Me and my guitar

..are finally together again. Tidligere i dag satt jeg på rommet mitt og klimpret på gitaren. Så kom Georgia inn for å si noe til meg. Hun stopper opp, får et litt rart uttrykk i ansiktet, og går sakte bort til meg.. så tar hun på gitaren og sier overrasket  'You brang it!'. 'Yes, my dad brought it for me', sier jeg. Så smiler hun. 'Can I have a go?'. Og så fikk hun prøve å spille. 'This is a tune I made up', sier hun, og spiller på A-strengen. 'Ok', sier jeg, og prøver å lære henne å trykke ned en streng mens hun spiller, men det viste seg å ikke være så lett. Men øvelse gjør mester - jeg skal nok få lært henne noe i løpet av de neste 5 månedene.

Eksamen

Da var eksamen i English Language over and done with. Det var veldig vanskelig, og jeg utnyttet den ekstra halvtimen min for å si det sånn. Jeg hadde håpet at det ene transcriptet skulle handle om språk og kvinner, eller språk og makt - men i stedet var det om tre menn fra Nord-England som hadde accents. (/ə/ know /iːz/ scary. dʒa know what /ə/ mean) Og det var liksom det eneste jeg klarte å kommentere ordentlig på... De andre ble sånn halvferdige paragrafer. Og på den andre delen, den som handlet om barn, gikk jeg helt blank når jeg leste transcriptet. Men der klarte jeg i hvertfall og skrive et passe langt essay. Derimot klarte jeg ikke å linke til theorists - og når man ikke gjør det, kan man visst ikke oppnå mer enn en D - så jeg var litt frustrert og skrev noe som 'dette kan ikke linkes til NNN fordi...', haha. 

Jeg er veldig glad for å være ferdig med det i hvert fall. Jeg gjorde mitt beste. Forresten så var det sånn vi satt: 

Bilde fra Wikipedia, men det var faktisk akkurat sånn det var.

Nå bare chiller jeg, og så nettopp denne videoen. Må bare smile når jeg ser charliissocoollike's videoer:

AS English Language - #2: Language in social contexts

AS English Language

#2: Language in Social Contexts

Language and Gender

There seem to be a difference between how men and women use language, but no-one seems to be sure exactly what they are or why they occur.  Studies have shown that women tend to use accents from a higher social class than men:

Peter Trudgill (1983) studied men and women’s social accents and found that women’s pronunciation was closer to Received Pronunciation (RP), the accent that is usually seen as the most prestigious. Using Standard English and RP gives a person overt prestige – the prestige of being associated with a respectable, well-off section of society. 

Cheshire (1982) studied the speech of adolescent girls and boys and found that boys tended to use more non-standard grammatical forms than girls. Using non-standard English gives a person covert prestige. They seem a bit rebellious and independent. Men are more likely to seek covert prestige than women. This may be to be respected by friends, colleagues, or others.

Lakoff (1975) identified features she felt were characteristic of women's speech: hedges and fillers, apologestic requests, tag questions and indirect requests. She also pointed out that women tend to speak less than men, use fewer expletives and more intensifiers. She argues that these features reflected women’s inferior social status. She said that women’s language is weak compared to men’s language, and this prevents women from being taken seriously. This explanation is called the deficit model.

O’Barr and Atkins (1980) suggested an alternative explanation to the deficit model. They analysed American courtroom trials, and found that male and female witnesses who were of low social status and/or inexperienced with the courtroom practices, both showed many of the liguistic features that Lakoff labelled female. This suggests that the kind of language Lakoff describes as female is not only found in women, but might be more to do with individuals feeling powerless.

Cameron (2007) argues that there are few differences between men and women’s language, and situation affects how people speak much more than gender.

Language can be explained in terms of dominance and difference. Zimmerman and West (1975) recorded interruptions in conversations between men and women, and found that 96% of the interruptions were by men. This suggested that men are more dominant in male-female conversation, and Zimmerman and West therefore argued that this reflects dominance in society. On the other hand, Tannen (1990) described male and female conversational style in terms of difference. Men are concerned with status and independence, whilst women are interested in forming bods. Men give direct orders and don’t mind conflict, whilst women usually give polite, indirect orders and try to avoid conflict. Also, men are interested in gaining factual information and finding solutions to problems, whilst women aim to show understading by compromising, and offering support rather than solutions.

There are problems with these explanations. Other researchers have cast doubts on some of the explanations of differences in male and female language. Beattie (1982) suggested that interruptions could be supportive and show that the person is listening. Cameron (2007) argues that a lot of research is biased because there has been more focus on the differences between male and female language, rather than the similarities.


Les mer = Read more...

AS English Language - #1: Varieties of English

AS English Language

#1: Varieties of English

Register and Mode

Register is the type of language used in different situations. Deciding which register is appropriate to use depends on several factors: the relationship between the speaker and the audience, the purpose, the field (subject being talked about), and the form. Whether the register is appropriate depends on the context it’s used in. Usin informal language in a formal situation is inappropriate because it could seem disrespectful or rude. Using formal language in an informal situation could sound unfriendly and stuffy.

Registers vary in terms of lexis, grammar and phonology. A conversation between to specialists would contain technical vocabulary that they would both understand. Register can affect syntax - the word order. Some registers even have grammatical constructions that are specific to them, like the legalese. The informal register involves things like dropping the /h/ and missing a /g/. Generally speaking, the more formal a situation is the more likely people are to modify their accent so it’s closer to RP.

Accent and Dialect

A dialect is a variation in language, with it’s own features of vocabulary, grammar and pronunciation. It is different to accent because it refers to the specific words you use, not just how you say them. The term dialect is usually used to describe language that is particular to a specific geographical region. There are also some variations in terms of social background (sociolect and idiolect).

An accent can be a feature of a dialect, but it just refers to how you say words, not the words themselves. Accents can be affected by regional or social background.

People have different attitudes towards dialects and accents as they highlight social class differences. This was illustrated by Shaw’s comment: “No Englishman can open his mouth without making some other Englishman hate or despise him”. Standard English is a social dialect and is usually associated with educated, middle and upper class people. It is the language of formal speech and writing, and what you are taught in school.

Workman (2008) studied people’s perceptions of different accents. The participants listened to recordings of different accents while they looked at photos of people. It was found that participants rated the intelligence of the people in the photos differently, depending on which accent they thought they had. Results: Yorkshire = most intelligent. Birmingham =least intelligent. This shows how strong the stereotypes of different accents can be.

Les mer = Read more.....

Stop procrastinating

Kremt.. Fikk nettopp forklaringen på hvorfor jeg tar meg pauser i øvinga når jeg ikke fortjener det..

Han lager så bra videoer, og er morsom.. nerdete.. og genial!  

I am currently procrastinating by watching this video... haha :)

Bloggpause pga eksamen

Hei! Jeg har fått noen kommentarer på at 'jeg er så flink til å oppdatere bloggen min' og at 'jeg er heldig som har tid til det'. Truth is, egentlig har jeg ikke tid til det, haha. Men jeg tar meg tid til det fordi jeg elsker det. Jeg liker å skrive. Og jeg ønsker å dele med familien hjemme hva jeg opplever her. Men uansett hvor mange få som leser bloggen min, så blogger jeg mest for min egen del, og for å kunne se tilbake på året mitt i England når jeg drar hjem igjen.

Anyway. Det jeg egentlig skulle si i dette innlegget: neste uke tar jeg pause fra bloggen! Ikke fordi jeg er lei, eller ikke orker - men av den enkle grunn at jeg har eksamen i English Language fredag den 13. og derfor må prøve å fokusere fullt og helt på den. Den teller 60% av sluttkarakteren min, så den er pretty important. Per i dag er jeg ganske worried for hvordan det kommer til å gå....... Det eneste som kommer til å bli publisert her (nei, jeg klarer ikke holde meg helt borte fra bloggen), er eksamen-stoff. Skrev for en stund siden at jeg skulle publisere noe...

Må dele disse videoene med dere: Charlie McDonnell's videoblogger. Morsom. Have fun watching! Den første beviser, i mine øyne øre, at britisk er ti ganger finere enn amerikansk :)

London fireworks