Lauren Waring's English Language Blog

http://www.bbc.com/capital/story/20170329-the-hidden-sexism-in-workplace-language this BBC article writes of "the hidden sexism in the workplace" and describes features of sexist language such as lingering stereotypes and name calling of women such as "honey" as out of date.

Allow me to womansplain the problem with gendered language The Guardian This article writes about how words such as "girlboss" and "manspreading" have gone from making an important point to reinforcing the differences between men and women. The article includes comments from linguist Dale Spender and words that have been created and added to the dictionary such as the Swedish word "snippa" . Women Get Interrupted More—Even By Other Women The New Republic This article writes about recent research done by Adrienne Hancock, a researcher at the Department of Speech and Hearing Sciences at George Washington University, and Benjamin Rubin, a Master's student, which investigates conversation between 20 male and female volunteers and analyse their speaking patterns and interruptions. Text speak designed to keep parents in the dark: English language is changing so fast there are words majority do not understand The Daily Mail This article writes ab...

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Neulip & Speten-Hansen (2013) James Neuliep and Kendall Speten-Hansen hypothesised that there would be significant negative correlations between ethnocentrism and the way speakers with non-native accents are socially perceived. To test this, they recruited 93 male and female undergraduate students and randomly assigned 46 of them to an experimental group and 47 to a control group. All participants were native speakers of English. In the experiment, participants in both groups completed a Generalized Ethnocentrism scale test to see how ethnocentric they were. Then, both groups watched a video of the same male speaker talking for 12 minutes about a non-controversial topic – the benefits of exercise. The videos were identical in every way except for the accent of the speaker. In the film viewed by the experimental group, the speaker had a non-native accent, and in order to try and reduce stereotypical judgments, this accent was left ambiguous, with no detectable regiona...

Howard Giles Researched a range of situations and speakers focusing on perceptions of and attitudes to accents. ‘Matched-guise’ technique = Giles often asked participants to listen to the same speaker using a range of different accents and then pass judgement on each one. 1973 – British teenagers presented with the same speech arguing against the death penalty, in different accents. They were more likely to value the argument and the content if the speaker used a more prestigious accent. 1975 – perception of RP and the Birmingham accent by two groups of 17 year olds. Same speaker spoke about psychology: once in RP and once in the Birmingham accent. The teenagers rated the RP speaker higher in terms of competence and intelligence Possible criticisms of this technique: Listeners could realise that the various speakers are all the same person Dolisteners express their true feelings or what they think they should say Encourages stereotyp...

Elements of an opinion article Controversial headlines Colloquial Statistics (sound credible) First person Link to news story Higher order lexical choices (unequivocally) Anaphora Minor sentenes for impact (not so)

Rating the accent 1. RP Trustworthy:3 Educated?:8 Friendliness:4 2.Somerset Trustworthy:9 Educated?:5 Friendliness:10 3.Birmingham Trustworthy:5 Educated?:4 Friendliness:4 4.Newcastle Trustworthy:6 Educated?:6 Friendliness:8

come from migration Bradford Asian English, Multicultural London English Multi cultural London English swept across the country. Most common in East London South Asian, Cockney and Estuary roots Used by people with fewer opertunities They don't see it as slang its just how they speak Picked up from young age Popular with people with English as their second language Like an identity

Rhyming Slang: U.K.'s Poetry of the Proletariat Goes Pop https://news.nationalgeographic.com/news/2004/04/0414_040414_britneyspears.html 1. Evaluate the idea in the article that the media has played an important role. The media has played a large role in spreading the popularity of cockney rhyming slang with TV shows such as "Only Fools and Horses" and "Minder" using said language and making it popular with the audience therefore influencing people to use it in their day to day language. 2. The article refers to people becoming more 'mobile'. Why do you think this could be a contributory factor? People become more mobile contributes to the spreading of cockney rhyming slang as people moving from the East End to other parts of the country will continue to use that language and use it when talking to people who will then start to use it and spread it and so forth. 3. The article states that teenagers use language to give them 'a sense of be...

Londoners baffled by Cockney rhyming slang http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/9172137/Londoners-baffled-by-Cockney-rhyming-slang.html This article from the Telegraph details the recent studies that revealed most Londoners are now unaware of many of the most common cockney rhyming slang phrases such as "donkeys ears" (which means years) and apples and pears (stairs). The author of the article suggests that this is because when cockney rhyming slang first came around it was a way of discussing private topics but now that everyone knows what the slang means they no longer need top use it.

Discourse structure is shown in the four bullet points at the top of the advert, the noun phrases "Helpful staff" and "Community information" makes the library feel friendly an puts a positive outlook on it making people want to visit. The adjective "free" makes it appear accessible to everyone, including the elderly which is shown in the graphology of the image of the old man. The image also appears to match the target audience who are elderly people looking to find infomation.

Young women, give up the vocal fry and reclaim your strong female voice https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jul/24/vocal-fry-strong-female-voice

The packaging supports Lakoff's deficit model with the lack of capitalization throughout such as "look at that" at the very beginning of the paragraph. It is used here to contradict Lakoff's theory that women always use hyper correct grammar. The reason for the lack of correct grammar may be in order to present a more colloquial feel to seem less imperative, on the other hand it does support Lakoff's theory that women don't swear this is shown with the euphemistic word "blooming". However both of Lakoff's theory's are outdated.

https://debuk.wordpress.com/2016/05/16/the-pronominal-is-political/

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/hsbc-bank-transgender-customers-neutral-titles-mx-ind-mre-a7659686.html This article tells us about the bank HSBC's decsion to offer transgender people the option to have gender-neutral titles. There is are 10 different options including "Mx" and "Mre". This was revealed by  project manager Stuart Barette, who is trans himself, explaining the importance of offering the opportunity for customers to choose from a range of titles. This movement has taken a huge step towards making LGTB+ customers and employees feel respected and valued

http://emmahlanguageblog.blogspot.co.uk/2017/10/janet-holmes.html In this extract Janet Holmes explains how the English language can be per sieved to be sexist towards women with examples like animal imagery that is derogatory to wards women but complimentary towards men, for example women are called "bitch" or "cow" and men are considered as "wolf" or "Stud". She also mentions how women are referred to as food such as "honey" or "tart".

https://www.newscientist.com/article/dn28582-scans-prove-theres-no-such-thing-as-a-male-or-female-brain/ This article, written by Jessica Hamzelou, writes about the new evidence that proves there is no such thing as a "male" or "female brain". It reveals that most people have a mix of male and female brain features and it also supports the idea that gender is non-binary. Anelis Kaiser from the University of Bern, Switzerland says, "This evidence that human brains cannot be categorised into two distinct classes is new, convincing, and somehow radical". To test the theory Dapna Joel, from Tel Aviv University in Israel, and her colleagues examining differences in brain scans taken from 1400 people aged between 13 and 8. They looked at shape and size in different areas of the brain and found averaged across many people, sex differences in brain structure do exist, but an individual brain is likely to be just that: individual, with a mix of features confi...

"Could u pls put my washing in the tumble dryer ?xx" This text's opening is straight to the point with no greeting or formality and ends with two kisses showing the relationship between me and the recipient being quite comfortable and friendly. I've put the beginning of the adjacency pair expecting a yes/no answer. The text message is informal and colloquial, this is shown by clippings such as "u" and"pls".

https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk In the video John Mcwhorter tells us about the development of speech and texting. He also talks about the idea that texting is ruining the English language, which is concern shared by many older generations. He then challenges this by giving examples dating back to 63AD where a teacher spoke of the concern that people were learning Latin, this proves that people have always been concerned about the deterioration of language so we shouldn't be concerned now. John also talks about the use of text abbreviations such as LOL and how the meaning has changed over time from 'laugh out loud' to more of a pragmatic understanding of pity/sarcasm.

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-7701-7702-GLOSSARY.PDF Audience - The person (or people) for whom a text is produced. Antonym - A word opposite in meaning to another (happy/sad). Collocation - Words that go together (fish and chips). Dysphemism - Makes the original word sound worse ( cigarette/cancer stick). Discourse - (I) Stretches the speech or communication, (II) The ways language is used to express the interests of a particular group or institution e.g. the discourse of medicine, law, politics and media. Dialect - The accent, lexis and grammar of a specific local area. Euphemism - Used to avoid being blunt (died/passed away). Graphology - The contribution made to the meaning of a text by writing, printing and images as a system of signs. Grammar - The fundamental structures and functions of English: the written word, spoken utterances, sentences and texts. Genre - A way of grouping texts based on expected shared conventions. Hyp...