Text A YouGov website

The genre of this text is a website, funded by the government. Its primary purpose is to persuade the receivers to have a look at the various articles and read about the aspects that the receiver has the most interest in. This purpose is mostly illustrated by the use of a synthetic personalisation ''welcome''  at the very top of the website, which shows the positive approach that the producer has towards the readers. It also represents the 'bond' that the producer creates with the receiver, to make them feel appreciated; as this will make people want to stay on the website. The use of an interrogative ''What would you like to do?'' suggests of a wide range of options that the website provides for its readers; which helps to hook them into its content as they want to know what is there for them. It also presents that the readers have a choice, which means that the are not being forced to only read a particular article for instance. Whereas, the use a direct address ''you'' presents that the producer prioritises its readers and wants them to feel special and just as if they were being cared for. This will make an impression of kindness which will most likely persuade the readers to stay on the website. The secondary purpose of the YouGov website is to get the readers involved into various actions such as expressing own opinion in a daily poll. This is being done through the use of an affordance which is a 'take part' button, because it allows the readers to take part in the poll and present their views on the current issues. The main reason the readers are given an opportunity of expressing their views in a poll is because it will make them know that they can also contribute in certain actions rather than just read about them. Therefore, they might become willing on visiting the website more often in order to regularly contribute and express their views. However, the graphology of the website, such as its layout is a constraint, because the information is spread out across the page which might discourage some readers from reading further onto the website. The use of modern features such as animations and a combination of grey, white and red colours portrays that the website is aimed at young adults, because they will most likely get attracted to this theme and the unique design. The use of images supported by the range of words from the lexical field of business (membership, debate) present that the website also appeals to business people, as they will share the pragmatic understanding of current issues. The website also features a limited range of adjectives such as ''amazing'' and ''new'' as well as a superlative ''largest''. These present an innovation and improvement, which engages the audience to read the particular sections of the webpage in order to find out more. Whereas, the use of verbs such as ''share'', ''analyse'' and ''support'' represent the action towards significant changes, which can then persuade the reader to contribute in it by sharing their views for instance.

Language and representation task

Throughout the conversation I have spotted several factors which represent me as a speaker in a distinctive way. Paralinguistics such as the quiet tone of voice which I used during the conversation, creates an impression of me not being a very confident speaker. However, the tone of voice applied might have also been adapted, in order to make an impression of a calm and thoughtful speaker. I have also discovered that my voice during the conversation was not only quiet but also gentle, which helps the listeners interpret my personality and some of my personal features such as being very feminine. My accent, representing my national background can be easily noticed by the listener. Being a bilingual speaker also has an impact on the tempo of the conversation, as some of the utterances were pronounced slightly slower due to the longer thinking time. However, this may have also been caused by the uncertainty and lack of planning beforehand. Gestures and facial impressions are also a very important part of paralinguistics, as they enable the listener to identify the aspects of the speaker’s personality. For instance, I have not used any gestures whilst taking part in the conversation which may create an impression of me being quite clear on the topic and having the ability of enhancing the message just through the use compound sentences. The facial expressions which I used were focus and concentration, which can suggest that I was effectively listening to the information shared by the other participant in order to engage in the conversation later. Regarding the conversation and its content, I did not take a great amount of air time hence I did not feel confident enough to explore the topic further. Therefore I only briefly spoke about the jobs of my parents and asked the other participant a few interrogatives linking to her job and responsibilities. I mostly used the third person verbs such as ‘she’ and ‘he’ to avoid the repetition of the personal pronouns ‘mum’ and ‘dad’. I did not use any words of a certain lexical field or jargon as I did not focus on these aspects during the conversation. Colloquial language was not a part of the conversation, but the language used was quite informal as there was a limited number of words used. The reason for this use of less advanced language was the convergence of the language to suit the audience- teenagers. Whilst analysing the transcript of the conversation, I have also noticed that I used certain fillers throughout the conversation such as ‘um’ and ‘well’, which I might have used as a result of stress. These, allowed me to receive some more air time in order to remind myself what I was going to speak about next. However, the use of fillers as such, may come across as the lack of preparation and can make the listener think that they are a part of my idiolect. The conversation did partly support Shegloff’s conversational model, as it was easily flowing following it with one speaker at a time aspect. The transition was also quite quick and simple as both participants were ready to take over and explore the topic. There was no interruptions and clear signs of being an active listener through the use of interrogatives such as ‘’What are your responsibilities?’’

Representation of UNICEF

Donate today and help save children's lives

Every five seconds a child under 5 dies of a preventable cause. It's shocking, but with your help we can change this.
In fact child survival rates are better now than ever before. And we've already improved the lives of more children around the world than any other charity. So it really is possible to make a difference. But there are still millions of children who need our help.
Our goal is to give every child the best possible start in life. Whether that means immunising them against deadly diseases (like the child pictured above in Burundi) or making sure they can go to school. With your support we can continue to be there for children, wherever they need us.
Please donate and support our ongoing work with children around the world.

Source: http://www.unicef.org.uk/landing-pages/donate-unicef-charity/?gclid=?utm_source=bing&utm_medium=cpc&utm_term=charity%20organisation%20uk&utm_campaign=Bing_Generic_Donate_UK%20%5BE%5D&sissr=1

The organisation uses a very powerful and effective strategy presented in the title: 'donate today and help save children's lives'. They encourage people to donate the money as quick as possible by saying that whoever do so will become a hero. The plurality of the verb child makes people want to donate the money even as they will save more than just one life. The use of statistics at the very beginning, already provides the reader with an overview of the issue as they can imagine it. The verb 'preventable' makes the reader think that the cause can be avoided so why isn't it? Therefore the reader may already start thinking of providing those children with the financial help and as reading the next sentence the reader is being encouraged to do so even more by the organisation.
In the next paragraph UNICEF presents its organisational power by stating that they have already improved the lives of more children around the world than any other charity. It also presents their hierarchy and makes the reader think that this organisation is the most effective. The organisation also tries to tell the reader that those who make the donations almost become a part of the organisation. ..''Millions of children who need our help..'' Therefore, they not only contribute in the action of saving children's lives but they also make the organisation stronger and even more successful. UNICEF also clearly states its goal and tries to say that through reader's support and donation this goal can be met. Towards the end of the text, the organisation uses some politeness strategies by using the phrase 'please'. This makes an impression that readers help is needed, otherwise the organisation will not meet its goal and millions of children will die. The organisation is almost begging the reader to donate the money, as every small donation counts and can make a big change.

Language and representation

''When I look at you'' by Miley Cyrus

 

..'Everybody needs inspiration
Everybody needs a song
A beautiful melody
When the night's so long

'Cause there is no guarantee
That this life is easy

Yeah, when my world is falling apart
When there's no light to break up the dark
That's when I, I
I look at you

When the waves
Are flooding the shore and I can't
Find my way home anymore
That's when I, I
I look at you

When I look at you, I see forgiveness
I see the truth
You love me for who I am
Like the stars hold the moon
Right there where they belong
And I know I'm not alone..''

 

The verbs ''flooding'' and ''falling apart'' present a very negative image of destruction. Something that has been destroyed and cannot be repaired. They also suggest of the mental state of the writer and the emptiness which she experiences. However, the writer used an adjective 'beautiful' which shows a contrast in the text as it presents positivity and passion. 'Shore', 'waves', 'stars' and 'moon'- all these nouns are linked to the natural beauty of the world that we live in. Comparing the lover with these nouns presents his importance. A shore needs waves to make a whole, stars need the moon to create the night sky and Miley needs her lover for her life to be completed. 'Dark' and 'alone' present the feeling of sadness and loneliness expressed by Miley in the song. Dark is associated with the fear and uncertainty. A person locked up in the dark room will feel uncertain whether there is also someone else in there who can harm them or if they all alone. Therefore they feel fear, just as Miley does. She also compares her lover to 'forgiveness' and 'truth' suggesting that she would forgive him for whatever he does as she trusts him.

 

 

Language and gender research task

John Grey's popular book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus':

• It is a proposition that men and women differ fundamentally in the way they use language to communicate.
• Men's goals in using language tend to be about getting things done, whereas women's tend to be about making connections to other people. Men talk more about things and facts, whereas women talk more about people, relationships and feelings.
• Language and communication matter more to women than to men; women talk more than men.
• Women are more verbally skilled than men.
• Men's way of using language is competitive, reflecting their general interest in acquiring and maintaining status; women's use of language is cooperative, reflecting their preference for equality and harmony.
• These differences routinely lead to "miscommunication" between the sexes, with each sex misinterpreting the other's intentions. This causes problems in contexts where men and women regularly interact, and especially in heterosexual relationships.

Source: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books

 Mary Beard's ideas about women's voices not being valued

• Historian Mary Beard believes that female broadcasters must lower their voices to sound like men if they want to be successful.
• Professor Beard also believes broadcasters must address the position of women across TV, not just on panel shows, in order to make their voices more valued.
• It’s not a coincidence that even on radio, the successful women presenters tend to have unusually deep (ie male) voices.

Source: http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2572722/Women-need-sound-like-men-succeed-broadcasting-says-Mary-Beard.html

O'Barr and Atkins's challenge to deficit theory

• William O’Barr and Bowman Atkins are known for developing the idea that language differences are situation-specific, relying on who has the authority and power in a conversation, rather than the gender of the people involved.
• This challenged the theory that Lakoff had presented, that variants in speech were due to gender. A simple example to explain their theory may be that in an interview situation, if a man were interviewing a woman, then perhaps the man would seem more assertive in the conversation, not due to his gender, but simply because he has more authority in that circumstance.
• The theorists studied courtroom cases for 30 months, observing a broad spectrum of witnesses, and examining them for the ten basic speech differences between men and women that Lakoff proposed. These differences or “women’s language” components consisted of; hedges, empty adjectives,  super-polite forms, apologising more, speaking less frequently, avoiding coarse language or expletives, tag questions, hyper-correct grammar and punctuation, indirect requests and using tone to emphasise certain words.
• O’Barr and Atkins discovered that Lakoff’s proposed differences were not necessarily the result of being a woman, but of being powerless. They used three men and three women to prove this. The first man and first woman both spoke with a high frequency of “women’s language” components. The woman was a 68-year-old housewife and the man drove an ambulance, suggesting stereotypically that power and control would perhaps be lacking from their lives. Pair number 3, a doctor and policeman respectively, both testified as expert witnesses, suggesting that the power they experienced in their jobs and lives meant that they had less components of “women’s language”. Man and woman number 2 fell between the first two pairs in the frequency of hedges and tag questions in their speech, ie. “Women’s language” component.
• From this study, O’Barr and Atkins concluded that the quoted speech patterns were “neither characteristic of all women, nor limited to only women”. According to the researchers, the women who used the lowest frequency of women’s language traits had an unusually high status

Source: https://aggslanguage.wordpress.com/2009/09/20/obarr-atkins/

The effect of written and computer-mediated forms on gendered language

• This experiment examined what situational and dispositional features moderate the effects of linguistic gender cues on gender stereotyping in anonymous, text-based computer-mediated communication.
•  Participants played a trivia game with an ostensible partner via computer, whose comments represented either masculine or feminine language styles. Consistent with the social identity model of deindividuation effects, those who did not exchange brief personal profiles with their partner (i.e., depersonalization) were more likely to tell their partner’s gender from the language used, than those who did.
• Depersonalization, however, facilitated stereotype-consistent conformity behaviors only among gender-typed individuals; that is, participants conformed more to their masculine- than feminine-comment partners, and men were less conforming than were women, only when they were both gender-typed and depersonalized.

Source: http://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/10.1111/j.1468-2958.2007.00310.x/abstract;jsessionid=98590259854FEDB479210F5C28997C27.f01t01?userIsAuthenticated=false&deniedAccessCustomisedMessage

Beattie's challenge to Zimmerman and West - evaluating data

"The problem with this is that you might simply have one very voluble man in the study which has a disproportionate effect on the total."

• Beattie also questions the meaning of interruptions: : "Why do interruptions necessarily reflect dominance? Can interruptions not arise from other sources? Do some interruptions not reflect interest and involvement?
• Beattie’s own study:

He recorded some 10 hours of tutorial discussion and some 557 interruptions (compared with 55 recorded by Zimmerman and West). Beattie found that women and men interrupted with more or less equal frequency (men 34.1, women 33.8) - so men did interrupt more, but by a margin so slight as not to be statistically significant.                                                                                                                        

Source: The student room- powerpoint presentation

 

Accent abuse
by Daria Jakubisiak for 'Young linguistics' magazine

Three quarters of people in the UK think they hear a lot more accents in every day life than they used to and almost 80% enjoys hearing a variety of accents. What about the remaining 20% of the nation? Does the diversity of accents bothers them?

Teachers from St. Bernard's High School in Ealing, London carried out the survey where they asked a group of teenagers from different ethnic backgrounds about how they feel towards their accents. The results were absolutely shocking. 42 out of 50 students admitted to converge their accents in order to fit into the community. Even harder to believe is that the only reason for it was to avoid the issues which could be caused by other student's negative attitudes towards accents. This is truly outrageous. Being forced to hide the sense of your personal identity just so you don't get discriminated.

Accent stereotyping is one of the main issues which have always existed. People make assumptions about others based on where they come from. 'Can you hear that received pronunciation? She must be very arrogant as she is definitely from London.' However, not everyone realises that sounding 'posh' does not make you arrogant. It makes you sound intelligent, which presents your high status. To be able to speak with the received pronunciation you don't need to come from London. You can come from any part of the world, because it is about the way you were brought up. You don't like someone's accent? That is completely understandable as everyone is entitled to their own opinion. But remember not to make any wrong assumptions towards others based on their accents as you can offend them.                                                            

We are judged by the way we speak on a daily basics, friends may laugh at us just because our accent might sound 'funny' to them as well as many employers may turn down our chances of employment due to their dislike towards our accent.. but is this the right thing to do? Being discriminated just because of the accent might cause mental breakdowns for many of us as well as other health issues which link to it. It can also make us feel isolated and disliked by others.No form of discrimination is acceptable so why would accent discrimination be right?

Analysing the NHS parking notice

The car park notice is mainly aimed at people parking at the hospital car park who may be visitors, patients and staff working at the hospital. Some people may not pay attention to the sign, however some may feel 'forced' to read it because they may want to avoid the parking fine.
The primary purpose of the parking notice is to inform the reader about the terms and conditions of hospital car park. The name of the NHS health organisation is written at the very top of the notice to inform the reader about the text producer. NHS being a national health organisation is much more official than any other private organisations, due to its high status. Therefore it also holds influential power as it has influence over the nation by providing advice and support as well as persuading individuals to act in certain, acceptable ways. This power and strength of the NHS makes drivers think that the notice is actually very important therefore they should read it. The graphology of this parking notice consists of variety of different fonts and sizes as well as colourful images.'Terms and conditions' sign is written in capital letters, using bold type of font in order to make it stand out. The use of this type of font, will make the text very clear for readers of all ages. It will also catch everyone's attention, even those who may have their car parked further away from the sign. Underneath, the 'Terms and conditions' sign there also is an important notice written in capital letters and its context written in slightly smaller font. As the capital letters will catch reader's attention, they will be more likely to also read the rest of the notice as it will already make them interested in its context. ''Do not park in this car park unless you agree to the Terms and Conditions in full''. The contraction 'don't' is replaced with 'do not' in order to make the piece more formal. This important notice is almost like a warning to all drivers, as a mean to avoid the disappointment which could be caused by the misuse of the car park.

The secondary purpose of the notice is to make the reader aware of the possible consequences which can be caused by parking beyond the permissible period of time. The notice is split into four little paragraphs followed by a picture provided for each of them. This layout of the text allows the producer to include everything that is necessary and make the reader aware of all the information that they need to know about. Instead of writing the terms and conditions in one big paragraph, the text producer decided to split it up into several sections which also helps to make the notice more interesting and easier to read. The sentences are either simple or compound, in order to keep the context very brief yet informal and easy to understand. The lack of complex and minor sentences suggests that the use of them would not be as effective and would not make the reader hook into the context of this informative text. Throughout the context, the verb 'notice' is being used very frequently. ''Vehicles must not park in a time controlled zone beyond the permissible period'' The verb determinates driver's behaviour by adapting it to the command that they were given. It also makes them feel more obedient and act in the way they are told to in order to avoid the penalty.
Despite the use of strong, informative lexis there are also more soft and polite phrases. ''..Please be aware that you may receive a Parking Charge Notice..'' The mitigated imperative 'please be aware' makes the sentence sound more polite and makes it come across more as a request not a command. The use of mitigated imperatives is important because it makes the reader feel more respected and it also creates the synthetic personalisation, between the reader and the writer.
The receivers expect the text to be formal and informative therefore they will not be surprise after reading it all.