CLA: Question 2

Plan:

• intro - talk about context, who are Tom and Tania and who is Nilem
• talk about how Nilem is a teaching assistant, implying she hasn't got too much experience in this role, she could even be a volunteer, could be why she does not prompt Tom or Tania she just corrects or repairs their miscues, they will not retain the knowledge.
• the English language has a defective orthography, 'boo tie'
• the pauses in Tania's reading implicate that the non-standard layout of the book confuses her, every time the text jumps to a picture she pauses. 
• picture with girl on knees implies the 'ple::ase' should be elongated (context cues)
• Tania gets frustrated about being corrected all the time 'OH ALL RIGHT THEN' again could imply lack of experience from Nilem
• conclusion

Nilem is only a teaching assistant, this could imply that she does not have the training or experience of a teacher, there is even a chance that Nilem could just be a volunteer for the class. It was made evident to me that Nilem may have a lack of experience helping children to read when she was not scaffolding them, she was just repairing Tom and Tania's miscues without prompting them. If Nilem were experienced she would know it is unlikely that either of the children would retain the knowledge if they are just getting it given to them. This goes against Bruner's theory that children learn through social interaction with adults. In text G at the end Nilem corrects Tania for the 4th time and Tania appears to become frustrated by putting emphasis on the line Nilem corrected for her again emphasizing that Nilem may lack experience in this field. 

Para from analysis:

Para from analysis:

I've decided to use these particular paragraphs as I feel these are the ones that need attending to most, I am not sure whether to include them or not.

There is a distinct language barrier for both managers, Jose Mourinho first language is Portuguese, he sometimes finds it quite hard to get his point across, David Moyes is from Scotland, he grew up there. For this reason he has a very strong Scottish accent, I find it more difficult to understand Moyes than I do Mourinho. Throughout the three videos I noticed a recognizable feature about the way Jose Mourinho finishes and starts his sentences.  Mourinho will always start his sentences the same way he finishes them. For example, if he finishes on the word ‘Chelsea’ he will begin his next sentence with the word ‘Chelsea’.           What could this mean, need help with reasoning. 

During press conferences most managers sit down, answer any question the media propose then leave after roughly 30-45 minutes. Managers sit down because it puts a barrier between themselves and the media, I observed Moyes do this on numerous occasions, he likes to sit down comfortably in his chair and answer the questions, Mourinho on the other hand stands up in his press conferences, he stands up to give himself personal power. A press conference is a face threatening act but Mourinho sees it as a place he can portray power over everyone in the room.  I determined that Mourinho stands up in attempt to be higher than everyone in the room, this way everyone in the room is looking up at him, this is an easy way to gain power in a press conference. 

Sorry the paragraphs are unfinished I am still making changes to my work

Reading schemes and children's television

Which reading schemes are commonly used in schools?

Primary schools have a range of reading schemes to choose from. The most popular include Oxford Reading Tree (ORT), Collins Big Cat and Rigby Star, but other schemes are also used, including Lighthouse, Storyworlds and New Reading 360. Some schools continue to use older series, such as Ginn and New Way. [1]

How do children learn from TV:

Children react very positively to inclusive television programmes like Dora the Explorer or Blue’s Clues. Whenever a character faces the camera and asks a question, children out there in TV land are usually answering it. Blue’s Clues has been credited with helping young children learn from the screen. Academic research has shown that viewers’ ages 3 to 5 score better on tests of problem solving than those who haven’t watched the show. Experiments conducted at Vanderbilt University, described in the May/June issue of Child Development, offer some hints about toddlers. They showed that 24-month-olds are more apt to use information relayed by video if they consider the person on the screen to be someone they can talk to. Without that, the children seemed unable to act on what they had seen and heard. The experiments compared two video experiences: One was based on a videotape. Watching it was similar to watching “Blue’s Clues”; the actor onscreen paused to simulate a conversation, but back-and-forth interaction with the viewer was impossible. A different group of children experienced two-way live video. It worked like a Web cam, with each side responding in real time. The test hinged on a hiding game. First the 2-year-olds watched the video — either the tape or the live version. The screen showed a person hiding a stuffed animal, Piglet, in a nearby room, often under a table or behind a couch. When the video ended, the children were asked to retrieve Piglet. Those who saw the recorded video had some trouble. They found him only 35% of the time. Children in the other group succeeded about 69% of the time, a rate similar to face-to-face interaction.[2]

Most kids plug into the world of television long before they enter school. According to the Kaiser Family Foundation (KFF):

• two-thirds of infants and toddlers watch a screen an average of 2 hours a day
• kids under age 6 watch an average of about 2 hours of screen media a day, primarily TV and videos or DVDs
• kids and teens 8 to 18 years spend nearly 4 hours a day in front of a TV screen and almost 2 additional hours on the computer (outside of schoolwork) and playing video games [3]]

Another article I found says that children do not learn from TV:

Some children had conversations with a person face to face, some used video chat such as Skype, and others watched a film of someone instructing another child who was off screen. In the study, published in the journal Research in Child Development, the children learned new words only when conversing with a person face to face or through live video chat. Learning researchers discovered that young children need to have real conversations with other people to develop language. They didn't learn the new words through the pre-recorded video instruction, which was not responsive to the child. Children who learned in the two environments that involved real-time social interaction even used the new words to label the actions when different people performed them, the researchers from the University of Washington, Temple University, and the University of Delaware found. [4]

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[1] http://www.theschoolrun.com/school-reading-schemes-explained

[2] http://www.nytimes.com/2006/09/05/health/psychology/05tots.html?_r=0

[3] http://kidshealth.org/parent/positive/family/tv_affects_child.html

[4] http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-2567056/Educational-television-shows-not-help-young-children-develop-language.html

Phonological development of children's pronunciation

Trends in phonological development 

It is very hard to be precise about phonological development and the way in which vowels and consonants are acquired as it can differ massively from child to child. Here are a few of the trends researchers have identified:

• Command of all the vowels is achieved before all of the consonants 
• At four the child is likely to be having difficulty with only a few consonants 
• The child may be six or seven before confidence in using all vowels and consonants has been acquired
• The general, sounds that occur frequently in a large number of words will be acquired before sounds that occur less frequently
• To make words easier to say children will simplify their pronunciation is certain ways like deletion, e.g. final consonants might be dropped like the 't' in 'hat' and 'cat'

Another form of simplification is substituting harder sounds with easier ones:

• R becomes w
• Th becomes d, n or f 
• T becomes d
• P becomes b

Patterns of sound changes
As well as having difficulties with individual sounds, children often use patterns of 'shortcuts' to make words easier for them to say. There are many different types of these patterns - you may have heard the following in a young child's speech:

•  leaving out the final consonant in a word; for example, 'ca' for 'cat'
• dropping unstressed syllables; for example, 'nana' for 'banana'; 'sketti' for 'spaghetti'
• repeating the first syllable of a word; for example, 'bobo' for 'bottle'

These three patterns usually stop by the time a child is three and a half years of age. Some patterns may last for longer, such as reducing sound blends to one sound; for example, 'pug' for 'plug'.

Bibliography:
http://revisionworld.com/a2-level-level-revision/english-language/child-language-acquisition/phonological-development
http://www.kidshealth.org.nz/speech-sound-development

Analysing the CDS techniques used in 'Zach 2;4'

CDS Techniques-

Halla asks Zachy lots of open questions throughout the video, for example early on in the video Halla says "what Darling?" Halla does this to let Zachy talk and give him the power in the the conversation, the combination of interrogative and endearment helps to show that she is giving Zachy the power in the conversation. The use of tag questions comes up in the video too, for example Zachy says "(.) a banana (0.5) and 3 things in the banana (0.5)" Halla replies "a banana and what? (.) 3 things?". Another technique Halla uses is repetition, it seems that Halla often appears to repeat what Zachy says when he mispronounces a word like "frough" Halla will repeat the sentence using the correct pronunciation, this is seen when Zachy says "it doesn't go frough" Halla answers with "it doesn't go through? (.) why not" Halla does this to influence Zachy to copy her and attempt to pronounce the word correctly. Halla does this again with "bolognay" and "bolognaise". Halla makes sure to praise Zachy so he knows she is happy with him, this also influences Zachy to do it again and build up a routine. We see this when Halla says "you are a star (.) little man".

Peter Trudgill, Norwich Research

Peter Trudgill studied how people's speech varied throughout in Norwich in comparison to the rest of England. More specifically he studied the final consonant in words like running and walking. He established that in Norwich, the pronunciation walkin' and talkin' is frequently heard. 

Trudgill's study discovered the following:
1. In all social classes, the more careful the speech, the more likely people were to say walking rather than walkin'.
2. The proportion of walkin' type forms was higher in lower social classes.
3. The nonstandard -in' forms occurred much more often in men's speech than in women's, and this was true for all social classes.
4. When women were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the standard -ing forms more often than they really did.
5. When men were questioned about what they thought they were saying, they tended to say they used the nonstandard -in' forms more often than they really did.

 Robin Lakoff's Research

Robin Lakoff, in 1975, published an influential account of women's language. This was the book Language and Woman's Place. In a related article, Woman's language, she published a set of basic assumptions about what marks out the language of women. Among these are claims that women:

• Hedge: using phrases like “sort of”, “kind of”, “it seems like”,and so on.
• Use (super)polite forms: “Would you mind...”,“I'd appreciate it if...”, “...if you don't mind”.
• Use tag questions: “You're going to dinner, aren't you?”
• Speak in italics: intonational emphasis equal to underlining words - so, very, quite.
• Use empty adjectives: divine, lovely, adorable, and so on
• Use hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation: English prestige grammar and clear enunciation.
• Use direct quotation: men paraphrase more often.
• Have a special lexicon: women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
• Use question intonation in declarative statements: women make declarative statements into questions by raising the pitch of their voice at the end of a statement, expressing uncertainty. For example, “What school do you attend? Eton College?”
• Use “wh-” imperatives: (such as, “Why don't you open the door?”)
• Speak less frequently
• Overuse qualifiers: (for example, “I Think that...”)
• Apologize more: (for instance, “I'm sorry, but I think that...”)
• Use modal constructions: (such as can, would, should, ought - “Should we turn up the heat?”)
• Avoid coarse language or expletives
• Use indirect commands and requests: (for example, “My, isn't it cold in here?” - really a request to turn the heat on or close a window)
• Use more intensifiers: especially so and very (for instance, “I am so glad you came!”)
• Lack a sense of humour: women do not tell jokes well and often don't understand the punch line of jokes.

Lakoff suggested that women's language is deficient in comparison to men's language, this is shown in her findings, for example she concluded that women speak less, they apologize more than males and that women do not tell jokes well and often do not understand the punch lines of jokes. 

Language and Gender

I think that in some cases language varies quite significantly between genders. For example when males read something or talk about some they don't know they automatically make the assumption that the writer or the person they are talking about is a male. In speech we will relate to someone we don't know using "him" or "he". I don't know why we do this but it could perhaps be put down to unintentional sexism. I think this is because we live in a society where men believe we are superior to women. Women seem to have been placed in a lower position in society which is wrong. Most women cannot compete with men physically but it is absurd for them to be placed below men in society. Sexism in language has stemmed from a very long time ago when women had very few rights, there is no reason for sexism in language to have continued until now
The main scholars I found who have studied power and dominance thoroughly in speech are Spender, Zimmerman, West, O'Barr and Bowman.

Behaviour - Text Analysis

The very first thing that I noticed about the text was the title. 'Behaviour' is very clear and to the point. The reader is made aware right away of what the intentions of the writer are and what the letter is about. I feel as if the title gives off an instant negative feel to the entire letter.
I feel that an instrumental power is shown throughout the text through the use of specific lexical choices and the formal register used in the letter, this is almost known before you read the letter as it is written by someone working in a school.  In the letter the school repeats a lot of words, these include 'discipline', 'expect' and 'behaviour'. These words emphasise the negative tone in the text. I think the school repeated these words to drill the point of the letter into the mind of the reader. In the letter 'SELF DISCIPLINE' is written in capital letters. I think the school does this to draw readers attention back to the letter and to remind them what the letter is mainly about.

How has the language of the chat room text been influenced by technology?

How has the language of the chat room text been influenced by technology?

The new forms of technology have managed to change the world in what seems like overnight. One day there were hand written letters and phone calls, the next there were emails and text messages. Some people long for the good old days when communication was more personal. Some people love that they can simply type a message and click send. No matter what type of person you are though, there is no getting around the fact that technology has changed the spoken (and written) word forever.

The audience for this chat room is clearly people involved in the chat (people who listen to snow patrol). The overall register of the chat is very informal, there is no flow in the conversation and people in the chat are struggling to keep on topic. This text is multimodal, it is typed on a computer so it is written language although it is in a 'chat room' making it spoken language too. The purpose of the chat room is to get people talking about the release of snow patrols new album. 

The language used in the chat room seems as though it has been heavily influenced through the use of technology. You can see this based on the language used in the chat room. They initialise words like you to a simple 'u' and see to just 'c'. They do this as it is much easier and quicker than writing out a full word. One person in the chat room keeps using the word 'meh'. This is a word used only on the internet by people who are not that interested in what other people are saying. The person saying it clearly isn't interested in the topic of the chat room and just wants to aggravate the person trying to get answers to his question. 

In conclusion I think that it is evident that technology is changing the way people speak not only online but in real life too, more and more words being used in everyday activity online are being added to the English Dictionary every year, selfie, twerk and derp just to name a few. Some say it won't be long until internet speech dominates the English language, personally I disagree, I think it's just a phase but the internet is expanding more and more everyday.

Twitter Article:

I feel like the article on twitter acronyms and other twitter language was very good and went into good detail although some of the things listed were irrelevant as some of the acronyms are very rarely used on the social networking site as I know from first hand experience. Apart from the the few irrelevant points they also make many valid points. This is a very good article to use if you have just signed up for twitter and want to know what you are meant to do on the site as the writer clearly knows a great deal about this particular social networking site.

The article I found: http://techcrunch.com/2013/11/11/leveraging-the-specialization-of-our-species/

This article lists some great reasons why everyone should have a twitter account although some of the points made are debatable.

AS Language and Technology blog comments

I h8 txt msgs: How texting is wrecking our language.

I agree with many of the points stated in this blog although I do think the writer is over exaggerating slightly. John Humphrys makes a lot of great points in this text, the fact that the OED has removed the hyphen from 16,000 words is absolutely absurd. In my opinion Humphrys is over reacting at the fact that he believes all this stems from texting, lots of people don't text using words like gr8 and thks because it makes them look common, for this reason I do not think that texting is solely to blame for the recent changes in the OED.

Cn u txt?

Again I agree with a lot of the points made in the text but I still think it is all being extremely over exaggerated. I think adults look down on the younger generation and just assume we all text like illiterates who have never read a book before and this frustrates me. When ever I text I always try to write in standard English. How I see it and many others my age see it, if we text using poor grammar it will make us look unintelligent, nobody wants to look unintelligent. 

2b or not 2b?

I like how David Crystal has seen the other side of the argument in comparison to the other two writers. He compares words we use in text messages nowadays and words that people used before mobile phones were created dating back to 1618. I like how Crystal see's the positive side of texting and knows that it is absurd to believe that something like texting can ruin a generation. Crystal also understands why people dislike texting but goes on to say that technology is advancing and texting is part of new technology. 

ExtremeTech-http://www.extremetech.com/

I like this blog because I am very interested in current technology and I like to stay up to date with what is going on in the world of technology. This specific blog has lots of things to do on it. They update the blog everyday so there is always something new to look at. It is a very modern blog, made for people who love technology. 

Persuasive Travel Writing

Visit Bristol, there's lots to see.

Our tours of the city of Bristol are based around one thing. That one thing is you! We will provide with a selection of different tours. Scaling from 'The history of Bristol tour' where you can see the SS Great Britain and the Clifton Suspension Bridge to the 'Things to do in Bristol tour' where we will take you to the Bristol museum and other things such as @Bristol. It's a city designed for tourists with so many things to see and do. You should come and visit sometime. 

Geoffrey's monologue

Geoffrey is a vicar. He is medium height. He sits in his work chair in his office doing some paperwork. It is late in the afternoon.

Susan overslept again today, this is becoming reidiculous, God simply won't wait for people like her, she could of missed my spectacular sermon on sex! I began the sermon by apologising to all the churchgoers for forgetting to switch the boiler on in the church, i'm still yet to grasp how the boiler works, got a mind of its own. We had good numbers today, mainly because of the Holy Communion. Mr and Mrs Belcher were a good help today, Mrs Belcher read the lesson and Mr Belcher took the plate round. What a day for those two! 

I sometimes question Susan’s commitment to the church - and me infact now I come to think of it. Often she will give off a very sarcastic impression when she speaks about the church and never seems that interested in me anymore. Well, I think the sermon went very well. It got a good reception when I'm finished, I feel like I'm moving this town up in the world, really putting it on the map.

I am really excited about what is still to come for the church - and the town actually. It's really beginning to frustrate me how Susan is completely uninterested in everything I say and love. This marriage is going downhill, fast. (depressed laughter)

Entertaining Travel Writing

A Night in Motel 6

We were en route to the Grand Canyon. Eventually we found ourselves lost in the state of California driving around aimlessly, desperately looking for a place to stay. Finally we ended up in a deserted town on the outskirts of Cali. 

Dad looked at the fuel gage and realised we were almost out so we stopped for fuel. We pulled up to a small, rough 'gas station'. Dad got out, filled the tank, payed for the fuel and then got back into the car no problem. As we drive out of the 'gas station' I spotted bullet holes in the 40km/h sign on the side of the road. We continue to drive down the road, this time everyone in the car spots the bullet holes in every sign, more and more bullet holes as we drive further and further down the street. It was getting dark. We had to find somewhere to stay. Then, from the corner of my eye, I saw it. Motel 6.

It was like something from a horror movie. Picture an elderly man with a fishing net trying to retrieve a dead body from the 2x2 pool out the front. We got into our room. We locked the door, locked the windows and drew the curtains. We piled each of our suitcases on top of each other and pushed them against the door. Then all we could do was lie down on our stained mattresses and try to get some sleep. 

The Captain Newspaper Article

This piece of writing interests me greatly as I read the newspaper often and enjoy hearing what the sports writers have to say about recent events in sport. I have picked out this article as I am interested to see what the ex England rugby captain, Lewis Moody, has to say on injuries he has picked up in his career and his view on injuries in general.


I like the way this article is written as it has been written by Lewis Moody so we get a first hand experience of what he had to deal with during his rugby career, the injuries he got and what can be done to stop them. I like how he uses quite normal language showing he isn't a writer but people like me can relate easily as it isn't written in a sophistocated way like some sports writers do. This enables me to really get a sense and understand what he is saying and almost relate to him.


In conclusion I suggest this article to anyone who is vaguely interested in rugby or general sport as it is a good read and Moody gives us a real insight into his career. It shows us that he is just a normal guy who really enjoyed playing rugby for club and country.