This study was taken place on an island 3 miles off New England on the US East Coast called Martha Vineyard. This study was focused on the social influences on different dialects, Labov collected data by interviewing multiple informants talking about topics that would involve words with desired vowels. Labov found that the islanders chose to differentiate from the mainlands as they rejected the values and resented the intrusion of tourists. The islanders did this as they wanted to establish themselves as an independent social group with superior status to tourists.
This study was relevant because until then dialect change only focused on rural factors not social factors but based on Labov's study the conclusion was that social factors were most important factors to dialect change. Labov established that a number of factors were involved in dialect change not just locale, he also established that prestige matters (over and covert)
Bibliographies:
http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/research/vinyard.html
http://www.mvtimes.com/2011/08/16/50-years-language-study-began-marthas-vineyard-6918/
Thursday, 10 December 2015
Jennifer Lawrence
Contexual Features of the text
After the Sony hacking scandal Sony had sensitive information leaked on the world wide web, this information included the wages of what some stars made in a movie. this exposed that the females were being paid a significant amount less than the male stars in the movie. The context of Jennifer Lawrence's article is her responding to the news about how she made less money than her colleagues this news has left Jennifer Lawrence both upset and angry this led to her writing this article on the issue.
'Male' and 'Female' language
Jennifer Lawrence supports and contradicts Lakoff's theory about men and women speaking differently. Throughout Jennifer Lawrence's article she uses both male and female language such as 'fuck that' taboo words are more frequent among men this is because they are seen as terrible words with bad meaning behind them. Throughout Jennifer Lawrence's article she frequently uses taboo words, this is seen as a male way of speaking because as the typical stereo type is that men swear more than women. Jennifer Lawrence is very direct when writing her article as she uses many imperatives and many swear words to get her point across and to try and make the reader feel her anger, this constantly contradicts Robin Lakoff's theory. Throughout the article Jennifer Lawrence does not include a lot of humour which supports Lackoff's theory as she says 'women do not have a sense of humour' however she does include a few sarky comments such as 'i found out how much less i was being paid than the lucky people with dicks',
Conclusion
I agree with her point that men use their dominant nature to get what they want. Whereas females may not take the same approach as males to get what they want as they may use indirect requests such as stated in Robin Lakoff's theory
After the Sony hacking scandal Sony had sensitive information leaked on the world wide web, this information included the wages of what some stars made in a movie. this exposed that the females were being paid a significant amount less than the male stars in the movie. The context of Jennifer Lawrence's article is her responding to the news about how she made less money than her colleagues this news has left Jennifer Lawrence both upset and angry this led to her writing this article on the issue.
'Male' and 'Female' language
Jennifer Lawrence supports and contradicts Lakoff's theory about men and women speaking differently. Throughout Jennifer Lawrence's article she uses both male and female language such as 'fuck that' taboo words are more frequent among men this is because they are seen as terrible words with bad meaning behind them. Throughout Jennifer Lawrence's article she frequently uses taboo words, this is seen as a male way of speaking because as the typical stereo type is that men swear more than women. Jennifer Lawrence is very direct when writing her article as she uses many imperatives and many swear words to get her point across and to try and make the reader feel her anger, this constantly contradicts Robin Lakoff's theory. Throughout the article Jennifer Lawrence does not include a lot of humour which supports Lackoff's theory as she says 'women do not have a sense of humour' however she does include a few sarky comments such as 'i found out how much less i was being paid than the lucky people with dicks',
Conclusion
I agree with her point that men use their dominant nature to get what they want. Whereas females may not take the same approach as males to get what they want as they may use indirect requests such as stated in Robin Lakoff's theory
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