension request form or Extenuating Circumstances form to her, with supporting documentation . You should try to do so as soon as you feel there might be a problem with your meeting the deadline, and not leave it till the last minute, unless it is a case of emergency.

Both the extension request form and the Extenuating Circumstances form can be downloaded from the Information for Current Students webpage, http://www.reading.ac.uk/internal/appling/info.htm .

Assignment Cover Sheets

On the following pages (un-numbered) you will find the assignment marking criteria, and two cover sheets for each assignment. You should fill in each one and attach them both to each of your assignments when you submit. Note that one of them has the space for your name blanked out – this is to ensure anonymous marking.

Don’t submit any assignment without both cover sheets!

xviii LSELU ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN USE

Autumn Term

Language & the Individual

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 1: The Origin of Language & the Human Communication System Readings: Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, Chapter 2 Trask, Chapters 1 & 7 Yule, Chapters 1 & 13 Crystal encyclopaedia, Sections 45-46 and 49 For Hockett (1963), see Aitchison’s The Articulate Mammal (various editions), Chapter 2.

Concepts Theories of language origin: divine origin of language; proto-language; natural invention versus convention; innate ability; species specificity. Proto-language/mono-genesis theory. Multi-origin. Hockett’s Design Features.

1.Aims of the lecture i. Consideration of how language originated and theoretical propositions. ii. Discussion of the evolution of linguistic ability in humans. iii. Consideration of the ‘design features’ of the human language communication system.

2. Language Origin

• Early theories arose as a result of curiosity in man’s origins

• Origin of man variously dated – anthropologists/archeologists - man has existed for at least 1-5/6 million years. 500K years ago – late homo erectus (fire, tools) 250K years ago – early homo sapiens 70K-35K years ago – homo sapiens (Neanderthal) – underdeveloped vocal tract 35K-now – current homo sapiens – most likely to possess speech written records are only 6,000 years old (Sumerians of 4,000 B.C.)

2.1 Theories of language origin

• divine origin of language

• proto-language

• natural invention versus convention

• innate ability

• species specificity

2.1.1 Divine Origin

• - Judeo-Christians - Adam named all things - Babylonians - language giver- god NabÛ - Egyptians - god Thoth

• Belief in divine origin of language is connected to the ‘magical’ properties man has given to language.

• Specific language use for religious and spiritual events/rituals.

• Language without thought? A divine gift?

2.1.2 Proto-language

• Primitive natural language: - Egyptian Pharaoh Psammetichus (664-610 B.C.) - James IV of Scotland (1473-1513) - Becanus (1518-1572) - Webster

• Proto-language Mono-genetic theory Genesis ‘the whole earth was of one language, and of one speech.’

Multi-origin

Multi-origin + extinction

2.1.3 Naturalists versus Conventionalists

• Plato’s ‘Cratylus’

• Naturalists versus conventionalists

• ‘Oral-gestural theory’ (Paget)

• ‘Motor theory of speech perception’

• Rhythmic grunts of men at work (Luria)

2.1.4 Innate Ability/Species specificity Johann Herder (1769)

• innateness theory

• universality of language

• language is not invented nor given as a gift

Captive Children

• 1920s - 2 feral children - Amala & Kamala were found in India - reared with wolves

1970 - Genie – 18 months-14 years in isolation

• 2008 – children held captive in Austria

3 Hockett’s Design Features

• Interchangeability

• Feedback

• Specialisation

• Semanticity

• Arbitrariness

• Discreteness

• Displacement

• Productivity

• Duality of patterning

• Tradition

• Prevarication

• Learnability

• Reflexiveness

4.Language & Evolution Biological specialisation

5. The Communication Chain: neurological, physiological & anatomical structures

5.1 The Communication Chain 5.1.1 Encoding:

• Neurological encoding – the message is encoded in signals which are sent through the nervous system.

• These are translated into physiological signals, controlling the movement of muscles involved in the communication process (in hands/arms/vocal organs).

• Anatomical movement of the articulators. 5.1.2 Decoding:

• Anatomically – reception via ear/eye;

• Physiologically – translation of these signals into mechanical movements controlled by the muscles underlying these organs;

• Neurologically – movement are turned into nerve impulses which ultimately reach the brain.

6. Summary

• Many theories have been proposed concerning the origin of language – some more plausible than others.

• Language ability has been argued throughout time to be part of an innate cognitive faculty.

• Hockett has identified 13 characteristics which set human communication apart from other forms.

• Researchers have argued for an evolutionary biological basis for the development of neurological/anatomical & physiological mechanisms responsible for linguistic expression and understanding.

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL Lecture 2: Animal Communication Readings:

Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, Chapter 8 Trask, Chapter 8 Yule, Chapter 2 Bloomer et al Chapter 10 Crystal encyclopaedia, section 42 For more on chimps and sign language, see Aitchison’s The Articulate Mammal (various editions), Chapter 2.

Concepts

Acquisition/innate/learned Communication Language Speech Types of sign: iconic/index/symbolic/mixed Sign structure: graded/discrete Various forms of animal communication

1.Aims of the Lecture i. To define‘communication’‘language’ and ‘speech’. ii. To determine whether language is unique to humans. iii. To consider the communication systems of other species.

2. Define : Communication……………………………………………………………………………….…… …………………………………………...... Language……………………………………………………………………………………….… ……………………………………………...... Speech……………………………………………………………………………………………… …………………………………………......

3. Non-vocal communication

• Body posture

• Colour

• Electricity

• Facial expressions

• Gesture

• Light

• Scent

4. Communicative structure 4.1 Signs i) signifier - word/scent/gesture etc. ii) signified - real-world object + conceptual content e.g. objects, emotions, concepts.

• Sign = meaning individual signs = token - ‘The elephant is the largest creature in the zoo’ (7:9)

• Semiotics - study of signs

• Signified part of sign = real world object or concept (REFERENT/EXTENSION) & evokes an INTENSION (conceptualisation)

4.2 Types of signs: 4.2.1 Iconic - sign resembles referent

------/------

4.2.2 Index - signifier is directly associated with the referent in a mechanical or physical way

4.2.3 Symbolic -signifier and referent are connected arbitrarily

4.2.4 Mixed -mix of some or all of the above

4.3 Sign structure: 4.3.1 Graded signs

4.3.2 Discrete signs

5. Animal Communication

• Iconic/symptomatic/arbitrary/deliberate?

• Without learning or experience?

• Conscious and intended or stimulus-bound? ‘No matter how eloquently your dog may bark, it cannot tell you that its parents were poor but not honest’ Bertrand Russell.

• Communicative structure? 10

• Limited in communicative creativity?

• Similar to human communication?

5.1 Birds

• Parrot (Pepperberg 1987,1993) - claimed to have cognitive abilities similar to humans.

• Bird vocalisations: - call - brief outbursts/simple patterns of notes; - song - more complex lengthy patterning of pitched notes.

• Dialects - varieties of song 5.1.2 Birds & Humans

• Acquisition - innate / learned

• Innate - calls/simplistic songs; brain lateralisation

• Learned - complete song pattern; critical period

5.2 Bees

• Information conveyed by the bee dance: - distance; direction; quality.

• 3 dances: round; sickle (as shown below)

• tail-wagging

5.3 Dophins/whales

• Brain constitution

• Sonar detection sounds - help locate objects

• Other sounds and whistles - distress/mating calls

• Experiments - results suggest conditioned responses not a desire to communicate

• Evidence of stimulus-bound messages not creative communication

• Herman et al (1984;1993) – teaching dolphins spoken and sign languages to determine: a. if they could learn a human-created language b. discover more about cognitive (thinking/reasoning) abilities of dolphins

• Learned to carry out commands of 2/3/4/5 word sequences – e.g. ‘Window tail touch' - to be interpreted as 'Touch a window with your tail'. - basic sentence structure - Subject-Object-Verb variety.

• Dolphins correctly responded to ‘semantically reversible sentences’. 'pipe hoop fetch' (Take the hoop to the pipe) v 'hoop pipe fetch' (Take the pipe to the hoop).

• Could correctly respond to questions and imperatives

5.4 Non-human Primates

• Why investigate primate communication?

• Experimentation settings.

• Functions of non-human primate communication: - demarcate territory - socialise - warn group members of danger - attract & keep contact with mate 5.4.1 Monkeys

• Communication system - genetically determined + a consequence of exposure to a mature system

• Evidence of symptomatic + symbolic signals

• Example communication systems as used by the: - South Asian Bonnet Macaque – 25 basic patterns of communication – e.g. alarm calls/foraging/greeting - East African Vervet monkey – 3 distinct arbitrary calls in response to threat of eagle/snakes/large mammals - South American Goeldi’s monkey 5.4.2 Gibbons, Orangutans, Chimpanzees

• Gibbons - evidence of duetting

• Orangutans - male calls help to demarcate territorial borders; - those from different ranks approach or avoid the locus of the calls.

• Chimpanzees - evidence of a number of learned calls in response to specific referents. 5.4.3 Experiments on Non-Human Primate Linguistic Ability

• Earliest experiment - Viki (1948)

• Failure - chimpanzees are physiologically unsuited to speak: - neurological pathways between the brain & vocal folds are less developed than humans; - vocal folds are fatty; - epiglottis not well positioned for speech sounds; - larynx-tongue connection also imposes limitations on speech sound production.

• Signing and non-signing experimentation SIGNING Washoe - 1965-1972 (Gardner & Gardner 1966) & Nim Chimsky NON-SIGNING Lana - computer-controlled experimentation Sarah - arbitrary symbols

• Do apes have linguistic ability? support - broad definition of language - socialisation + communication critics - ‘linguistic autonomy hypothesis’ are non-human primates creative signers? - Washoe - ‘water bird’ - Kanzi (Rumbaugh & Savage-Rumbaugh 1980-present) - signs that connect two actions

evidence of syntactic output?

6. Human Communication compared to Animals 6.1 What criteria can we use to determine if human communication is unique compared to animals? Hockett’s Design Features: Interchangeability Feedback Specialisation Semanticity Arbitrariness Discreteness Displacement Productivity Duality of patterning Tradition Prevarication Learnability Reflexiveness

6.1.1 COMPARISON BETWEEN PRIMATES & HUMANS DESIGN FEATURE PRIMATES HUMANS Interchangeability Feedback Specialisation Semanticity Arbitrariness

Discreteness Displacement Productivity Duality of patterning Tradition Prevarication Learnability Reflexiveness

7. Summary

• Communication can be described with ref. to a sign = signifier + signified

• Tokens - iconic/symbolic/indexical

• Symptomatic + symbolic signs

• Innate versus learned behaviour

• Similarities in design features

• Pro-intelligence theorists v innatist

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 3: Child Language Acquisition – Theoretical Accounts Readings: Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, Chapter 8 Trask, Chapter 8 Yule, Chapter 14 Bloomer et al Chapter 10 Crystal encyclopaedia, section 42

O’Grady, W. (2005) How Children Learn Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts Imitation Innateness Hypothesis Language Acquisition Device Motherese/parentese Poverty of the stimulus Recasts Reinforcement The ‘Interpretability Requirement’

1.Aim of the Lecture To consider theories of language acquisition including:

- Imitation - Teaching & reinforcement - Innate capacity for language

2. Introduction

• Children do not have to be taught their first language but construct rules that allow them to use language creatively.

“We are designed to walk…That we are taught to walk is impossible. And pretty much the same is true of language. Nobody is taught language. In fact you can’t prevent the child from learning it.” Noam Chomsky (1994)

• Theories of mechanisms underlying acquisition - First proposals concerning the psychological mechanisms underlying the acquisition of language emerged in the 1950s – founded in the behaviourist school – focussed on behaviour rather then mental systems.

3. Adam 2;8 1. Mother: Do you know what this is? 2. Adam: What this is # car. 3. M: No # that’s not a car. 4. A: Pin. 5. M: Pin? 6. A: Yeah # Mommy # pin. 7. M: What kind of pen? 8. A: Car. 9. M: Car? 10. A: Yeah. 11. M: What kind of car? 12. A: Red car. 13. M: Red car? 14. A: Yellow car 15. M: Yellow car? 17

16. M: What do you do with it? 17. A: [inaudible] watch. 18. A: Where horses go? 19. M: Where what go? 20. A: Where horses? 21: M: Horse? 22. A: Horse # go yes Mommy. 23. M: Did he go to the corral? 24. A: Did he? 25. A: There he is # Mommy. 26. A: Corral corral. 27. A: Baby horses. 28. A: Horses. 29. A: Baby horses …………….. (O’Grady 2005:166) 4 Imitation

• Probably involved in certain aspects of language acquisition e.g. naming, greetings, formulaic utterances; but not others e.g. development of morphosyntax (*felled over; *ringed, sentential constructions)

• 3 facts confirm that imitation does not completely explain acquisition: i. children are not good at imitating sentences containing unfamiliar words & structures ii. they rarely imitate iii. studies of children who have neurological/physiological disorders suggest they understand the language spoken to them + if they overcome the disorder they can immediately speak the language

5. Teaching & Reinforcement

• Few adults are aware of the complexities of language structure - unable to formally ‘teach’ the language

• Studies (e.g. Brown & Hanlon) demonstrate that parents pay little attention to HOW children say things but concentrate rather on ‘truth’ aspects.

• Children don’t react well to reinforcement when it occurs and are frequently unable to make corrections even when pointed out by adults Examples Child: Nobody don’t like me. Mother: No, say “nobody likes me” C: Nobody don’t like me [8 repetitions of this dialogue] M: No, now listen carefully; say “nobody likes me”. C: Oh! Nobody don’t likes me. (McNeill 1966:68)

Child: My teacher holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. Adult: Did you say your teacher held the baby rabbits? C: Yes. A: What did you say she did? C: She holded the baby rabbits and we patted them. A: Did you say she held them tightly? C: No, she holded them loosely. (Gleason, cited by Cazden 1972:92)

5. Learning by Example c. …by example e.g. C: I runned really fastly Mummy A: You ran really quickly?

Recasts by Eve’s mother (Eve – aged between 18-27 months) Eve: Eve’s mother: It fall It FELL I don’t read no books I know you’re not going to read ANY books A butter You want SOME butter Have two cracker How many CRACKERS? Man up there THERE’S a man up there Up wall ON THE WALL, yeah Papa buy some Papa BOUGHT some for us (Moerk 1991) 19

• Recast rates for mothers of 2 year olds (Hirsch-Pasek et al 1984:86) “bad” sentences “good” sentences % of time repeated in whole or part 26.3 13.7 % of time not repeated 73.7 86.3 Saxton (1997) 4-5 yr olds – taught nonsense verbs, e.g. pold METHOD: Initially child heard –ing form (present tns) and not past tns Verbs constructed by researchers to be irregular 2 strategies used for teaching past tns: a. allow children to make mistake and then recast b. present correct form initially RESULTS: strategy a – achieved a 30% success rate strategy b – 0% CONCLUSION Children are sensitive to recasts when provided as an immediate contrast to their own utterance

• II Longer term study 10 sessions over 5 weeks – by end of 5th week children had a success rate of 100% when exposed to recasts; compared to 40% when not.

CONCLUSION: recasts are helpful at certain pts in acquisition – e.g. Eve – most sensitive to recasts when using the correct form 50% of the time. Recasts do not help children learn but can reinforce forms (evidence – cultures found that do not recast)

6. Characteristics of ‘motherese’/’parentese’ 6.1 Pronunciation o Slow speech/sign with longer pauses between utts and after content words o Higher pitch and greater pitch range 20

o Exaggerated stress and intonation/larger sign movements o Fewer words/signs per utterance & minute

6.2 Vocabulary o Limited o Extensive paraphrasing o Reference to events/objects in the present/current experiences

6.3 Sentences o Shorter utterances (50% single words/signs or short statements) o >carefully produced – well-formed and intelligible o >commands and questions in spoken language data (approx. 60% of total) o >repetitions (esp. in sign language)

6.4 Is it necessary for acquisition? – not necessarily e.g. Afro-American community in Trackton (Heath 1970s).

7. The ‘Interpretability Requirement’ (O’Grady 1997) o Children must be exposed to language that they can understand without knowing a lot about the language they are exposed to. o A large % of speech to children is about what they can see or hear/what they want to know about/what they have just experienced or will experience – therefore easily interpretable.

8. UG & the ‘Innateness Hypothesis’ o Language acquisition is a creative process o Children from diverse social & cultural settings acquire language in similar stages – led some to postulate that children are genetically endowed with a blueprint for language – a Universal Grammar (UG). o ‘Poverty of the stimulus’

o Evidence for genetic inheritance 8.1 The Acquisition Device o The acquisition device is language specific devoted to acquisition. Consists of an inborn grammar (UG) i.e. grammatical categories & principles common to all languages (advocate of this view e.g. Chomsky).

Q: ‘That child is misbehaving’ – how does the child figure out that ‘child’ is a N and ‘misbehaving’ a V.

Answer...... o The acquisition device is NOT just specialised for language (advocate, e.g. Bloom 2002) e.g. learning names of things is just an example of a general sort of reasoning Expt by Disendruck & Markson (cited in Bloom 2002) – illustrating reasoning. WHICH THEORY IS RIGHT?

9. Learning strategies o Regardless of the nature of the acquisition device there is still a lot to be learned – how do children do this? o Generalisations – with in-built restrictions & control ‘Principle of contrast’ (O’Grady 2005) Repeated exposure (with the help of recasts) needed for adult form to take shape in child’s speech.

10. Summary o Children do not have to be taught their first language but construct rules that allow them to use language creatively. o Various theories of mechanisms underlying acquisition have been proposed but to date researchers believe that children are genetically endowed with a blueprint for language – a Universal Grammar (UG).

o Although there is general agreement that there is a ‘language acquisition device’ there is still controversy surrounding the nature of it. o Regardless of the nature of the acquisition device there are a number of learning strategies enacted by children in the acquisition of language.

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 4: Child Language Acquisition – Development of the Sound System

Readings

Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, Chapter 8

Trask, Chapter 8

Yule, Chapter 14

Bloomer et al Chapter 10

Crystal encyclopaedia, section 42

O’Grady, W. (2005) How Children Learn Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts

Babbling

Canonical stage

Deletion

Minimal pairs

Reduplication

Reflexive sounds

Syllabic structure

Substitution

Variegated stage

1.Aim of the Lecture

To discuss:

• Early vocalisations

• Perception of speech

• Babbling

• Development of discernable speech sounds – vowels & consonants

• Adjusting to the adult model

2. Perception of speech sounds : prenatal & post-natal

2.1 Pre-natal recognition of consonants & vowels

• Speech is heard in the womb – salient characteristics – rhythm & intonation.

• Evidence: - infants turn heads to recognisable sounds; - suck more vigorously on pacifiers when listening to familiar voices; - story recitation before & after birth

2.2 Post-natal recognition of consonants & vowels

• Measures of sucking & heart rate

• Contrasting [b] & [p]

• Each sound played for several minutes – change of sound coincided with increased heart & sucking rates

• By 6 months – children hear the difference between vowel sounds

• Recognising sounds in a sequence: Minimal pairs

• The ‘fis’ phenomenon

3. Vocalisation to production

• 2-4 months: the “cooing” stage

• Develops alongside crying

• Child begins to respond to caregiver’s smiles and speech

• Quieter, lower in pitch and more musical than crying

• Often consonant + vowel (CV) syllabic structures– [ga] [gu]

• End of this stage – laughter begins to emerge

3.1 4-6 months

• 4-6 months: “vocal play”

• Much steadier and longer than cooing

• Sequences of CV syllables [ga ga ga]

• Seems to be a strong element of practice

• Parents often hear words which are not there … [ma ma ma]

3.2 ‘The Canonical Stage’

• Sounds become recognisably like the adult model.

• Consist of syllabic reduplications e.g. CV [bababa] or CVC [panpanpan]

• Similar structure of babbling – found in all languages studied – even deaf children babble with their hands!

• However from 6 months – infants from different language communities begin to babble distinctively (difference in intonation is marked).

• Babbling increases in frequency and complexity until the age of about 12 months.

• Babbling doesn’t seem to be crucial for the later development of real speech.

Common & uncommon sounds during the babbling phase – see slide in lecture. (O’Grady 2005:150)

3.3 ‘The Variegated Stage’

• Consonants and vowels change [badu]

• By 10 months the sounds have settled to a recognisable L1 range

• By 13-14 months children start to produce recognisable words – although these may be realised differently

• Early vowels & consonants

• 5 vowel sounds typically acquired early: [i:] “ee” [a:] “ah” [u:] “oo” [ u] (‘oh’) [u] “uh”

• Most common consonants in word-initial position are “b”, “d”, “m”, “n” and “h”.

• Consonants are acquired in a front-to-back order, (where 'front' and 'back' refer to the origin of the articulation of the sound).

Thus [t k f b j d s … before … l r t d v ð ]

• Vowels seem to be acquired in a back-to-front order, with “or” (ball) and “e” (tell) preceding “ee” (meet) and “u” (mud).

• It appears that two variables dominate this process: visibility of articulators and ease of articulation

4.Child Articulations

What happens when a child can’t pronounce an adult target form/sound? - delete it/- substitute it

4.1 Deletion

dog > dah; cat > ca; foot > foo

CVC CV

cat > ca

CV consonants are favoured internationally.

4.1.1 Deletion: consonant clusters

• When a consonant at the beginning of the word is followed by ‘l’ or ‘r’ – drop the ‘l’ or ‘r’ e.g......

• When a nasal consonant (‘m’, ‘n’, ‘ng’) is followed by ‘p’, ‘t’ or ‘k’ at the end of the word, delete the nasal e.g......

• When ‘s’ is followed by another consonant, drop the ‘s’ e.g......

4.2 Substitution: 1. The stopping process

• The stopping process: replace a consonant that is produced with a continuous flow of air (e.g. ‘s’, ‘z’, ‘sh’) by one that stops air flow (e.g. ‘t’, ‘d’):......

• The gliding process - replace ‘l’ or ‘r’ with ‘y’ or ‘w’......

• The denasalisation process - replace a nasal sound (‘n’, ‘m’, ng’) with a non-nasal sound (‘b’, ‘d’)

• The fronting process: replace a sound with one made towards the front of the mouth.

• Assimilation

• Reduplication (see lecture slide)

5.Brief overview

• Children tend to produce sounds at the beginnings of syllables first - and front consonants and back vowels first

• They avoid consonant clusters

• Unstressed syllables are dropped

• Consonants “harmonise” with each other 28

• [w] and [j] are used instead of [l]

• Fricative sounds are “stopped”

6. Summary

• When born children can recognise the speech of their parents and can discriminate amongst speakers.

• Age 2 – they recognise and are acquiring the sounds of their language.

• Difficulties in pronunciation are dealt with systematically by: substitution, deletion and reduplication.

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL Lecture 5: Child Language Acquisition –Development of Vocabulary

Readings Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, Chapter 8

Trask, Chapter 8

Yule, Chapter 14

Bloomer et al, Chapter 10

Crystal encyclopaedia, section 42

O’Grady, W. (2005) How Children Learn Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts

Bootstrapping

Extension (over/under)

Holophrastic utterances

Semantic categories: Internal states;

Context-bound; Object/activity;

Recurrence/disappearance; Location;

Attributes; Social-Pragmatic

Type/token ratio

Vocabulary spurt

1.Aims of the lecture

• Focus – development of vocabulary

• 12 months – first teeth; eating solids; ready to walk; following adult gaze & pointing; first words.

• 15 months – average = 10 words 18-19 months – average = 50 words

• Typically first words learned = ‘mama’/’dada’/’papa’

2.What constitutes a word?

Children can be said to have learned their first word when:

(a) they are able to utter a recognizable speech form, and

(b) this is done in conjunction with some object or event in the environment.

2.1 First words

• Reported in children as young as 4 months – average = 10-12 months.

• Why? ......

2.2 The Vocabulary Spurt – see graph on lecture slide

2.3 Word learning from 18 months – 18 years (O’Grady 2005:8)

18 months 6 years 18 years

---|10 words per day__|_up to 20 words per day______|------

50 words 14,000 words 60,000 words

2.4 Holophrastic utterances

• Nouns are usually first to be acquired

• Young child can express a variety of semantic functions and ideas through single words – or combinations of single words, e.g. ‘peach, Daddy, spoon’ (Bloom 1973) or ‘car go bus’ (Scollon, 1976)

• Low incidence of function words e.g. modal verbs; inflections

• Evidence that word order is acquired quite early – e.g. realisation of such utterances as ‘my ball’ not ‘ball my’

• Semantic categories: Internal states; Context-bound; Object/activity; Recurrence/disappearance; Location; Attributes; Social-Pragmatic

• Preference for nouns

Why?

Mothers use >nouns than any other lexical category;

Nouns mother’s use are easier for children to learn than the verbs used;

Children’s perceptual system is programmed to notice objects that satisfy the following 4 conditions: - Cohesion – objects which consist as whole entities e.g. a ball (versus ‘a head’ – this belongs to a larger object); - Continuity – objects that permanently exist in child’s field of vision; - Solidity – solid objects not permeable objects; - Contact – preferred objects (unless animate) that do not move.

3. Expression of Meaning

3.1 Over-extension, e.g......

• Appears for a limited amount of time – up to 2-2.5 years.

• Approx 30% of children’s utterances between 1-2.5 consist of over-extensions.

3.2 Under-extension, e.g.

- not realising ‘castle’, ‘office block’ is a building.

>difficult to spot

3.3 Home language - innovate own vocabulary, e.g. ‘dunk’ – refer to coat

4. Word categories

• Words often come in semantic sets

E.g., a child will acquire bird, and then types of bird (robin, sparrow, blackbird, owl …)

The meaning of words will be reanalysed

• Nominals: Specific nominal (names, roles); General nominal (other nouns); Personal- social (emotional, interactional); Action

• Learning verbs…First verbs are those used in parental speech: 2 types: 1) denote activities: e.g. do, get, go

2) accomplishments: e.g. fell; found (it); broken Very young children associate the past tense of a verb with a completed act.

5.‘Bootstrapping’

• Making a guess about its meaning based on the syntactic frame = ‘syntactic bootstrapping’.

5.1 Prepositions

Location: Sit on the sofa

Origin: My husband’s from Cyprus

Direction: Let’s walk down the hill

Accompaniment: Come with me

Benefit: Could it pick it up for him

Instrument/means: Cut with the knife; carry by hand

Possession/belonging: House of mine

• Look back over Daniel & Sarah’s first words – what type of prepositions did they first use?

• Errors – of omission and commission Omission: e.g. Open it keys (open it WITH the keys) Mummy hit bag (Mummy was hit BY the bag) Commission: When a wrong preposition is used, e.g. Sam gave it FOR me (to)

6. Production & comprehension

• Children acquire words very quickly.

• Can understand more words than they can produce.

• Vocabulary includes comprehension and production.

• Comprehension spurt typically starts just after age 1.

• Production spurt typically starts a little later and is less quick.

6.1 Type/token measures

6.2 Specificity & range of descriptors

7. Summary

• Children are able to identify and produce words with increasing speed from 18 months.

• Nouns constitute majority of holophrastic utterances initially.

• Although patterns and strategies of acquisition are the similar across all children, the types of words acquired differ from child to child.

• Comprehension precedes production.

• Vocabulary development is a life-long process. 34

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL Lecture 6: Child Language Acquisition – Grammatical Development

Readings

Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, chapter 8

Trask, chapter 8

Yule, chapter 14

Bloomer et al Ch 10

Crystal encyclopaedia, section 42

O’Grady, W. (2005) How Children Learn Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Steinberg, D. & Sciarini, D. (2006) An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. Edinburgh: Pearson Longman.

Concepts

Mean Length of Utterance

Pivotal words

Processing bottleneck

Psychological Learning Principles

Telegraphic speech

Wh-questions

‘Wug’ test

1.Aims of the lecture

Focus:

Young children’s grammatical development:

2 phases: a) approx 18 months – 2-3 word utterances b) aged approx. 24 months – rapid grammatical development – appearance of complex constructions.

2. Building Sentences

2.1 Pivotal words Child: Gregory (O’Grady 2005:86)

2.2 Analysis of 2-word utterances (SP 1999)

Agent + action e.g. ______

Action + affected e.g. ______

Agent + affected

e.g. ______

Action + location e.g. ______

Entity + location e.g. ______

Possessor + possession e.g. ______

Entity + attribute e.g. ______

Nomination e.g. ______

Recurrence e.g. ______

Negation

e.g. ______

Common two-word phrases involve “no” + item and “more” + item “No” perseveres as negation in the three-word stage Combination of negation + type of utterance

No + sit chair

2.3 Constructional ambiguity due to telegraphic nature of utterances

• Often a verb is missing

• Does “no daddy chair” mean: Daddy is not sitting in a chair OR Daddy mustn’t sit down OR That’s not daddy’s chair OR Something else ..?

• Context is therefore important

• Gesture also plays a part

3.MLU

• MLU = Mean length of utterance

Calculation = average number of meaningful elements (morphemes) in a child’s utterances. E.g. play cars= play + car + s (plural) = 3

Adam, Eve & Sarah’s MLU x age

4.Learning from ‘frames’

You can PUSH the car 1 2

I’ll GIVE the ball to Tim

1 2 3

5.Sentence construction

Subject + verb + direct object The boy hit the cat

• Children have little difficulty with this word order – 95% success rate (even in earliest utterances).

• Exception – verb-subject word order (without a direct object), e.g. broken the toy; fall down cup

• Telegraphic speech: Missing subjects & direct objects

Adam (%) Eve (%) Sarah (%)

Subjects 57 61 43

Objects 8 7 15

Processing bottleneck: I want want sweets sweets

6. Morpheme acquisition - why this order?

6.1 Brown (1973): - frequency of occurrence – x - increasing order of semantic or grammatical complexity

6.2 Steinberg (1982, 1993, 2001) – ‘psychological learning principles’: (1) Ease of observability of referent (2) Meaningfulness of referent (3) Distinctiveness of the sound signal that indicates the referent

6.3 When has acquisition taken place? Brown suggests must appear correctly in 90% of utterances. 38

6.4 Acquisition of morpheme ‘s

• Most plurals in English are regular

• Regular plurals are formed depending on the final consonant

• So if there is more than one “wug” it should end with ..?

• The Wug Test: % of correct responses on ‘wug’ test

Who, what, where, why, when?????

Order of acquisition:- where (approx 26 months); what (26 months); who (28 months); how (33 months); why (35 months); which/whose/when (after 36 months)

Function of wh-words

Subject wh-question Q: Who is playing outside A: Alice is playing outside

Direct object wh-question Q: Who is Alice playing with? A: Alice is playing with Chris

‘Someone is pushing the pig, and Pooh knows who. Can you ask him who? (Naoka Yoshinaga 1996)

‘The monkey is pushing someone, and Pooh knows who. Can you ask him?’

• Results of the experiment

7. Summary

• Young children’s grammatical development:

2 phases: a) approx 18 months – 2-3 word utterances b) aged approx. 24 months – rapid grammatical development – appearance of complex constructions.

• Utterances are constructed by combining words into frames and patterns – however some constructions are more difficult and take longer to acquire (e.g. wh-words).

• We can measure children’s grammatical development via MLU.

• Research has shown that children acquire English morphemes in a particular order – if over different time periods.

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 7: Adult language: Planning and Production

Readings Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, chapter 8 Trask, chapter 8 Yule, chapter 14 Bloomer et al Ch 10 Crystal encyclopaedia, section 42

O’Grady, W. (2005) How Children Learn Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Steinberg, D. & Sciarini, D. (2006) An Introduction to Psycholinguistics. Edinburgh: Pearson Longman.

Concepts

Assemblage errors Fluency cycles Pauses Tone group Selection errors Slips of the tongue Spreading activation Typical/atypical subjects

1. Aims of the lecture Focus: i. Language planning – formulating a message ii. Language production – articulating the message iii. Methods used to study this. 41

2. Indirect Naturalistic Evidence 2.1 Pauses in spontaneous speech – identify points at which pauses occur – may give clues as to the planning of syntactic structure

2.2 Speech errors: ‘typical’ subjects – slips of the tongue (e.g. wee-freel – rather than free wheel) ‘atypical’ subjects – aphasic data e.g. ‘Name David’ rather than ‘My name is David’

2.2.3 Types of slips • Wrong selection of item, e.g. How are we getting to the chair ? (Did you mean Church?) • Something wrong with the selection process, The indection was in his arm (‘injection’) • Selection Errors: i. Semantic errors (meaning errors) e.g. ______; ii. Malapropisms (similar sound errors) e.g. ______; iii. Both meaning + sound errors : e.g. ______iv. Blends e.g. ______

2.2.4 Assemblage Errors: affect sounds, syllables & words a) Transpositions - e.g. Sounds (‘spoonerisms’); Syllables;Words b) Anticipations (sound anticipations = common assemblage error) c) Repetitions (perseverations):

Common selection & assemblage errors – selection errors = semantic errors +

malapropisms; assemblage errors = transpositions + anticipations.

Linguistic units most effected = words + phonemes i) single sound errors – anticipation; exchange, e.g. ______ii) cluster errors – exchange, e.g. ______

Words – exchange e.g. ______; shift e.g. ______substitution e.g. ______; stranding ______blend e.g. ______

Phrases/complex errors – blend e.g.______; complex e.g. ______

2.2.4 Speech errors tend to occur in predictable ways - Known as the lawful nature of speech errors, e.g., sound substitutions do not violate English phonology

2.2.5 What can we learn from these errors? Decipher the units of planning – the size of linguistic material prepared in advance of utterance; process of word selection; suggest how words & syntax are planned & assembled.

3. Unit of Planning 3.1 Appears to be a ‘tone group’ = a phonemic clause (short utterance consisting of a single intonation contour), e.g. What’s your name?; I ate fish. Evidence: slips of the tongue occur within a single tone unit, word selection – ‘tip of the tongue’ experiment and phenomena: semantically – words of similar meaning are associated in our mental lexicon; phonetically – seem to activate similar sounding words before narrowing down our selection. 43

3.1.1 Mechanism of selection • Begin with an idea of a word & then find the phonetic form. • ‘Spreading activation’ – similar words would be activated – this would spread from word to word e.g. trying to say ‘blue’ might activate all other colours + words beginning with ‘bl’ ‘black’ ‘blame’ etc. Speaker has to select word + suppress words not targetted – sometimes this goes wrong!

3.2 Planning & Assemblage - Outline planning – choosing key words; syntactic frames; intonation pattern - Detailed planning – fitting it all together

3.2.1 Outline planning: key words, syntax & intonation to tone group are established S

NP VP

V NP

run [concept]

3.2.2 Detailed planning S

NP VP

V NP

The boy ran home

4. Summary • It is very difficult to access speaker’s brains to work out how language is produced.

• Indirect naturalistic data (pauses and speech errors) and experiments (e.g. TOT) provide a window to the complexity of language planning and production.

• Observations and experiments have helped psycholinguistics to determine: the units of planning (the size of linguistic material prepared in advance of speaking) and how phonemes, words & syntax are planned & assembled.

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 7: Language & the Brain I. Language Areas & Broca’s Aphasia

Readings Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, chapter 9 Trask, chapter 7 Yule, chapter 13 Bloomer et al, chapter 11 Crystal encyclopaedia, section 46

Obler, L. & Gjerlow, K. (2005) Language & the Brain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts Brain hemispheres Broca’s aphasia/agrammatism Brodmann’s area Cerebral dominance Connectionism/Holistic school Contra-lateral responsibility Corpus callosum Lobes of the brain: Frontal; Occipital; Parietal & Temporal. Localisation Nervous system: central/peripheral Rolandic fissure

1.Aims of the Lecture i. Explore the structure & function of the brain: - the linguistic & neurolinguistic underpinnings of language skills; ii. consider how language skills can systematically break down in individuals who have

experienced brain damage – APHASICS.

2. Neurolinguistics/Psycholinguistics • The study of how language structures are instantiated in the brain: - psycholinguists – study language processing in ‘normal’/typical individuals and populations & neuropsychologists/linguists – study the breakdown of cognitive (memory/attention) and linguistic abilities due to brain damage. • As yet no single unified theory about language localisation/storage/processing – but subtheories (e.g. sentence processing models) are available.

3. The Brain: Brain Hemispheres 3.1 Lobes

We can distinguish 4 lobes: Frontal lobe (blue); Occipital lobe (pink); Parietal lobe (yellow); Temporal lobe (green)

The Rolandic fissure separates the frontal lobes from the parietal lobes (posterior lobes).

Although the cortex (grey matter) is most crucial for language, subcortical areas also participate.

3.2 Cerebral dominance • The phenomenon of one hemisphere being the controlling one is known as DOMINANCE. This is CONGENITAL. • Most people are right-dominant (left-hemisphere dominant) - >% men are left-

handed cf women.

• Only approx. 30% of left-handers are right-hemisphere dominant. - Believed to be a factor contributing to language disorders and to various reading and writing dysfunctions, such as stuttering and dyslexia. Why ? Two hemispheres are vying with each other for dominance. • Sound preferences: Speech sounds are differentiated from other sounds e.g. music; sounds of nature . • True right-handers – believed speech is mainly processed in the left hemisphere – while music etc is processed in the left hemisphere.

3.3 Cortical areas important for language • The Brodmann’s area – lies at the back of the frontal lobe just in front of the Rolandic fissure - responsible for generating movement. This motor cortex exists in both hemispheres of the cerebral cortex and when stimulating a cortical area in one hemisphere makes the muscles on the opposite side of the body move – known as the ‘ contralateral side ’. • Within the occipital lobe – the ‘somatosensory’ areas, e.g. the primary area for the reception of visual stimuli (important for reading/sign languages/interpretation of gestures). • The temporal lobe contains Heschel’s gyrus – a structure particularly important for the reception of auditory stimuli (environmental noise/music/language) – behind Heschel’s gyrus is Wernicke’s area - necessary for interpreting auditory speech. • Broca’s area – involved in motor planning and syntactic processing specific to speech production.

4. Lateralised brain functioning. Populations: insights into brain structure & function.

• Aphasic subjects – those experiencing language disorders due to brain damage. • Alzheimer’s & demented patients – consideration of the ways language performance & abilities interact with other cognitive abilities. • Individuals with disturbances of reading (dyslexia) and writing (dysgraphia) or spelling – the abstract components necessary for processing written language in normals and way visual language systems are organised in the brain. • Bilinguals and polyglots – how their various languages/dialects can break down and recover after brain damage –how ‘modular’/independent the organisation is of similar materials to be processed in the brain; how specific languages may be differently organised relative to each other in the brain; • Smaller populations – e.g. ‘split brain’ patients. • Signers – those who use visual-gestural systems & polyglot savants (formerly known as ‘idiot savants’).

5. Approaches to Neurolinguistic Study 2 dominant schools of thought: Localisation & Connectionism (Holistic School)

5.1 Localisation • the central parts of the outer surface more crucially linked to language; • as different patterns of aphasia were observed, areas within the left-hemisphere cortical language area were identified by localisationists – e.g. areas for the production and comprehension of language (cf Broca’s & Wernicke’s areas). • In recent years – cortical stimulation has permitted us to map areas of the hemisphere responsible for language processing.E.g. PET scans ( positron emission tomography ) permits observation of brain operation less invasively. Different areas of activation can be seen for different language tasks. (Discuss next lecture)

5.2 Holistic School:

argue that localisation is a false compartmentalisation of linguistic abilities - these are supported by large areas of the brain and these areas are interconnected. Focus – on how the areas of the brain are interconnected + ways in which language is dependent on cognitive abilities (memory, abstract thinking, attention etc).

6. Aphasia 6.1 Causes – closed (e.g. stroke/tumour) & open (wounds) head injuries.

6.2 Types - GLOBAL – (damage to large areas of the brain) ltd productive capacity; poor understanding - BROCA’S - ‘non-fluent’ – speech is slow, deliberate and effortful; omission of grammatical markers. Comprehension is spared.

6.2.3 Broca’s Area ‘Classic Broca’s Aphasia’ ‘Non-fluent’/agrammatic - speech is slow, deliberate and effortful, often with omission of grammatical markers – tense; agreement; determiners etc. i.e. ‘closed class/function words’ & affixes = telegraphic speech (dependence on nominal lexical forms – uninflected N, V, A, P.

Difficulty controlling the articulators of speech: the tongue, lips, jaws, soft palate, vocal cords etc.

Comprehension is spared.

The Cookie Theft Picture L.M (Goodglass & Kaplan 1972) ‘The Cookie Theft Picture’

Kid…kk..can…candy…cookie…caandy…well don’t know but it’s writ…easy does it…slam…early…fall…men…many no…girl. Dishes…soap…water…falling pah that’s all…dish…that’s all. cookies…can…candy…cookies cookies…he…down…That’s all. Girl…slipping water…water…and it hurts…much to do…Her…clean up…Dishes…up there…I think that’s doing it.

To be continued next week…..

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 9: Language & the Brain II. ‘Atypical’ & ‘typical’ populations

Readings Fromkin, Rodman & Hyams, Chapter 9 Trask, Chapter 7 Yule, Chapter 13 Bloomer et al, Chapter 11 Crystal encyclopaedia, section 46

Obler, L. & Gjerlow, K. (2005) Language & the Brain. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts Dichotic listening tests Direct cortical mapping EEG or rCBF investigations Language specialisation Neural pathways Paragrammatism Tachistoscopic presentation Typical/atypical populations The Wada test Wernicke’s aphasia

1. Aim of the Lecture 1. Last week – examined brain structure + started to consider evidence from atypical, aphasic subjects – Broca’s aphasics

2. Today – emphasis on one other type of aphasia: ‘Wernicke’s’ + other methods of

investigating brain structure & function in ‘normal’/’typical’ subjects.

2.Wernicke’s Aphasia • Discovered by Carl Wernicke (1874) – German neuropsychiatrist.

• Patients presented with: - difficulty in comprehending speech (misdiagnosed as deaf); spoke fluently but made no sense to listeners (sounded like jargon)

• Presenting Disorder: Paragrammatism. Speech is fluent. Affected elements of speech: organisation; selection of words and phrases meaning; nouns (especially concrete); not affected = production

Sample Extract P: They’re XX you know, boom? (makes hand gesture) T: What’s this? (copies gesture) P: You know the – these – under right there – er – end of the football T: End of the football? P: Yes. Is it – it it – influence of football right here – it /k k/ cause it to comes in, see? T: Yeah P: The end of it, see? Oh we a lot of XX see. T: I don’t understand. P: Well. It’s er. Well it’s XX XX XX XX see. You don’t understand it but it but it …

3.Comparison of Broca’s & Wernicke’s Aphasia - Neural pathways involved in processing spoken language 3.1 Speech production: ->basic structure of utterance is produced in Wernicke’s area, sent to -> Broca’s area for morphosyntactic/motor encoding, -> motor programme passed on to motor area responsible for directing articulatory organs

3.2 Speech comprehension: ->Signals are sent from the ear to the auditory cortex; these are transferred to the Wernicke’s area for interpretation

4.Other techniques used to study brain organisation 4.1 Tests involving medical intervention: o The Wada test o Direct cortical mapping o EEG or rCBF investigations

o Other tests : o Tachistoscopic presentation o Dichotic listening tests

4.1.1 The Wada Test o Alternatively: “intracarotid sodium amobarbital procedure” o Devised by Canadian neuropsychologist Juhn Wada o Often used prior to surgery for epilepsy, in which the corpus callosum is severed o Disassociates one side of the brain from the other o Results confirm statistics of incidence of aphasia after brain injury : 4.1.2 Direct Cortical Mapping (Penfield 1959). Involves electrical stimulation of the brain. Modern aphasiologists are still not entirely in agreement as to which specific language functions are subserved by specific brain areas. 4.1.3 Electroencephalographic (EEG) or Regional Cerebral Blood-flow (rCBF) investigations 4.1.4 Tachistoscopic presentation uses visual stimuli

4.1.5 Dichotic presentation - uses auditory stimuli.

- Signals from the ears are processed on opposite sides of the brain - Then sent to the left hemisphere for linguistic recognition

5. Right Hemisphere Responsibility o Non-linguistic environmental sounds o Recognising visually-presented words o Especially concrete nouns o Matching objects to auditory or visual naming / description o Spelling auditorily presented words o Reading logographs (writing systems) o Holistic o Picture pattern o Processing intonation patterns, tone of voice o Making inferences and understanding jokes

6. Language Specialisation o Brain specialises in early years (approx aged 5)– language predominantly in the left hemisphere. o Critical period of acquisition – extends to puberty – after that time language learning is more difficult (cf acquisition v learning). o Example of Genie – evidence that some language acquisition can take place after puberty however not to adult target forms.

7. Summary o Language production and comprehension data derived from typical and atypical populations provides a window to the localisation and processing of language in the brain.

o In most individuals major language centres are located in the left hemisphere however there is increasing evidence that there is a complex network of

interconnections and individual difference.

ELU: LANGUAGE & THE INDIVIDUAL

Lecture 10: Language & the Brain II: DVD presentation & discussion

This lecture will illustrate and further extend our discussion of ‘language and the brain’. The DVD will illustrate many experimental procedures, tests and syndromes discussed in Lectures 8 & 9, in addition to providing accounts from brain surgeons and patients suffering from head trauma. It will also discuss issues alluded to at the beginning of course with reference to the ‘unique’ qualities of the human brain and linguistic system.

We will have an opportunity to discuss the accounts provided in the lecture and on ‘Discussion Board’.

Please take notes whilst watching the DVD here. Please use other paper if needed.

LS1ELU ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN USE

Autumn Term

Language & the Individual

Seminars

LANGUAGE IN THE INDIVIDUAL SEMINAR 1: “CHIMP TALK”

Seminar 1 is a video presentation to support the second lecture topic. You will watch the BBC Horizon programme Chimp Talk , broadcast on 21 st June 1993, and are then invited to make your comments on the discussion board on Blackboard.

LANGUAGE IN THE INDIVIDUAL

SEMINAR 2

Child Language Acquisition: Phonology

This seminar will address the acquisition of English phonology. We will discuss four different processes occurring in child speech.

1. Briefly review the phonetic alphabet with your tutor (see charts of the ‘International Phonetic Alphabet’ Lecture 3 of LS1SG Sounds, Grammar & Meaning).

2. Here are some representative samples of a child’s early words and the adult targets at which she is aiming. How would you characterise the way her pronunciations differ from the adult versions?

Adult target Child’s version

(who) /hu/ [hu]

(cat) /kæt/ [ka]

(bib) /b b/ [b ]

(toy) /t / [t ]

(noise) /n z/ [n ]

(back) /bæk/ [ba]

(loo) /lu/ [lu]

3. Can you explain what is happening in these examples?

Adult target Child’s version

(ask) /ɑsk/ [ɑk]

(glue) /lu/ [u]

(plastic) /plæst k/ [pat k]

(strap) /stræp/ [tap]

4. Now look at the following data. What’s going on here?

Adult target Child’s version

(egg) /e/ [eə]

(pig) /p / [p ə]

(blue) /blu/ [bəlu]

(button) /btn/ [btə]

(apple) /æpl / [apo]

4. Here we return to some of the words we’ve already looked at. See if you can describe them in terms of consonants and vowels; e.g., cat is CVC. What do you discover?

Adult target Structure Child’s version Structure

______1. (blue) /blu/ [bəlu]

______2. (glue) /lu/ [u]

______3. (pig) /p / [p ə]

4. ______(bib) /b b/ [b ]

So far we have looked at consonant realisations only. In the following task, we look at the syllable level.

5. Can we make any generalisations about the sounds this child is deleting?

Adult target Child’s version Age

(behind) /b ha nd/ [ha nd] 2;5

(supposed) /səpəʊzd/ [poʊzd] 2;7

(tomato) /təmɑtəʊ/ [mɑtoʊ] 2;8

(without) /w ðaʊt/ [aʊt] 2;7

(difficult) /d f kʊlt/ [d fkʊlt] 3;4

Think about “baby” words for everyday objects, like items of clothing or food items. Do they display any of the features of the words we have seen above? 62

Exercises are taken or modified from:

Stilwell Peccei, J. (1999). Child Language . 2 nd edition. Abingdon, Oxon and New York, NY: Routledge, Ch. 9.

LANGUAGE IN THE INDIVIDUAL

SEMINAR 3

Naturally-occurring Speech Errors in Adult Speech

1 Attempt to classify the following errors, in terms of the discussion provided in the lecture.

a they want to enlicit your support b he had a load of cooken chicked c he could at weast – at least get them here d a clear pliece of evidence e I got into this guy with a discussion f what’s your bate of dirth? g today, we’ll look at nasals, lides and gliquids h she really likes lining it on the lay i thirth and fourth j you forgot to add the list to the butter k who did you think else would come? l automatic transmission (intended: orthographic transcription; speaker had been thinking about cars instead of the topic of discussion!) m you have to do learn that n how many of there are you? o tell – ask me whether... p it waits to pay q you go wash – brush your hair this minute! 64

r it makes the warm breather to air

2 What sorts of units are involved here? What might we learn about language production processes from this sort of evidence?

Units/ Subs Antic Persev Exch Shift Strand Blend Comp

Types

Single

sound

Cluster

Syllable

Word

Phrase

LANGUAGE IN THE INDIVIDUAL

SEMINAR 4

Language & the Brain – Aphasic Speech

The task The seminar is based on two aphasics’ attempts to describe this picture; one, referred to as H.W., produces a good deal of speech, while the other, B.L., manages much less. Apart from the quantitative difference, what can you say about the characteristics of the language abilities that these two aphasic speakers deploy?

Suggestions:

A Content analysis

Consider what you, as a normal speaker, would naturally include in response to the clinicians’ request to ‘Look at this picture, and tell me what you see’. Using a brief (no more than ten items) checklist of such ‘content units’, compare the two aphasic speakers’ attempts to convey the same information, both with each other, and with your own version.

B Grammatical organisation

What range of word classes and affixes can these two speakers deploy? What sorts of syntactic structures can they use?

C Communicative effectiveness

Given H.W.’s greater use of language forms, can you say why this sample, as represented on the page here, is not communicatively more effective?

The Cookie theft picture (Assessing aphasia: the ‘Cookie theft’ picture. This comes as part of a well-known standardised aphasia test battery (The Boston Diagnostic Aphasia Examination), but is also often used alone.)

Notes on transcription: as in the original published data, with assumptions about sentence units, capital letters, intonation, punctuation marks etc. preserved. Longer pauses indicated by dots ... .

Aphasic B.L.

B.L. Wife is dry dishes. Water down! Oh boy! Okay. Awright. Okay. ... Cookie is down ... fall, and girl, okay, girl ... boy ... um ...

Examiner What is the boy doing?

B.L. Cookie is ... um ... catch

Examiner Who is getting the cookies?

B.L. Girl, girl

Examiner Who is about to fall down?

B.L. Boy ... fall down!

Aphasic H.W.

H.W. First of all, this is falling down, just about, and is gonna fall down and they’re both getting something to eat ... but the trouble is this is gonna let go and they’re both gonna fall down ... but already then ... I can’t see well enough but I believe that either she or will have some food that’s not good for you and she’s to get some for her, too ... and that you get it and you shouldn’t get it there because they shouldn’t go up there and get it unless you tell them that they could have it. And so this is falling down and for sure there’s one they're going to have for food, and didn’t come out right, the uh, the stuff that’s uh, good for, it’s not good for you but it, but you love it, um mum mum [smacks lips] ... and that so they’ve ... see that, I can’t see whether it’s in there or not.

LSELU ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN USE

Spring Term

Language as a Social Phenomenon

ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 11: Language & the Family: The Development of Early Conversation

Recommended Introductory Texts **Holmes, J. 2001 Introduction to Sociolinguistics . 2nd Edition. London: Longman. *Spolsky, B. (1998) Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Oxford University Press. *Trudgill, P. (2000) Sociolinguistics: An introduction to language and society. London: Penguin Books. ***Wardhaugh, R. (2005) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. (4th Edition). Oxford: Blackwell Publishers. * Very introductory; ** Introductory; ***More challenging

Readings (this lecture) Anderson, E. (1990) Speaking with Style: The Sociolinguistic Skills of Children. London: Routledge. Cook-Gumperz, J. & Kyratzis, A. (2005) Child Discourse in D. Schriffrin, D. Tannen, & H. Hamilton (eds), The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Garvey, C, & Beringer, G. (1981) Timing and turn-taking in children’s conversations. Discourse Processes, 4, 27-57. Ten Have, Paul (1999):Doing Conversation Analysis. A Practical Guide, Thousand Oaks: Sage. Hoyle, S. & Adger, C. (eds) (1998) Language Practices of Older Children. New York: Oxford University Press. McTear, M. (1985) Children’s Conversation. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Wootton, A. (1997) Language and the Development of Mind: A Study of Children’s Conversation. New York: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts Adjacency pairs Communicative competence Conversation analysis Discourse content

Exchange structure Joint text construction Language socialisation Pre-sequences Proto-conversation Repair Turn-taking: - turn construction/turn allocation component Turn transition

1.Aims of the Lecture

• Extend notion of ‘competence’ – grammatical + communicative

• Communicative competence: - term first coined by Dell Hymes (1966) - encompasses: i. grammatical knowledge (broad sense); ii. sociolinguistic knowledge (appropriacy); iii. discourse knowledge (e.g. coherence & cohesion).

2. Language Socialisation

• 1970s – interest in researching ‘communicative competence’ and contextually-situated learning.

• Ethnographic approach – focus on how language learners become participating members of a social group via learning of social and linguistic skills = LANGUAGE SOCIALISATION. ‘Children require both broad cultural knowledge but also an understanding of the social identities that define their position in their social world.’ (Cook-Gumperz & Kyratzis 2005:591)

3. Focus of Child Discourse Research

• The social & psychological impact of increasing linguistic competence over a child’s social environment;

• Sociolinguistic practices and events e.g. Play routines; games; teasing rituals;

• How children acquire sociocultural & linguistic knowledge;

• How children develop their social worlds through play & conversation as active agents.

4. The Family

• Family unit – development of early patterns of socialisation.

• How to set up a conversation e.g. structure/roles of interactants;

• How we influence interpersonal relationships – persuade; conceal intentions;

• How to behave in different contexts – mealtimes; ceremonial occasions.

5. Conversational Skills

• Conversation Analysis – Researchers: Sacks, Schegloff & Jefferson (US); Wootton, Drew, Heritage (UK)

• Conversation Analysis (CA) – involves study of talk in interaction

• What is conversation? What characterises a conversation?

Prompts: - How is this different from a monologue? - How is this different from communication using other media?

6. Conversational structure 6.1Turn-taking

• Turn-construction component basic structure of the turn e.g. Lexical/phrasal/sentential

• Turn-allocation component – a. Current speaker selects next speaker; b. Next speaker self-selects; c. Current speaker continues.

• Adjacency pairs – some turns invite responses e.g. A: hello, how are you? B: I’m fine thanks 72

6.2 Special Features of Conversation

• Presequences – help to set up the conversation e.g. A: You know the game yesterday? B: Yeh A: well.....

• Repairs – remedial device to enable conversation to flow, e.g. Due to word-finding difficulties; clarification

• Discourse content – speakers relate their turns topically & use links within & between turns e.g. – use of anaphoric reference; connectives. - sequence events logically e.g. temporally; giving new information first CUES FOR TURN TRANSITION How do we know when it is appropriate for us to enter a conversation?

What cues do we pick up on? _1.______2.______3.______4.______

7. Early management of conversation

• Assymetric conversations – parent is skilled conversationalist; baby not yet developed language

• Fundamental parameter – INTENTION to communicate (first appears approx 9 months)

• Early interactions NOT considered conversations but appear like them e.g. Turn-taking with minimal overlap; one participant initiates, the other responds. = PROTO-CONVERSATIONS (Bateson 1975). 7.1 PROTO-CONVERSATION (3 months) Baby: (smiles)

Mother: oh what a nice little smile yes, isn’t that nice? ... Baby: (Burps) Mother: oh what a nice little wind as well yes that’s better isn’t it ... Baby: (vocalises) Mother: there’s a nice noise (Snow 1977:12, cited in McTear 1985:65)

7.2 One-word utterances (18 months) Baby: (blowing noises) Mother: that’s a bit rude Baby: mouth Mother: mouth, that’s right Baby: face Mother: face, yes, mouth is in your face what else have you got in your face? Baby: face (closing eyes) Mother: you’re making a face, aren’t you?

Basic exchange structure

7.3 Joint text construction

• Parents/care-givers develop dialogue/keep conversation going at later stages of development also.

• Initiating conversational device: summons-answer sequence.

• Established obligation for a third-part sequence.

• Adults remedy take-up of 3rd turn

8. Recap

• Elementary level : i. children learn to initiate & respond in conversation; ii. Conversations consist of 2-pair parts (IR)

• More advanced level (approx 3 years): i. 3-part exchanges = beginnings of early dialogue e.g. Child: Will you play with me? Adult: In a moment Child: I need to get my aminals out from under the Christmas tree 3rd part takes account of adult response (turn 2)

9. Further development

9.1 Cohesion between utterances

• Exophoric reference – items/locations that exist in the context e.g. ‘red one’, ‘here’.

• Anaphoric reference – ‘it’ – links back to ‘the red one’ 9.2 Repair Approx 4; 6 years – precision timing in turn-taking (evidenced in conversational repair). E.g. Self-initiated, other repair

9.3 Rules of conversational turn-taking: giving up the floor 10. Summary Examined the development of conversation in young children: i. Rudiments of conversation occur very early in a child’s life – right from birth mothers often interpret early child movements/vocalisations as 1st pair parts/initiations; ii. Pre-school children take turns in an orderly fashion; iii. By school-age – they follow similar processes to adults in dyadic conversation; iv. Conversational repair – demonstrates – young children can monitor own & other’s conversations – can locate, diagnose & correct conversational breakdown.

ACTIVITY Lecture 11

Take a look at these extracts and decide if they constitute:

a. Self-initiated, self repairs b. Self-initiated, other repairs c. Other-initiated, self repairs d. Other-initiated, other repairs

1. A: My nom is Mary B: My nom? A: My nam...name is Mary

2. A: I want to go to the ... B: fair A: shops

3. S: what does twenty five makes then? H: pardon? S: what does twenty five makes then? H: twenty fives . makes? S: twenty fives makes? ...... H: I think twenty fives is a hundred (McTear p.179)

ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 12: Language & Education Readings: Mesthrie, R., Swann, Deumert, A. & Leap, W. (2000) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Philips, S. (2007) A Comparison of Indian and Anglo Communicative Behaviour in Classroom Interaction. In S. Kiesling & C. Bratt Paulston (eds) Intercultural Discourse and Communication. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Temple, Adger, C. (2005) Discourse in Educational Settings. In D. Schiffrin, D. Tannen & H. Hamilton (eds) The Handbook of Discourse Analysis. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Concepts AAVE/Ebonics Additive/Subtractive bilingualism Compensatory education Educational sociolinguistics Elaborated/restricted code Interdependence hypothesis IRE sequence Register

1.Aims of the Lecture

• To introduce the field of ‘Educational Sociolinguistics’

• To discuss the effects of disparity between home/community language and classroom

2. Education & Schooling

• Education – teaching & learning activities providing access to knowledge & skills.

• Western society = CHILD SOCIALISATION; ADULT LEARNING. Tribal societies – training/observation/imitation. 3. Extracts 3.1 Extract 1 : Leap 1993:219 (slightly adapted from Mesthrie et al 2000:356ff) EXTRACT ONE Teacher: What is 9 x 9?Frank: 90 Teacher: No, that is too big. We know that 9 x 9 is 81. What is 9 x 9? Frank: 81 Teacher: 81. You know that 9 x 9 is 81. Can you get a 9 out of here? (Motions to the 90 on the board) Frank: Yes Teacher: OK, if we take 9 out of here, what do we have? Frank: 81 Teacher: What about 83 divided by 9? Frank: (Without hesitation) 10 Teacher: (With irritation) 10?

3.2 Extract 2: Dorr-Bremme 1984, as reported in Cazden 1988:16, (cited in Mesthrie et al 2000: 357) Nancy: I went to Old Ironsides at the Ocean. [She explains that Old Ironsides is an a boat and that it’s old] We also spent our dollars and we went to another big shop. Teacher: Mm. ‘N what did you learn about Old Ironsides? Nancy: [Brief description of the furnishings and the guides’ costumes] I also went to a fancy restaurant. Teacher: Haha. Very good. Nancy: And I had a hamburger, french fries, lettuce and a _ Teacher: [interrupts] OK. All right what’s – Arthur has been waiting and then Paula, OK?

3.3 Extract 3: Solomon 1995:58-9, cited in Mesthrie et al 2000: 357-8 Teacher: OK now here’s the problem. This letter goes back to [the pen-pal] right? If you answer the questions here – like you put ‘No dog’ or ‘yes’, she won’t know the answer to this question because its not on this letter. You need to answer her letter. Do you understand? OK. So what we need to do is we need to change these into sentences so she’ll know the answers to these questions. {Several minutes later}

Teacher: [looking over Roberto’s letter] Good OK, and what do you put at the end of your sentence? ‘Do you have pets at home?’ And you wrote what? Roberto: Yes a * Teacher: Yes Roberto: A monkey Teacher: OK why don’t you explain that to her? Roberto: I said, ‘Yes, a *’ Teacher: So what sentences are you going to write? Roberto: ‘Yes I do.’ Teacher: ‘I do’ what? Roberto: ‘I do have…’ Teacher: ‘Have…’ have what? Roberto: ‘A dog’ Teacher: ….All right the important thing is that you understand that when you’re writing back to your pen pal you have to answer the questions in your letter, right.

4. Conclusions

• Classroom-based teaching & learning depends on LANGUAGE.

• Language is strictly regulated & managed: - teacher is dominant – turns at talk; assigning turns; determining length of apportionment of time & topics; - teacher’s idiolect is primary/dominant register

5. ‘The IRE Sequence’ (Mehan 1979) Initiation – by teacher Response – by pupil Evaluation – of reply by teacher + request for further information or initiation of next IRE sequence

E.g. Extract 1:

6. Warm Springs Reservations 6.1 Cultural regulation of turn-taking: i. speaker address is general; ii. immediate response unnecessary; iii. Indian speakers control termination of turn (no interruptions)

6.2 Performance of Indian children (Philips 2007)

• Made little effort to gain conversational floor/did not compete for teacher attention;

• Did not demonstrate concentration on class discussion (e.g. no back-channels);

• Generally did not respond to teacher questions;

• Slow to learn rules for turn-taking & regulation of talk in classroom;

• Rarely talked out of turn (no interruptions);

• Never dominated classroom talk.

Adjustments

• Stopped ‘show & tell’;

• Worked 1:1

• Group project work involving only Indian children (Philips 2007:303)

7. Bernstein (1961)

• Elaborated code: rich vocabulary; complex grammatical constructions; elaborate semantic choices.

• Restricted code: repetitive & ltd vocabulary; incomplete syntactic constructions; ‘empty speech’ e.g. fillers.

• ‘Compensatory education’

8. Labov 1969, cited in Mesthrie et al (2000: 366) American Vernacular English (AAVE)

Permissable deletion of the copula in sentences:

NP She ____ the first one started us off Predicate ADJ He ______fast in everything he do Locative You ______out the tape Negative But everybody ______not black Participle He just feel like he _____ getting cripple up from arthritis

Sentences in AAVE in which deletion is not permitted: SAE Final position in a sentence: *He’s as nice as he says he’s

AAVE *He’s as nice as he says he ______

An unstressed following word: SAE: *Who’s it? AAVE: *Who __ it? African American Vernacular English: The Debate 9. Immigrant communities

• Additive bilingualism (James Cummins) e.g. successful immersion programmes

• Subtractive bilingualism – loss of one variety

• Interdependence hypothesis – second language acquisition dependent on development of first language = crucial for educational success 10. Summary

• Contribution of linguists & the relationship between language and education.

• Classroom talk – specialised register + has a specific discourse structure.

• Pupils from different socio-cultural backgrounds employ different communicative & learning strategies.

• Bilingual settings – the importance of a strong linguistic foundation in L1.

• AAVE – sociolinguistic research can influence policy but can it bring about long-term change?

11. Post-class discussion/reading

• Who does have the right to choose the variety most suited to educate children from different sociocultural backgrounds? www.cal.org/topics/dialects/aae/resources.html ‘Centre for Applied Linguistics’ Download papers about Ebonics controversy & visit webpage of John Rickford.

ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 13: Bilingualism

Readings/references

Baker, C. (1996) Foundations of Bilingual Education & Bilingualism. Clevedon: Multilingual Matters.

Dorian, N. (1981) Language Death: The Life Cycle of a Scottish Gaelic Dialect. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

Gal, S. (1979) Language Shift: Social Determinants of Linguistic Change in Bilingual Austria. New York: Academic Press.

Gardner-Chloros, P., McEntee-Atalianis, L.J., & Finnis, K. ‘Language Attitudes and Use in a Transplanted Setting: Greek Cypriots in London’. International Journal of Multilingualism. Vol. 2:1, 52-80.

Komondouros, M. & McEntee-Atalianis L.J. (2007) 'Shifting Patterns of Language Use in the Greek Orthodox Community of Istanbul.' Journal of Multilingual and Multicultural Development.

Concepts

Balanced bilingualism

Bilingual/ism

Death

Diglossia

Functionality

Maintenance

Proficiency (& measures)

Shift

1. QUICK QUIZ

• How many multilingual nations are there?

• How many languages are there in the world?

• What is/are the official language(s) of the UK?

• Define bilingualism? – Are you bilingual?

2. Define bilingualism? – Are you bilingual? ______

3. Bilingualism

• Societial bilingualism

• Individual bilingualism

3.1 Measures

Rate the competence of your own language(s) in each of the four macro skills: 1(weak) 2 3 4 5 (strong) Listening Reading Speaking Writing

Measures e.g. Mackey (1968)

Skills Phonological/Grammatical Lexical Semantic Stylistic Graphic A/B A/B A/B A/B A/B

Listening

Reading

Speaking

Writing

Continuum of bilingualism:

>proficiency in A------balanced------>proficiency in B 

3.2 Functional Bilingualism

• Who is the speaker?

• Who is the listener/s (target audience)?

• What is the context (e.g. educational/social/religious)

• What is the topic of conversation?

• What is the purpose of the conversation/speech event?

3.2 Decision tree (Baker 1996:13)

4. Concepts

• Diglossia

• Language shift

• Language maintenance

• Language death

4.1 Diglossia: Ferguson (1959)

Narrow definition: Diglossic communities: Arabic (Standard/Colloquial); Haitian (Standard French/Creole Haitian); Swiss German (Standard German/Swiss German)

5. Global Sociolinguistic Settings

• Individual bilingualism & diglossia e.g. Paraguay, Cyprus

• Diglossia without bilingualism, e.g. Switzerland

• Bilingualism without diglossia, e.g. bilingual immigrant communities

• Neither bilingualism nor diglossia, e.g. Rums of Istanbul

6. Language shift/maintenance/death

• Shift – changes in: population of speakers; domains of use; levels of proficiency.

• Death – final stages of language shift.

• Maintenance – number & distribution of speakers; domains of use & proficiency levels.

Some factors encouraging maintenance:

A. Political, social & demographic factors ......

B: Cultural factors ......

C: Linguistic Factors ......

Some factors leading to loss:

A. Political, social & demographic factors

B: Cultural factors

C: Linguistic factors

Examples

Li Wei (1994, ongoing) –

3 generation shift: NE Chinese community

Paulston (1994) – Pittsburgh, USA 3-generation shift – Italians 4-generation shift – Greeks

Gardner-Chloros, McEntee-Atalianis, Finnis (2005) 4-generation shift – Greek-Cypriots (London)

Language Death: Oberwart (Gal 1979)

Hypothesis: – language choice dependent on: a) values associated with the language b) age c) sex d) social network – peasant/non-peasants

IMPLICATIONAL SCALE – choice of H or G by women

Language choice x age x social network

1. > peasants in one’s network, > likely to use H

2. older informants use >H

3. young people interacting with workers use >G

4. older people interacting with workers use >H compared to young people

5. Gender: Men i. steady increase in use of G across generations; ii. > increase if social network = non-peasant Women i. older generation – only peasant contacts;

ii. middle aged – pattern similarly to men; iii. younger generation - >German than men of same age – rejecting peasant life

7. Summary

• Definition of bilingualism

• Diglossia

• Language maintenance & shift

8. Post-class

Investigate another reported case of language shift. What factors appear to have determined the demise of the language involved? Discuss your findings on ‘Discussion Board’.

Possible studies – Dorian (1981) – Scots Gaelic Komondouros & McEntee-Atalianis (2007) – Greek-Orthodox Community in Istanbul

ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON Lecture 14: The Deaf Community & Sign Language

Readings/References Aldersson, R & McEntee-Atalianis, L.J. (2007) ‘A Lexical Comparison of Icelandic and Danish Sign Language. Birkbeck Studies in Applied Linguistics 2:41-67. Kyle, J.G. & Woll, B. (1991) Sign Language: The study of deaf people and their language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Ladd, P. (2004) Understanding Deaf Culture: In Search of Deafhood. Clevedon: Multilingual Matter. Mesthrie, R., Swann, Deumert, A. & Leap, W. (2000) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press. Sutton-Spence, R. & Woll, B. (1999) The Linguistics of British Sign Language. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Concepts Artificial sign systems Deaf education Deaf identity, culture & status Finger-spelling Manual features Non-manual features Sign contact Sign language structure Political correctness: socially acceptable/unacceptable signs Spatial grammar

1.Aims of the Lecture

• To discuss the fundamental characteristics of sign language and the Deaf community.

• To discuss Sociolinguistic issues in relation to sign language, e.g. language contact & change; socially unacceptable signs.

2. Fundamentals

• Sign language = visual/gestural system; - used as the primary means of communication by the Deaf

• Only relatively recent study: - 1st study: Stokoe´s (1960) Sign Language Structure – (American Sign Language ASL)

• Common Myths Dispelled: Autonomous; naturally occurring; complex systems of communication i. internationally - not mutually intelligible – some universal characteristics; ii. nationally SL = mutually unintelligible from national spoken language; iii. acquisition – development follows similar stages to spoken language

3. Structure 3.1 Components of signs:

1. location of the sign in space; 2. handshape used to make the sign; 3. type of movement made by the hand; 4. the orientation of the palms of the hands. TALK/MAKE (BSL - Kyle & Woll 1985:91)

Location: same - both in front of the chest Handshape: different – finger extended from closed fist vs closed fist Movement: same – right hand taps left Orientation: same – palm facing signer 3.2 Non-Manual Features - mark morphological & grammatical information e.g. eye brows/eyes – e.g. question-marking; cheeks – intensity; size; orientation & movement of head & body - mark grammatical person; lip movements – intensity; size; borrowing 3.3 Spatial Grammar SLs – characterised by 3-dimensional grammar (spatial grammar) to encode grammatical relations between subject & object e.g. Nominal referent/pronouns – assigned positions in signing space e.g. I = touch chest, you = in front of chest, he/she = slightly to the right

Subject/Object encoding: ´The woman hit the man´ in BSL (Kyle & Woll 1985:141)

3.4 Finger-Spelling + Artificial Sign Systems

4. ´The Deaf Community´

5. Average age of SL acquisition

6. History of Deaf Education 18th Century – ´manualists´ (begun in Paris by l´Epee) - oral approach – (Germany - Heinicke) 19th Century - ´International Congress on the Education of the Deaf in Milan´ (1880) 1960s – illiteracy >30% among Deaf adults 2003 – UK – official recognition of BSL

7. Language Contact

• Loans from English phonological – FINISH (adds English mouth pattern)

morphological – LONG-TIME (using English-derived structure)

• Calques (loan translations) – name signs e.g. ICELAND;

- English idioms or ´quotes´ e.g. DRINK PETROL; - signs created from acronyms e.g. –b-b-c- (BBC)

8. Lexical Comparison: Icelandic & Danish SL Aldersson, R. & McEntee-Atalianis (2007, 2008)

9. Socially Unacceptable Signs (Sutton-Spence & Woll:241)

• Insults - e.g. x ORAL-SIGNER

• Expletives – i. create a continuum of expletives - mild>strong e.g. SHAME/DRAT - facial expression + speed of articulation + size of sign can make it stronger

ii. * = xF____ YOU MY xF____ CAR BEEN STEAL (grammatically inflexible cf English)

• Euphemisms - less visually explicit, e.g. making movement smaller/facial expression ‘neutral’ or finger-spelling

e.g. xSEX > -s-e-x-; Xtoilet > -t-t-

10. Other Sociolinguistic Issues

• Gender variation – e.g. Dublin Ireland – different sign vocabularies; attendance at separate schools; gay signs

• Ethnicity – examples of variation e.g. Black & White Americans

11. Summary

• Sign language & Deaf communities - unique culture for sociolinguists to investigate universally.

• Subject to similar socio-linguistic influences as spoken languages: e.g. - power & solidarity - language standardisation & contact - variation according to socio-economic/demographic variables.

• Comparatively new field - rich source of data.

12. Post-class Access: Aldersson, R & McEntee-Atalianis, L.J. (2007) ‘A Lexical Comparison of Icelandic and Danish Sign Language. Birkbeck Studies in Applied Linguistics 2:41-67. Discuss on discussion board. http://bisal.bbk.ac.uk/

ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 15: Language and the Media

Readings/references

Fairclough, N. (1995) Media Discourse. London: Arnold.

Gauntlet, D. (2002) Media, Gender and Identity: An Introduction. London: Routledge.

Litoselliti, L. (2006) Gender and Language: Theory and Practice. Oxford: Hodder Arnold.

MacDonald, M. (2003) Exploring Media Discourse. London: Arnold.

Concepts

binary representation

cognitive dissonance

competition

centralization

globalization

‘info-tainment’

subject positions

synthetic personalisation

‘tabloidization’

1.Aims of Lecture i. Introduction to media representations ii. Focus today:

- ‘How are women and men represented in media texts and images (e.g. as passive or active, and in specific roles and domains)?

- What femininities and masculinities, and what gender relations, are constructed for women and men in the texts? 95

- Who is the ideal reader and what representations are available in the texts?

- What power relations, particularly unequal power relations, are created through certain inclusions/exclusions?’ (Litosseliti 2006:92)

2. Changes in Media Markets

• Consequence of: - competition; centralization; globalization; and tabloidization (Thompson, 1998)

• Media Representations: The media have signifying power, i.e., the power to represent things in particular ways largely (but not only) a matter of language use.

• The media are not simply representational, - sites for the discursive construction, and contestation, of knowledge, beliefs, values, social relations, and social identities.

• Media discourse works ideologically: the meanings produced serve a system of power relations, - representation involve decisions about what to include/exclude/ what to foreground/background.

• Media discourse assumes/creates subject positions for an ideal reader, viewer, or listener; actual readers, viewers, or listeners have to negotiate a relationship with the positions offered.

(Fairclough, 1989, 1995 – in Litosseliti 2006:92)

• Caution in the reading & analysis of media discourse

3. Active readers

• Engage positively with perspective

• Challenge/reject perspective – ‘COGNITIVE DISSONANCE’

4. An example: Changes to the representation of men and women in discourse but continued concerns......

• Research has shown, (e.g. McCracken, 1993; Macdonald, 1995) predominant portrayal of: - women: physical attributes (beauty/sexuality) & gender role determined by relationships to others (supportive/passive roles e.g. as mother/wife); - men – physical attributes (strength/active); independent.

• Recent years – changing to depict > varied identities – e.g. encompassing homosexual identities/’the new man’

• Concern of language and gender theorists – in constructing ‘an ideal listener/reader’ certain subject positions are established as the ‘norm’ and therefore help to construct and reinforce a certain gender ideology impacting on public attitudes and behaviour.

4.1 Magazines

The world of the magazine is one in which men and women are eternally in opposition, always in struggle, but always in pursuit of each other. (Ballaster et al., 1996: 87 in Litoselliti op. cit.)

Targeting their audience: use of personal pronouns - such simulated solidarity – referred to as synthetic personalization (Fairclough, 1989: 62) / synthetic sisterhood (Talbot, 1995)

1) consumers continuously engaged in feminizing practices;

2) as universally heterosexual: - sexual role is multiply represented however – as passive/confident/manipulative, but women are featured as primarily being responsible for relationships. (Litosseliti 2006:100)

3) ‘New lad’

‘New lad’ – ‘reversion to traditional masculinity’ – < sensitive to feminism; express interest in sport/sex/male bonding

Discourse – construction/representation of the ‘new lad’ in opposition to other gender and social categories

4) New forms of sexism/hidden ‘agender’

Read the ‘Corby Press Advert’

Who is the ideal reader for each advert?

How are men and women ‘constructed’ in these adverts – what is/are their status/roles etc.

Are certain power relations assumed or established here?

How do you react to the representations of men and women in these adverts?

5. Summary

• Changes in media markets have led to changes in the discourse of the media (‘infotainment’; ‘conversationalisation’ etc).

• The media target an ideal reader/viewer/listener & audience is treated as a unified and uniform community.

• Personalisation is a key feature of women’s magazines and adverts.

• Focus in female magazines – feminising practices; sexuality; male magazines – male sexual drive; issues of interest to the ‘new lad/man’.

• Women and men are often portrayed in binary, stereotypical and superficial roles.

6. Post-class

Review adverts or articles in the magazines & newspapers that you usually read, or consider the adverts on TV. How are men and women represented?

Can you find alternative representations? If so what are these and how are they constructed?

ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 16: DVD & discussion (to be announced)

Please write notes here......

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ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 17: Language Play Readings/references Beard, R. (ed) Rhymes, reading and writing. London: Hodder & Stroughton. Britton, J. (1970) Language & Learning. London: Allen Press. Cook, G. (2000) Language play, Language Learning. Oxford: Oxford University Press. Crystal, D. (1998) Language Play. Harmondsworth: Penguin. Opie, I & Opie, P. The Language of Lore and Schoolchildren. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Concepts Alliteration Ambigram Enjambement Graphology Intertextuality Metalinguistic awareness Onomatapoeia Parallelism Puns: homophony; homography; homonymy; polysemy Repetition Riddles Ritual Rhymes Spiels

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1.Aims of Lecture/Focus i. Why is language play important? ii. How is language manipulated by both children and adults for playful effect? iii. Why is it important for child language acquisition? iv. How & why advertisers and journalists use it in their work?

2. Time to play...... Car number plates (Crystal 1998:6) IOPER8 ------4CAST ------EIEIO ------2THDR ------YRUILL ------IC2020 ------ORTHDR ------______

Riddles Almost everyone sees me without noticing me, But what is beyond is reachable by all. What am I?

I come in darkness but fill the mind with light. I bring enlightenment to some, while gripping others with fear. What I will show you will often be unreachable. Journey with me and what I show you may haunt you or bring great pleasure. What am I?

3. Baby-hood

• ‘Baby-talk’/affective language

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• Baby-talk characterised by: alterations in adult forms – often simplification; reduplication of phonetic/lexical/phrasal/sentential forms. e.g. choo choo; moo moo.

4. First Year

• 6 months of age – most children have heard several rhymes and have developed favourites.

• >90% of vocalisations in first 12 months are ‘fun’.

• Towards end of first year – new > complex vocal-tactile & visual-tactile games introduced.

5. Year Two See examples in lecture

6. School-age

• Function of playground rhymes (Opie & Opie 1959)

• Regulate activities in a game, e.g. skipping/counting: I like coffee, I like tea, I like radio, I like TV Eeny meany, miney moe

• Demarcate a style of narrative In a dark, dark wood, there was a dark, dark house, And in that dark, dark house, there was a dark, dark room, And in that dark, dark room, there was a dark, dark cupboard, And in that dark, dark cupboard, there was a dark, dark shelf, And in that dark, dark shelf, there was a dark, dark box, And in that dark, dark box, there was a GHOST!!!

• Distancing device and unfriendly play

A: What’s the time B: Hang your knickers on the line

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• Humorous effect

7. What is the importance of language play in childhood?

• ‘Helps you to learn language’, supports development of: phonetic/phonology; morphosyntax; semantics; pragmatics.

• Contributes to the development of ‘metalinguistic awareness’.

• Contributes to literacy.

8. Dig, Dig, Digging How does this text deviate from the norms of conventional language use?: - phonologically; lexically; grammatically; graphologically?

9. Puns A word/phrase which exploits confusion between similar sounding/spelling words/phrases:

- homophony e.g. ‘are you trying to be punny’ - homography – reading/Reading - homonymy – bear (animal); bear (carry) - polysemy – fell (down/stock-market/mountain)

10. Graphic Language Play

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11. Inter-textuality ‘Heinekin refreshes the parts other beers can’t reach’ ‘Heinekin refreshes the pirates other beers can’t reach’ ‘Heinekin refreshes the poets other beers can’t reach’

12. Ritual and Language Use

• Formal patterning – of sound and structure - these involve – key words; repetitive constructions (words/phrases); grammatical parallelism; incantatory/singsong rhythm, rhyme and metre.

• Semantic patterning: - creation of imaginary and spiritual existence – representation of alternative worlds

• Pragmatic patterning: use of contest/humour/social positioning i.e. play and ritual involve ‘performance’; taking roles; taking sides; performing an act.

13. Summary

• Language play is at the heart of parent-child interaction & >90% of vocalisations in a child’s first year are ‘fun’.

• It is fundamental to language learning; development of ‘metalinguistic awareness’ and contributes to literacy.

• Language play extends into our adult lives – puns/riddles/newspaper headlines – it serves as an important source of entertainment & a income for some!

14. Post-class I can be created by humans, but they cannot control me. I suck on wood, plastic and skin alike. I demand time and energy. What am I?

Ten apples hanging on a tree. Ten children passing by. Each took an apple and left nine on the tree. How could this be?

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Add your own examples of language

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ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 18: Gender differences in conversation

Readings/references Coates, J. (2003) Men Talk. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Coates, J. (2004) Women, Men and Language. Edinburgh: Pearson Educational Publishing.

Eckert, P. and McConnell-Ginet, S. (2006) Language and Gender. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Holmes, J. (1995) Women, men and politeness. London: Longman.

Holmes, J. (2006) Gendered Talk at Work. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Litoselliti, L. (2006) Gender and Language: Theory and Practice. London: Hodder Arnold.

Mills, S. (2003) Gender and politeness. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Swann, J. (1992) Girls, boys and language. Oxford: Blackwell.

Concepts

Commands

Definition of ‘sex’ & ‘gender’

Difference/dominance approaches

Directives

Hedges

Minimal responses

Politeness

Taboo words & swearing

Tag questions

Topic initiations

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1.Aim of Lecture/Focus i. Extend the discussion of the ‘difference’ approach (ELS) – extend consideration to other discourse features. ii. Discuss another perspective – the ‘dominance approach’.

2. Extracts 2.1 Extract 1: (Holmes 2006:85)

Speaker 1: Archive security’s ( ) isn’t it?

Speaker 2: I’m not sure.

Speaker 1: my gosh what do you mean you’re not sure?

Speaker 2: well Gar- Gary and Robert are the ones that are involved with sending off tapes and bringing them back so

Speaker 1: well if they weren’t here what would you do?

Speaker 2: I would most probably find their notes that don’t exist.

Speaker 1: okay that’s quite surprising you don’t know that + it’s quite a critical one don’t you think?

Speaker 2: yeah

2.2 Extract 2 (Holmes 2006:81)

Speaker 1: um I’m not sure ....just trying to think + I’ll have a wee think there’s probably some decent things to read about that actually [I’ll take a look for you]

Speaker 2: oh okay that would be useful [ thank you ]

Characteristic features of Extracts 1 & 2

Provocative; supportive; challenging; hedging; contestive; hesitant; colloquial (

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Widely cited features of feminine & masculine interaction (Holmes 2006:6)

Extract 1 Extract 2

3. Dominance approach

• e.g. Dale Spender (1980) ‘Man-made language’– disparity between male and female speech due to male dominance which subordinates women.

• ‘Man-made’

Think of similar ‘sex-marked’ generic expressions:

4. Difference Approach

• Difference approach – men & women speak differently due to different socialisation experiences.

• 1970’s Trudgill – casual v formal styles in conversation in speakers of Norwich.

• Tannen (1990)‘You Just Don’t Understand’ /Maltz & Borker (1998)

5. Discourse Features

1. Minimal responses & topic initiation ‘Research on the use of minimal responses is unanimous in showing that women use them more than men, and at appropriate moments […i.e. ] at points in conversation which indicate the listener’s support for the current speaker.’…(Coates 2004:87)

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2. Hedges e.g. ‘I think, I’m sure, you know, sort of, perhaps’ Do hedges always express unassertiveness & uncertainty?

“The Labour Government are out, you know.”

“It was a really bad day, you know.”*

3. Tag questions

4. Commands & directives

5. Taboo words & swearing

6. Politeness

5.1 Hedges 5.1.1*Holmes (1987:64) ‘ Functions served by hedges’

‘You know’:

1. expresses speaker’s confidence/certainty

‘and so you’ve got to call him, you know’

2. expresses uncertainty (indicated by rising intonation)

‘I felt really exploited, you know’

Interpretation:

- Hedge is multifunctional.

- Hedge is a linguistic marker ‘Linguistic marker’ = linguistic item that is related to a social variable.

- Challenge Lakoff’s generalisation – women use hedges to express confidence.

5.1.2 ‘Like’: Irwin (2002:171)

4 girls in conversation whilst taking a break at their drama group:

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Anna: Josephine used to come here and I was her like really good friends with her she was like my best friend

Cassie: if it’s one of those boys who kind of like you meet somewhere and you’re kind of going out with them and they’re like (.) they’re like twenty-one or something

5.1.3.Positioning of Speaker

Carolyn Houghton (1995, 123-124) Client: You know how that is when you just want to have a baby, just something that is yours and belongs to you…

Therapist: No Mirna, we don’t know what it is like. Please tell us, but don’t say “you”. It is your experience, not ours, so you need to say “I” instead of “you”. That is how “I” feel….

Client: Okay. I.

5.2 Tag Questions

- e.g. Dubois & Crouch (1975) 1-day conference. A) formal tag questions e.g. ‘Probably Industrial too, isn’t it?’ B) Informal tag questions e.g. ‘It’s glass, right’, ‘OK, lets move on’.

- 17 formal; 16 informal – all produced by men.

- In contrast Preisler (1986) - tag questions were used significantly > by women.

- Distribution of tag questions according to speaker’s gender + function of tag in discourse (based on Holmes 1984:54, in Coates 2004:91)

- Tag questions in unequal encounters (Cameron, McAlinden & O’Leary 1989:89)

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5.3 Commands & Directives

- Girls used MITIGATED directives;

- In contrast boys used EXPLICIT commands. Goodwin (1980, 1990, 1998)

5.4 Taboo words & swearing

- e.g. Gomm (1981) recorded 14 conversations between young British speakers: 5 conversations – all female; 5 conversations – all male; 4 – mixed sex

- Coates (2004:98) suggests swearing is ‘an integral part of contemporary masculinity’.

- De Klerk (1997: 147) states ‘expletives…have become associated with power and masculinity in Western culture’ = taboo language assoc. with masculinity

5.5 Politeness

Brown and Levinson (’78, ’87) :

1. the need not to be imposed on – NEGATIVE FACE e.g. ‘I’m sorry to trouble you but do you mind if I just take that book from the shelf’

2. the need to be liked and admired – POSITIVE FACE e.g. ‘your necklace is nice’

Meyan community, Mexico (Brown, 1998)

Tzeltal - strengthening or weakening adverbs: Strengtheners: “I sincerely/really/promise/demand” weakeners, e.g. “I perhaps/request/tentatively…”.

Brown tested 3 hypotheses: 1. women use more strengthening particles when speaking to women (i.e. pay a lot of attention to women’s positive face needs)

2. women use more weakening particles when speaking to men (i.e. pay a lot of attention to men’s negative face needs)

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3. > particles are used in all female conversation.

Holmes (1995), Mills (2004)

Holmes - confirms Brown’s - male and female politeness forms in New Zealand.

… women are ‘more orientated to affective, interpersonal meanings than men’ p.193

Sara Mills ‘Gender & Politeness’ (2004) - challenges research which suggests that women are necessarily more polite than men.

6.Conclusions

Do men and women speak differently?

Do men dominate in conversation?

Are we asking the right questions?

7. Post-class

- Spend some time listening to friends/family in single and mixed sex conversations. See if you notice any differences in particular discourse features, e.g. - who initiates topics; - who provides more minimal responses? etc

- To what extent do you think this is a consequence of their gender and to what extent does it depend on other variables e.g. context; subject matter; power relation between interlocutors etc.

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ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 19: Language Planning

Readings/references Ager, D. (1996) Language Policy in Britain and Franec: the processes of policy. London: Cassell.

Barbour, S & Carmichael, C. (eds.) Language and nationalism in Europe. Oxford: Oxford University Press.

Mesthrie, R et al (2000) Introducing Sociolinguistics. Edinburgh: Edinburgh University Press.

Spolsky, B. (2004) Language Policy. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

Wardhaugh, R. (2002) An Introduction to Sociolinguistics. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing.

Concepts

Cost-benefit analysis

Language planning

Language policy

Linguistic assimilation/pluralism/vernacularisation

Process of language planning: selection/codification/implementation/elaboration

Rational choice model

Social engineering

Standardisation – levels of

Types of planning: corpus; status; prestige; acquisition

1.Aims of Lecture:

Introduction to:

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i. types and process of language planning; ii. concept of language policy; iii. language standardisation; iv. the rational choice model; v. ideologies influencing planning; vi. an account of one case study – Norway.

2. What do these have in common?

‘You just said ‘Can I have a ticket...’ instead of ‘May I have’ – that’s very American’

‘There are falling standards in the use of English by youths today’

‘You should refer to ‘herstory’ not just ‘history’’

2003 – BSL officially another language in the UK

3. Language Planning

• Term attributed to Haugen (1987) ‘..is a Government authorised, longterm, sustained, and conscious effort to alter a language’s function in a society for the purpose of solving communication problems. ‘ Weinstein (1980:56 - cited in Wardhaugh:347) or is it????

4. Language Policy

• Not synonymous with language planning.

• Refers to linguistic, social and political goals underpinning the language planning process.

• +/- of language planning 115

+ -

5. Modern nation building

Increase in European languages: AD 950 - 6 national languages (Anglo-Saxon, Arabic, Church Slavonic, Greek, Hebrew, Latin) 1250 - 17 national languages 1800s - 30 1937 - 53 2001 - ?>

(Deutsch 1968 cited in Wardhaugh:347)

6. Types of Planning

• Corpus planning – focuses on the internal structure of the language e.g. Spelling reforms; devising a writing system for a spoken language; writing grammar books.

• Status planning – efforts to change the use and function of a language (or variety) within a given society. E.g. Introduction of BSL as an official language in UK; introduction of Hebrew in 19th C

7. Levels of Standardisation (Cobarrubias 1983:43-4)

• Unstandardised oral language: no writing system e.g. Gallah (Ethiopia).

• Partly standardised: predominantly in the domain of primary education; unstandardised writing system e.g. American Indian languages.

• Young standard language: prevalent in administration & education up to & including secondary level but not considered sophisticated enough for tertiary level & beyond, e.g. Xhosa (S.Africa); Basque (France/Spain). 116

• Archaic standard language: not applied to modern concerns e.g. classical Greek/Hebrew, Latin.

• Mature modern standard language: apparent in most functions e.g. German, Finnish, Swedish, English ….

8. Function of language

Function

9. Types of Planning (cont’d)

• Prestige planning: creating a favourable psychological framework for the language/variety.

• Acquisition planning – efforts to encourage people to learn a language e.g. Work of cultural institutions such - British Council; Goethe Institute

10. Process of Language Planning (Haugen 1966, 1987, in Mesthrie et al 388)

SELECTION

CODIFICATION (graphisation; grammaticisation; lexicalisation)

IMPLEMENTATION 117

ELABORATION

(May not be in sequence)

Elaboration: Strategies for the Lexical Modernisation of Hausa

1. Borrowing from: English -- > Government > gwamnati Arabic alqali (to judge) > alkaalii

2. Extension of meaning of a native term: ambassador -> jakaadaa (important palace messenger)

(McIntyre 1991, in Mesthrie et al:393)

3. Creation of new terms (neologisms): helicopter -> jirgin sma mai saukar ungulu (literally: vehicle-of above with landing-of vulture)

United Nations -> Majalisar Dikin Duuniyaa (literally: council-of sewing (up)-of world)

11. What type of language planning does this refer to?

‘Posters with the (Hebrew) injunction ‘Hebrew [person] speak Hebrew appeared in Palestine in the early part of the twentieth century, long before the establishment of the state. The Academy of Hebrew Language publishes and distributes lists of approved terms for various specialised fields. For many years the Israeli radio broadcast a one-minute skit, twice daily, in which one speaker criticised another for using a given expression ...and then provided ..an alternative’ (Cooper 1989: 63 in Mesthrie et al:392)

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12. Rational Choice Model

1. ID of problem via research - e.g. sociolinguistic surveys or census details (determining no. of speakers; extent of biling.; overall lang.choice + attitudes in a specific society)

2. Development of language policy (goals specified) 3. Decision-making stage - possible solutions; cost-benefit analysis & selection of one alternative 4. Implementation of solution decided in (3) 5. Evaluation of (3) - comparison of predicted + actual outcome

Cost-benefit analysis

Cost Output Consequences

13. Ideologies influencing planning

13.1 LINGUISTIC ASSIMILATION - every community member should have command of the dominant language. Consequences - cultural, ethnic, social assimilation - leading to economic saving & national progress. E.g. ?

13.2 LINGUISTIC PLURALISM- encouragement + conditions permitting maintenance of different languages & rights of different language groups e.g. ? 13.3 VERNACULARISATION - restoration of an indigenous variety as an official language/main language for communication e.g. ?

13.4 INTERNATIONALISATION - selection of a non-indigenous variety as a language of broader communication - as an official language or language of education e.g. ?

14. An example: Norway

• Official languages - Aasen – Landsmal (Language of the country) > Nynorsk (New Norwegian)

Knudsen – Dansk-Norsk (Dano-Norwegian)/Riksmal (Language of the State) > Bokmal (Book language) 1885 – both languages recognised

• Amalgamation of 2 varieties (1917-81) > Samnorsk ‘United Norwegian’ - failed

‘She takes the book out herself’ 119

Bokmal Hun/ho tar fram/frem boka/boken selv/sjol Nynorsk Ho tek/tar fram boka/boki sjolv She takes out book-the herself

Bokmal Hun tar frem boken selv Nynorsk Ho tek frem boki sjolv

15. Summary

• Language planning and language policy are crucial to modern nation states.

• There are different types of planning (corpus/status/prestige/acquisition) and forms of standard languages.

• The process of language planning involves: selection + codification + implementation + elaboration.

• There nature of language planning means it is not just a linguistic enterprise but also of concern to historians, politicians and social scientists.

16. Post-class

Consult:

Lord Dearing ‘The Language Review’

http://www.dfes.gov.uk/consultations/conResults.cfm?consultationId=1452 and

The British Academy’s response to the Lord Dearing report:

http://www.britac.ac.uk/reports/dearing-2006/response-02-07.html and discuss on Discussion Board.

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ELU: LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON

Lecture 20: Language & the Workplace

Readings/references Drew, P. & Heritage, J. (1992) Talk at Work Cambridge: Cambridge University Press. Holmes, J. (2006) Gendered Talk at Work. Oxford: Blackwell Publishing. Koester, A. (2006) Investigating Workplace Discourse. London: Routledge.

Concepts

Adjacency pairs

Conversation Analysis

Cultural allusions

Goal orientation

Idioms

Inferential frameworks

Markers of solidarity/subjective stance

Modals: Deontic/epistemic

Procedural discourse

Relational talk

Transactional talk

1.Aims of Lecture i. To discuss naturally occurring conversation in the workplace; ii. to consider its structure and function; iii. Focus on transactional and relational talk.

2. What is workplace discourse? How does it differ to everyday conversation?

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WHY?

3. Extracts

3.1 Excerpt 1 (Koester2006:1ff)

Dave: [...] Basically I’ve used their o:ld price list,

Val: Right,

Dave: And...I’ve made a few changes.

Val: Yeah,

Dave: An then there’s the cover.

Val: Right

.....

3.2 Excerpt 2

Chris: Um I’m – I’m going white water rafting next – next weekend.

Joe: Really!

Chris: [So hopefully if I don’t die, I’ll be back...the Monday after that

Joe: [hahaha] ......

3.3 Excerpt 3 122

Carol: Be nice if there was some place where you could print it out and the date would show up every time....But anyway....

Beth: Oh it’s right here Carol. Revised, Seven, one, ninety-seven.

Carol: Oh ....

Carol: Right Okay...Boy it’s tiny up there,

Beth: I know, hehehe. You need a magnifying glass [chuckles]

4. Transactional & relational talk

• Transactional = discourse focussed on work-related tasks.

• Relational = focus on establishing and maintaining professional/social relationships. (‘Phatic communion’ Malinowski 1923)

5. Characteristics of Institutional Discourse (Drew & Heritage 1992:22)

• Goal orientation: ‘an orientation by at least one of the participants to some core goal, task or identity...conventionally associated with the institution.’

• ‘Special and particular constraints on what one or both of the participants will treat as allowable contributions to the business at hand.’

• ‘Inferential frameworks and procedures that are particular to specific institutional contexts.’

5.1 Goal-orientation

‘Can we discuss the briefing next week.....’

‘I just wanted to talk to you about the ‘Fisher’ case.’

5.2 Special constraints e.g. Turn-taking; structure and framework of conversation (e.g.IRF) - lexical choice – technical jargon; institutional euphemisms

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5.3 Inferential frameworks

Adjacency pairs e.g. Chris: Haven’t seen much in the way of sales the last half of the week. Joe: .hh Well, A lot of the media, the – the orders have been very difficult getting out. Stuff is – is jammed. (Koester 2006:5)

6. Institutional roles & identities

• Institutional talk – often asymmetrical:- differences in rights and obligations.

• Interactants take on specific institutional roles.

• Roles & identities are not FIXED but NEGOTIATED through talk.

7. Focus

1. How do work colleagues negotiate politeness and solidarity in work place encounters?

(i) role of politeness strategies in softening potentially face-threatening acts; (ii) the useful role idioms play in negotiating difficult situations; (iii) strategies used by workers to build and maintain solidarity despite differences in status.

2. Conflict in collaborative talk:

(i) How is disagreement formulated and structured? (ii) How is consensus negotiated?

8. Idioms etc.

‘Lost Order’ (Koester: 110)

See extract.

Cultural allusions 18 Paul: don’t know do yous 124

19 Mark: you don’t know 28: Paul: can’t win ‘em all 32: Paul: Win some you lose some

Metaphorical expressions

10 Paul: That’s a bit of a pain

26 Paul: It’s a pain isn’t it

‘Self-abasement’

Sorry – I screwed up on that one

I completely spaced out

9. Procedural discourse – see extracts in lecture

10. Some conclusions

• Whether people giving instructions or directives are inferior or superior from one another markers of solidarity are important – ‘relationship’ work is crucial in most workplace encounters.

• Power relationships between speakers can influence linguistic choice – superiors have the power to use more direct forms to assert authority.

• Markers expressing subjective stance

• Deontic modals – modal verbs that express obligation, necessity or involves notions of permission e.g. have to/should ‘You must go now’

• Epistemic modals – expressing how certain the factual status of a proposition is, e.g. must, surely, obviously, e.g. ‘You must be the Editor’

• Intensifiers e.g. Very; extremely

• Expletives/exclamations

• Idioms/metaphors (fixed expressions)

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• Evaluative lexis e.g. ‘problem’; ‘difficult’

• Metalanguage e.g. I’m just saying

• Limited hedges/vague language/ambiguous utterances

11. Conflict discourse

• Disagreements become preferred response.

• Interruptions are frequent.

• Speakers use emphatic markers of subjective stance: modals expressing strong commitment or obligation; evaluative devices (e.g. adjectives); metaphors. versus

Decreased use of interpersonal markers – indirectness; vague language; hedges; modals of possibility, permission etc.

12. Summary

• Transactional goals interact with relational goals in the work place.

• A number of factors influence language choice: - the discursive relationship related to the overall goal of any conversation: - the institutional relationships/roles & the identities of the speakers.

• Discursive identities are not fixed but negotiated through talk.

13. POST-CLASS

Observe conversations at the University. Determine what makes them predominantly transactional or relational. Consider the linguistic markers which are used to express solidarity or a subjective stance.

Discuss on Discussion Board.

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LS1ELU ENGLISH LANGUAGE IN USE

Spring Term

Language as a Social Phenomenon

Seminars

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LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON SEMINAR 1 Language & Education

BACKGROUND In Lecture Twelve we discussed studies investigating the disparity between a child’s home/community language and that of the School. Most of these studies were in the USA. Today we’re going to consider a study closer to home, in the UK.

Viv Edwards’ paper ( in Coupland, N. & Jaworski, A. (1997) Sociolinguistics: A Reader and Coursebook. London: MacMillan Press ) is one of the seminal papers in ‘Language, Education & Disadvantage’. She discusses the use of Patois (Creole speech) used by Afro-Caribbean children in English schools in the City of Birmingham in the UK. She discusses interactional contexts and the consequences of using Patois, in addition to the user’s perceptions about its use and value.

One of the main themes of this paper is the need to confront the stereotype held in Britain that Patois speakers are ‘young, disaffected, academically underachieving’(p.410) individuals and that the variety is a ‘plantation English which is socially unacceptable and inadequate for communication.’(p.409) i. Discuss with fellow students the key issues and findings of this study and note them down. ii. Also consider the following questions for discussion as a group. (This might be useful for revision purposes so keep your notes!).

1. What factors appear to determine Black pupil’s shifting between Patois and the local dialect of English?

2. What is meant by the assertion ‘that for any given situation there will be marked and

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unmarked language choices?’ (p.410).

3. How is the use of Patois interpreted by the teacher/educational authorities and what are the consequences?

4. To what extent do you think educational authorities and Governments should accommodate to the needs of the minority – at least to ‘help them on their way’ to learning the standard? What cultural/social/political/economic considerations have to come into play? Can you think of any other minority groups in the UK for whom accommodation is necessary?

5. Can Bernstein’s Model of Elaborated and Restricted Code (as discussed in the lecture) inform our interpretation of some of the views raised in this paper? What are the limitations of this model and how might we interpret the use of Patois?

6. How does this compare with the situation of AAVE in the USA?

7. Beyond informing policy, in studying educational disadvantage, sociolinguists are also interested in examining culture-bound perceptions and attitudes towards one’s own and other groups’ linguistic and socio-cultural status? How might we investigate this as linguists?

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LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON SEMINAR 2

Language and the Media

Preface: This seminar serves to extend and apply information provided in the language and media lecture in ELS last term. We’re going to be considering the differences between tabloid and broadsheet representation of ‘stories’ – both from a micro-linguistic perspective – looking at the lexical and grammatical choices made by the journalists working for the different papers but also from a discourse perspective – thinking about target audiences for these pieces and how the actors/people in the stories are represented and how polarized perspectives are generated.

1. Which of these articles do you think is from a tabloid and which from a broadsheet based on linguistic content alone?

You might like to think about the presence/absence of the following linguistic features: TABLOIDS (are typically characterized by the use of) : a) first names or nicknames; b) idioms/clichés & slang; c) contractions of grammar e.g. don’t d) short, incomplete sentences; sentences without verbs; sentences beginning with a conjunction (may also appear in broadsheets too however); e) modal verbs used to insinuate things – ‘it might have been because’; f) quotations – or typeface emphasis – e.g. use of bold or CAPS; g) collocations – e.g. innocent victim; tragic accident

BROADSHEETS - a) longer >complex sentences – e.g. use of relative clauses; b) complex NPs; c) nominalization; c) passivisation; d) quotations from authorities; official sources.

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2. How do you engage with the articles – which do you feel most comfortable with - why? Who is the ideal reader for these articles? – consider the cultural and social/professional status of the readers.

3. In what ways are the various actors (the people mentioned) in the report represented (positioned) in each extract. Consider what identities are constructed (consider social status; professional; gender). Are certain actors more prominent than others.

4. How do the articles construct polarized positions and how does that impact on our interpretation of subject positions and events? e.g. Male versus female; innocence v guilt.

See articles on accompanying pages.

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LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON SEMINAR 3

Language Standardisation

1. Read the following extract (taken from Graddol et al 2007:108), it comes from The Arte of Englishe Poesie , first published in 1589. You are not expected to understand every word. The extract discusses the variety of English to be used by poets (or ‘makers’ as they are also referred to in the text).

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Just focussing on spelling conventions, what differences do you find in this extract compared to standardised English today?

2. What other differences did you find?

3. What are the main points that Puttenham is making?

4. Historians have argued that this document is evidence for the existence of a Standard English at the time it was written. What evidence, if any, can you find to support this claim?

5. Considering this as a planning document – would this be an example of corpus or status planning?

6. How is this document similar to contemporary documents/discussions you read/hear in the media or in academic writing, in relation to concerns about the ‘preservation’ of a standard language in the UK?

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LANGUAGE AS A SOCIAL PHENOMENON SEMINAR 4

Language Play

Initially review these concepts which were described and illustrated in the lecture:

Repetition Parallelism Alliteration Assonance Onomatopoeia Enjambement Grammatical representations – e.g. Short sentences and phrases Graphologically

1. The text ‘We’re going on a bear hunt’ is an example of language play in children’s literature. How does this text deviate from the norms of conventional language use? - phonologically; - lexically; - grammatically; - graphologically.

Discuss (see points above).

2. What is the effect of this linguistic representation?

3. Puns or paronomasia are phrases that deliberately exploit confusion between similar words for humorous or rhetorical/persuasive effect. By definition a pun must be deliberate or else it is classified as a malapropism.

Puns can be classified into four categories – what are these?:

Classify these puns: a. He drove his car into a wall and found out how the Mercedes bends. b. Police were called to a family home where a baby was resisting a rest. c. What did the grape say when it got stepped on? Nothing - but it let out a little whine. d. I've been to the dentist several times so I know the drill. 134

e. A boiled egg in the morning is hard to beat. f. Santa's helpers are subordinate clauses.

Can you think of any more?

4. Guy Cook (2000) has suggested that there is a connection between ritual and language use. There is the formal patterning of sound and structure; semantic patterning and pragmatic patterning.

Consider the ‘Lord’s Prayer’ and discuss its phonological, morphosyntactic (grammatical), semantic and pragmatic patterning. How similar is this to the prose discussed in (1) above?

Our Father, who art in Heaven, hallowed be thy name thy kingdom come thy will be done on earth as it is in heaven give us this day our daily bread and forgive those who trespass against us, and lead us not into temptation but deliver us from evil for thine is the kingdom, the power and the glory for ever and ever. Amen.

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