English Language

According to B F skinner (1953) imitation and reinforcement are basic learning structures for learning, which is used by not only humans but animals too. In terms of child language acquisition this is the process of a child learning, understanding and correctly interpreting language. This “active” process is called operant conditioning, which consists of 3 types of consequences of behaviour, these are; Positive reinforcement – is receiving a reward when certain behaviour is performed, for example a parent praising their child for correcting pronouncing a word or standard phrase or utterance, to praise them in the hope they will replicate this in the future. This is evident in text A, where Tom who is age 2years; 7months is talking to his parents but in this text he is helping mend bikes with his mother and father. E.g. Echoing “I need to fix dad’s bike OK” “you need to fix Dad’s bike”, this is a form of positive reinforcement because the parent is clearly agreeing with the child...

Hypothesis - How does language differ for men and women, when they participate in gender bias sporting activities?    This would involve analysing commentary of live matches or performances or interviews with the athletes; How are the questions constructed differently? Is there different types of language used for different genders? Is the vocabulary different, when describing different gendered athletes? Is one gender favoured over there other for a particular sport? Data will be collected by watching videos from the Olympic games, I will transcribe at least 3 events from each sport, for both men and women. Ethics - The videos are able to view online, so the public is able to view them. Meaning I can analyse not only what is being said but also the atmosphere and peoples reactions without ethically violating them. Reliability - Although the athletes are being the fact they are being film would not affect what they say in the interviews, a...

*Word of mouth* This podcast how children construct and interpret language, in most cases over extending a term that they already know. Interestingly some parents end up using the child's language in everyday life, meaning that it takes the child longer to differentiate between the wrong and right term.

Michael Halliday’s ‘Learning how to mean’ proposed seven main ‘functions’ that spurred a child to want to use language. FUNCTION WHAT IT IS WHAT IT’S USED FOR   INSTRUMENTAL Language used to fulfil a speaker’s need Directly concerned with obtaining food, drink comfort etc . e.g. ‘I want’   REGULATORY Used to influence the behaviour of others Persuading / commanding / requesting other people do as you want ‘daddy push’ (child on swing)   INTERACTIONAL Used to develop social relationships and ease interaction The Phatic dimension of talk eg ‘hello’     PERSONAL   Used to express personal preferences / the speaker’s identity Sometimes referred to the ‘here I am!’ function – conveys attitudes, expresses feelings INFORMATIVE Used to communicate information Relaying or requesting information eg ‘I got a new doll   HEURISTIC Used to learn and explore the environment Using language to learn – this may be questions or answers or the kind of runni...

This article is trying to persuade the reader that women rights are just as significant in 3rd world countries, as they are in the rest of the world. The benefits of educating women Article 26 of the 1948 Universal Declaration of Human Rights states that “everyone has the right to education.” The fact that almost half the women in sub-Saharan Africa are illiterate shows that these women are clearly not being delivered the human rights they deserve. Educating women is just as important as educating men; indeed educating women provides additional benefits. It has been proved that women who receive an education enjoy improved health benefits. For example, they have better maternal health because they are more likely to have children when they are older due to marrying later, more likely to space out their pregnancies and have 2.2 fewer children, and more likely to seek health care assistance when needed. Such benefits to the mother also reduce the number of deaths that occur during...

When kids mangle language we all benefit Clangernackys, needs and poodles, strangled eggs – young children don’t just invent language, they spruce it up as they learn to talk ‘When children get words skew-whiff, our language remains vibrant’ … Nicola Skinner with her daughter, Polly. Photograph: Adrian Sherratt for the Guardian Nicola Skinner Saturday 9 January 2016 06.30 GMT Last modified on Saturday 9 January 2016 10.00 GMT Helping a tiny baby to learn your language is like building a bonfire with words for twigs. Nothing happens for ages. You keep putting the bloody twigs on and trudging back and forth in a cold, damp field. You may have a faulty pelvic floor and much rather be watching something on the telly with a towel under your bum, but bonfires don’t build themselves, do they? Talking to babies boosts their brain power, studies show Children whose parents speak to them least fare worst in language tests, lagging behind by up to six months at age t...

'This is the information age, a period of history when various methods of mass communication have exposed people at every level of society to an enormous and continuously growing amount of information.' This book explores theories, research and practical application of children's language studies. Psychologists such as John B Watson who is a world renowned behaviourist, are featured in the book. Specifically how children learn, applying his theory of classical and operant conditioning. This is where he suggests that through the manipulation of the environment, children could be trained to do anything. If I was to use this book, I would investigate the ways in which children learn and use children with different capabilities. Author(s) surname Initials Year first published Title Edition Place published Publisher Bee and Boyd HB and DB 2...

Intended audience; someone with limited specialist knowledge on language/gender theory. Is the dictionary sexist? The Oxford dictionary has said it will review the sentence example for ‘rabid’; which is defined as “ irrationally extreme in opinion”, using the sentence example of a “Rabid Feminist”. The publisher of the dictionary was taken to task by Canadian anthropologist Michael Oman-Reagan. He tweeted to the publisher of the dictionary, proposing that he consider changing it. Oman-Reagan, who is doing a PhD at the Memorial University of Newfoundland, also suggested that he reconsider adapting other “explicitly sexist examples” that had been included in the published copy of the dictionary. Other explicit sentence examples were used for the following words; Ø   Shrill – “the rising shrill of women’s voices” Ø   Psyche – “I will never find the Phantom the female psyche” Ø   Grating – “Her high, grating voice” Ø   Nagging – “nagging wife” ...

Speech on language – A-Level students Mr, Mrs, Miss and Ms Hello, my name is Lily. First and foremost I would like to thank you all for taking the time out of your busy timetables to hear my speech. Today I am going to deliver a speech to you about the use of nouns that are used every day in language, and the underlying meaning that can be associated with them. Now, when you are writing to someone who has is for example a professional of some sort, we would use the formal address of Mr or Miss, sir or madam etc. However if we knew them on a personal level or if a company knew the marital status of the person they were addressing, they would use either Mr, Mrs or the perhaps the undistinguished ‘Ms’. Are you noticing a pattern with the male noun? It never changes; it is sophisticated and doesn’t reveal any information about the man in question. Whereas the Female noun uses are very intrusive and can carry both positive and negative connotations. Each of the nouns has an ‘ u...

FedEx is an incredibly successful American global courier delivery service, founded in 1971. Activity 11   Since then the company has become so success that it has expanded its branch by adopting subsidiary companies (FedEx would own more than 50 per cent of another company), their revenue to date conjures to a whopping 47.5 billion dollars. The Logo of the company is so widely recognised, it is only on close analysis that the arrow between the “E” and “x” is identified. The arrow points to the right, this could represent movement. For example, the courier service is always on the move because the packages are constantly being moved to different locations until they reach their destinations. The company also ensure that the logo and ‘arrow meaning’ is visible even in different languages where cultures and interpretations of the direction of the arrow is wrong.   The Arabic FedEx logo is similar graphically with the colours and format of the logo being the same. However...

We represent ourselves by not only what we say but the way and formality in which we deliver it, meaning that you can infer characteristics based on this. For example, someone who has long periods of airtime in a conversation can be seen as a “confident” individual.   However, when you look at the amount of hedges, indirect commands and minor sentences such as “um and erm” they produced immediately change the way they are represented and received. Their persona goes from confident to doubtful and uncertain. Pin pointing a particular “way” in which you speak, is difficult because when you are asked this we automatically begin to change our natural speech.   This results in using “demand characteristics”, which is where we change our behaviour and speech to fit in with the way we think we should behave. This gives us a false indication of the way in which someone is represented because it lacks reality. Schegloff’s conversation model, suggest that “conversations are like ...