jean aitchison

Jean Aitchison 

she is a professor of language and communication and was born in 1938. her book 'language change: progress or decay' explored how language change is happening and whether it is a positive or negative thing. she describes language change using three metaphors:

• the damp spoon
• the crumbling castle
• the infectious disease 

The infectious disease:

 This model suggests the idea that we catch language from one another. She believes that language spreads through social contact and people pick up some language from others and apply it to their own speech. this model has a descriptive approach as it is not perceived as negative.

The damp spoon:

jean aitchison described language change as a damp spoon because she found it distasteful when seeing a damp spoon dipped in  a sugar bowl due to peoples laziness not to find another spoon to use. she found that this metaphor describes language change as she perceives language change as being lazy.

The crumbling castle:

Etymology of words

Etymology of words

Etymology is the study of the origin of words and the way in which their meanings have changed throughout history. often many words completely change meaning overtime and mean the opposite if its previous meaning. one word that has done this is the word awful. the current definition used for the word awful is "used to emphasize the extent of something, especially something unpleasant or negative." therefore currently the word would generally describe something negative or something that wasn't enjoyable eg: "it was awful." it has however not always been associated to have a negative meaning. In the 1300s it had much more positive connotations linked to it. It originally meant "aspiring wonder" and was a short way of saying being in awe of someone/something. To be in awe of would generally be linked with having great respect for somebody and would generally be perceived as a compliment if someone were to say they were in awe of you. Therefore the word has gone under a semantic change of auto-antonymy where a word changes meaning to the complete opposite of what it originally meant. Another example of this would be the word "bad." The word generally has a negative meaning towards it however in recent times it has more positive connotations linked with it and in some scenarios the word bad is used to describe something that is good. 

task 2

• Prescriptivism
• Descriptivism
• Synchronic change

Prescriptivism

Linguistic prescription (or prescriptivism) is the practice of elevating one variety or manner of language use over another. It may imply some forms are incorrect, improper, illogical, lack communicative effect, or are of low aesthetic value.

Descriptivism 

the doctrine that the meanings of ethical or aesthetic terms and statements are purely descriptive rather than prescriptive, evaluative, or emotive.

synchronic change 

A diachronic study or analysis concerns itself with the evolution and change over time of that which is studied; it is roughly equivalent to historical. Thus diachronic linguistics is also known as historical linguistics. A synchronic study or analysis, in contrast, limits its concern to a particular moment of time.

task 1

Dictionary new words 

Auto-tune - a device or facility for tuning something automatically, especially a piece of computer software which enables the correction of an out-of-tune vocal performance.

Birdhouse - North American term for nest box.

Comedy of errors - A comedy of errors is a narrative work (often a play) that is light and often humorous or satirical in tone, in which the action usually features a series of comic instances of mistaken identity, and which typically culminates in a happy resolution of the thematic conflict.

Decision - a conclusion or resolution reached after consideration.

e-cigarette - another term for electronic cigarette 

forensic science - Forensic Science is any science used for the purposes of the law, and therefore provides impartial scientific evidence for use in the courts of law, e.g. in a criminal investigation and trial.

go-for-it - to do anything you have to in ​order to get something

H2O - H2O binary compound that occurs at room temperature as a clear colorless odorless tasteless liquid; freezes into ice below 0 degrees centigrade and boils above 100 degrees centigrade; widely used as a solvent.

Stages in child development

Cooling stage 

This occurs as early as 6 weeks and during this stage infants will begin to spontaneously make cooling sounds such as "aaaaa" and "oooo" at this stage children are learning to make sounds by manipulating their tongues, mouths and breathing. this behaviour happens when a child is alone and clearly indicates the child is experimenting with making sounds. At 8-20 weeks phonology allows the child to improve his/her voice control.

Babbling stage 

Babbling is a stage in child development in which an infant is experimenting with different utterings to articulate sounds but without any recognized words. Babbling begins shortly after birth and progresses as the infant gets older. They would begin to produce recognizable words after about 12 months though babbling may continue after that. there are 2 types of babbling , reduplicated babbling and variegated babbling.

Verbal scribbling

vocal play is the main event in the 20-30 week period. babies play with their voices changing pitch, loudness, rate and quality. as the baby discovers she/he can blow air through their lips you may hear raspberries and wet trills. Varied vowel like and consonant sounds including nasal sounds like mmm and nnn and fricatives fff are produced. the child also produces a range of sounds such as glides- low to high pitch and vice versa, to practice a variety of sounds. toward the end of the stage noises of consonants and sounds sound like they are together. 

Melodic utterance stage 

This stage occurs at 9-18 months and is the 4th stage of child language acquisition and is when the child starts to develop their skills in intonation, melody and rhythm. the child begins to understand the meaning of what theyre saying, however as they cannot properly talk they are often misunderstood by their parents, which fustrates the child.

Lexical and grammatical development   

Stage 1: holophrastic 

this occurs during the 12-18 month age range and the child utters their first word. they can build a vocabulary of holophrases- which can reach around 50 words. they are holophrases and not words because they convey all the meaning of a phrase/ sentence through language intonation and volume

stage 2: two word

this occurs at around 18 months and the child begins to use two words at a time. this can also be referred to 

language theories

Theories

 Theory 1: power 

This theory is relevant to my investigation because it will consist of various footballers being interviewed by the media post match and in this interview there will clearly be a more powerful participant and according to Fairclough there is instrumental and influential power and this can be determined by lexis such as formal, informal, slang, jargon etc. using fillers and how fluently their speech is can also be an indicator to who is the more dominant participant in the conversation. The dominant participant will generally set the agenda of the conversation, leads the talk, changes the topic freely, interrupt and overlap. the more submissive participant will respond rather than initiate,follow the set agenda and use fillers and be less confident.

Theory 2: politeness theory

This theory was made by Brown and Levinson and it includes elements such as face threatening acts which suggests that positive and negative face exist universally in human nature. facial expression are sometimes inevitable during conversations. An FTA  damages the face of the addressee or the speaker by acting differently to the others wants. An FTA can either be positive or negative. A negative FTA is when an individual doesn't try to avoid an obstruction in the conversation, this can affect the reader or the hearer. A positive FTA is when the speaker or hearer doesn't care about the speakers feelings,wants and needs. this can also have an affect on the hearer/reader.

Theory 3: 3 different types of power:

Wareings'  research suggested that there are 3 different types of power. these are: social group, personal and political. this could be useful to my investigation as in the dialect this theory could suggest what type of power each participant hold in the conversation.

 

coursework sources for A2

Sources

http://www.skysports.com/football/

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11890/9978251/bayern-munich-rejected-offer-for-thomas-muller-says-president

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34148777

http://www.bbc.co.uk/sport/0/football/34149597

http://www.skysports.com/football/news/11863/9978327/mario-balotelli-scores-on-second-debut-for-ac-milan-in-friendly-win

http://www.skysports.com/watch/video/sports/football