Childs language and creative writing monologue

The two posts I read were 'A Day in My Language Life' on children's language and 'Laurie' a monologue in the creative writing section, as I do Creative Writing at AS and am planning on doing this for my coursework. It also goes with my Language coursework as most of Zoellas videos could be considered monologues, though the post is scripted and fictional. 

'Babies’ lips are highly developed through months of sucking in order to feed, and these sounds are therefore simply the easiest for them to make.' I was not aware of this before reading and had never thought about it before and believe this context is important and may help me remember m p b w, the sounds that she is talking about. 

I found it interesting that she used turn taking from a very early age - as her twins were only ten months old. 

There was a significant difference in age for her other child who was five year old and when she did not say please she modelled the politeness convention 'please' for her to repeat, backing up the behaviourists as she copies her mother. 

In the monologue the writer has a great way of changing the tone of the character, emphasising this with stage directions before changing the tone as if it is a realisation of hers. The topic of the monologue is heartfelt and used with great imagery. The way that she uses other voices throughout what she says shows the impact that they have on her as she lists them, showing how they seem to keep being said to her, suffocating her when she already feels that why by herself. The imagery of her scars 'snaking over her skin' has cynical connotations.

Vlogs

Three year old on Star Warks

Well (1) well (2) ok (1) the sand people capsure robots and drive in sellum in roz sale it’s kind of like roz sale but escept they’re selling robots (0.5) and no one’s going to buy R-two and the siney guy

This siney guy always worries (v)

(.) Luke’s gonna buy those

(2) N Obi Kinobi kund of a teetsur (.) he’s teetsing Luke (.) how to learn how to do his little light up sord he’s to try to block the little pokey ball (.) hh he tried to do it without (v) seeing (0.5) Obi Kinobi sometimes move things around  (.) sometimes he’s disappears

(2) Princess Leia got out of jail and out of the spacesip and they got (0.5) the big thing that blowed up stuff itwe blowed it up together (^) it blowed up princess Leia’s planet (^) (1) but don’t talk back (0.5) to Darf Vader (.) he’ll getchya

(1) Its an exciting (^) movie

Zoella’s Chatty April Favourites:

Zoe:

So you stay focused on my hand – no (.) not my face my hand (.) ughh (2) hand (4) come back to the hand (.) okay (1) I’m hoping this is in focus (.) dear god (v) (.) alright loves (^) that’s something I’ve really missed saying since I’ve not lived in Wiltshire (.) awright loves (^) how yo goin’ (.) yo aight (^) aw good (.) good yeah (1) itsa propa Wiltshire that (.) shout out to all those Wilt-Wiltshirians Wiltshire-Wiltshire people (1) missing ya

(sing song voice) I’m gonna do a favourites (^)(.) it’s been a while I didn’t do a favourites in March cause a I was ill (.) b I was in playlist c I cant be bothered to read off any more excuses (.) I just didn’t do one (.) so I’ve got a lot of things I want to go through so I’m going to get started (.) so I’ve got some random favourites in here as well (.) it’s not all beauty it’s a right (.) old (.) mixture (.) first one I have already shown you in my laast video (0.5) or the video before that (0.5) the-the make up video (.) which is the archery brow tint and precision – precisheyon- precision shaper for your eyebrows this is by soap and glory I don’t know if I just said that and I just love it (^) I have to admit I’ve used it every day now for the last six weeks and the felt tip which is the end I really really like is starting to dry up so I’m going to have to look into buying a new one 

Both of these texts are a type of vlog, even though the three year old may not be aware of this and only think she is talking to a parent holding the camera whereas Zoe is very aware of who her audience is, this is very likely to have a large affect on the outcome. Zoe has grown an audience over time and has quite a relationship with them, to the point that she is quite open with showing her incorrect way of saying 'precision' to the point that as she finds it funny, she emphasises it. However, the child does not give consent to the video going on the internet and the audience is a one off as the video is a stand alone and Zoe's videos on the same topic are monthly. 

The purpose of both of these vlogs is to inform/entertain. The child informs of her take on the Star Wars film and Zoe explains her 'favourites' of the month, therefore opinions are very important for both videos. Though Zoe is much older than the child and has a better grasp on the language she uses, she purposely uses incorrect pronunciation to show off accents, unlike the child who does not understand.

Twitter Feeds

In our discussion we looked at twitter and the amount of power people have in their accounts - the amount of followers they have, the amount they follow etc. For example, if somebody has a lot of followers due to their occupation (Prime Minister, having celebrity status) they may have instrumental power which they then turn to influential power through their tweets. If they do not follow many people, the people they do follow are more dominant on their twitter feed, for example in the extract, Mark is on the persons timeline quite constantly, giving him more power. However, the person following Mark still has power as they have the option to unfollow Mark, yet Mark still remains to have more control as he may not follow the person back and if he does not want the person back and if he does not want the person following them to follow them, they can then block them.

Dominance theory

The Dominance Gender Theory is that the male in the conversation is more likely to have control of what is being said as it is thought that the males use the English language and it is theirs as women’s language is just a route of this due to their position in society politically, therefore the man would have more power in the unbalanced discussion. This could be by interrupting more when interacting with females, using more imperative sentences than the women who is likely to be more pragmatic and also the women using more hedges such as ‘kind of,’ ‘a little,’ as well as tag questions.

Zimmerman and West analysed mix sex conversations and found that in 11 different conversations men interrupted 46 times in contrast to women only interrupting twice. However, the small sample of 11 conversations shows that there could have been one very dominant male character who interrupted much more than any other person that they analysed.

Geoffrey Beattie however argues that interruptions do not always just show dominance but can be for different reasons such as a disagreement, more information to give forward, or simply being interested in the subject being spoken of. Beattie also recorded mix sex conversations, totalling to 10 hours’ worth of discussion, a lot more than Zimmerman and West used, and found that men interrupted only slightly more by 0.3 than women.

 Robin Lakoff’s theory is that the men generally used more hypercorrect grammar and were to be funnier than women and that women hedged more, used tag questions, apologised, paraphrased and used more intensifiers.

 Techniques associated with these ways of speaking:

For men:

·         More interruptions

·         More imperative sentences

·         More paraphrasing

·         Less likely to hedge

·         Less likely to tag questions

For women:

·         More likely to hedge

·         More likely to tag questions

·         More intensifiers

·         More likely to use pragmatic understanding

·         Less likely to interrupt

·         Less imperative sentences

 Examples of these techniques in spoken texts:

A is a male

B is a female

A: How would’ja like to go to a movie later on tonight?

B: Huh?=

A: A movie y’know like a like (.) a flick?

B: Yeah I uh know what a movie is (8) it’s just that=

A: You don’t know me well enough?

The male uses direct questions to the point that he can become quite challenging in his last question, already guessing what she is about to say it becomes quite rude as he is rejected.

How these techniques can be applied to real written texts:

In this advert they use the intensifier ‘a little’ which is suggested by Robin Lakoff to be used by women throughout their speech much more commonly than men. 

Bibliography

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/gender.htm#dominance

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/showthread.php?t=1107296

Transcript: http://www.stanford.edu/~eckert/PDF/zimmermanwest1975.pdf

Women’s advert: http://www.morallymarketed.com/case-studies/bobbi-brown-marketing-true-beauty/

Grouping texts - to inform

Out of the six texts four of them are used to inform the reader to a certain extent. However text E is questionable to what extent it is informing, for the conversation to carry on and for the transaction to be complete they both rely on each other's information. The language used in both text B and text D is imperative, though text D uses low frequency lexis words that are likely to really be understood by its target audience as the formality is high also, this is similar to the formal register in text A which is just information to an audience who would already be interested in the topic as the advertisement on The Globe is in The Globe, so those who are reading it would already be there and likely just be after more information. This is similar for Text B as it is in a magazine that when being read would have already been bought and therefore the reader would be interested in this as it is a cookery magazine and the whole magazine's purposes are therefore to inform. The imperative recipe is more formal than the introduction, where a friendly, rhetorical question is used as well as tasty adjectives to entice the reader to go on and learn about how they can make the 'good-quality,' 'thick, dorset creame,' recipe, therefore the language is doing its job well to get the audience to be informed.

28/02/14

Target: to learn more terminology and practice creating plans.
Task: find a text and annotate it with all terminology that you know, then go over it with the terminology booklet, adding more. Create an overall question that is likely to come up in the exam and plan an essay for it, including all the terminology you have found. Priorities the most important points you want to make, linking them so that the essay would flow.

Extract from Modern Family:
Cameron Tucker: There are dreamers and there are realists in this world. You'd think the dreamers would find the dreamers, and the realists would find the realists, but more often than not the opposite is true. You see, the dreamers need the realists to keep them from soaring too close to the sun. And the realists, well without the dreamers, they might not ever get off the ground. 
Mitchell Pritchett: It was a supportive "wah-wah". 
Cameron Tucker: There is no supportive "wah-wah". A "wah-wah" by its very nature is spiteful, nasty and undercutting. 

Extract from interview with The Maine.

What is the meaning behind the new album title "Pioneer"?

John: I got sick and tired of hearing people say that everything happens for a reason, ‘cause I don’t believe that. I believe that anything you would like to do, you can do with your own two hands and your own functioning brain, and I feel like whatever path it is that you want to embark on, you are more than capable of doing so by yourself, and that’s kind of why I named it that.

Pat: It’s all about doing your own thing, forging your own path. We recorded the record ourselves, and we’re doing everything ourselves. We’re paying for it ourselves, we’re releasing it ourselves, and we’re just doing our own thing.

Where have you been recording the album at?

Pat: El Paso, Texas.

Ok, now what’s going on with the November 21st date, I hear that’s not the actual day the album’s coming out?

John: It’s not necessarily the exact date, we’re still figuring that out. We’re putting it out on our own, and we’re paying for it all on our own, and you have to go through a distribution company. We have to figure out what date they can put it out on.

So I guess the better question is, is it going to come out while the Pioneer tour is happening?

John: It definitely will come out during the tour!

The rule of three is used in both of these texts. Pat says of how 'we're paying for it ourselves, we're releasing it ourselves, and we're just doing our own thing' to emphasize how much they are doing it alone by repeating 'ourselves' throughout, it shows how united and together they are by doing their 'own thing' implying they have common interests as  a band. In the Modern Family extract, Cam describing the noise 'wah-wah' as 'spiteful, nasty and undercutting' to show just how much he disagrees with it as spiteful is not enough to describe his feelings towards it. 

The purpose of these two texts are to entertain and inform together. Cam's monologue becomes more political and speech like than talking of his actual feelings, he conveys his emotions and ideals through two types of people, hoping to relate to someone who is listening or watching the show. 

Language and power

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MXUQQtXjlrM - Educating Yorkshire clip

http://www.theguardian.com/education/mortarboard/2011/sep/16/language-skills-job-requirement - article on language and power

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=jwmZDUbugdg - Obama's speech clip
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2009/10/11/obamas-speech-text-transc_n_316844.html - Obama's speech transcript

http://www.alterthepress.com/2013/05/atp-interview-maine-2013.html - interview with John O'callaghan of The Maine

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=PC9fH-4Xzjg - modern family clip