How to talk to anyone: the experts' guide

Article 2

This article, written by Rosie Ifould highlights some of the main tips for talking to your children, parents, strangers and bosses. It includes interviews and quotes from family therapist Karen Holford, Susan RoAne, Dr Ayan Panja, Dan Williams and Madeleine Mason, Linda Blair and David Cairncross.

Karen Holford gives the advice that when speaking to children, we should try to understand what they are saying instead of picking up on mistakes of language. This will help them to realise that we are listening and do care, as well as asking questions - this makes us seem like we are listening, even if we aren't. 'Try to meet your child’s emotions, rather than telling them how to feel.'

Susan RoAne, the author of 'How To Work A Room' speaks about how to talk to strangers. At first, the situation may be awkward, but we need to remember 'that most people in any room feel uncomfortable' and we need to accommodate them, because the chances are that they're feeling the same way.

Step away from your phone: The new rules of conversation

Article 1

This article written by Oliver Burkeman highlights the idea that people, especially kids are living in a virtual world while simultaneously living in reality.

Burkeman speaks about the attitudes we have towards each other and how when in public, we don't act how we used to around people. he states that he has witnessed people communicating on their phones with other people, while being face to face with someone initiating a conversation. He explains that situations like these are what is dividing us - 'We’re more connected than ever, yet we talk – really talk – less and less.'

The fact that people use online social media in order to create a virtual life for themselves may be a way for us to completely change ourselves, with no real life implications. Obviously there are exceptions; many problems occur online. However, we can be whoever we want to be because we are simply behind a screen. Contrastingly, he says 'Anyway, don’t we edit ourselves offline just as much as in cyberspace – in our choice of clothes and haircut and makeup and the books we carry on the train?'

The overall verdict of this article is that we are increasingly using social media which is affecting our social skills in every day life. Even kids are becoming 'skilled' at multi tasking - concentrating on their phones while keeping a conversation going.

Stereotypes with Language and Gender

Here are some main ideas about how the stereotypes of men and women portray people.

• Women gossip
• Men are strong and silent
• Women talk about domestic and personal trivia
• Men talk about important things such as business, money and government
• Women have soft and gentle voices
• Women screech
• Men have deep, reassuring tones
• Men convey confidence and authority

You Don't Hate Feminism. You Just Don't Understand It.

http://www.thedailybeast.com/articles/2014/07/24/you-don-t-hate-feminism-you-just-don-t-understand-it.html#

This article written by Emily Shire perfectly highlights the point that feminists are often misunderstood. She explains that men and a lot of women don't support the aim of feminism, but only because they have not fully grasped the concept of it.

 

The Women Against Feminism campaign has seemed to attract a number of people. 'The Tumblr started in the summer of 2013. The Facebook group, which was created in January 2014, has 12,000 likes'. This suggests that it's more than just a few people who have lost their way that support this movement. Even singer and public idol Katy Perry said 'I am not feminist, but I do believe in the power of women.' She recently changed her view after learning and realising the real aims of feminists. 'At its most core basic level, feminism is about equality between the sexes, not advancing one over the other.'

 

So, the overall opinion of this article seems to be that anyone and everyone that believes in equal rights between men and women is a feminist. 'People do not realize you can be a feminist and pro-life. You can be a feminist and a stay-at-home mom. You can be a feminist and disagree with the birth control mandate of Obamacare.'

Kirsty Wark: Blurred Lines



Kirsty Wark: Blurred Lines - The New Battle of the Sexes

Key points highlighted from this programme shown on BBC are:

• Men feel as if they can speak about women in a negative and derogatory way
• A major influence to how genders are treated is technology
• Technology allows people to write and share comments - much more permanent online
• Forms of prejudice often stem from humour and are explained as banter
• Acceptability of offensive language towards women can depend on context and outside factors
• Sexism has moved from private to public
• Sexist humour can facilitate sexism

Deborah Cameron

Deborah Cameron in Verbal Hygiene (1995)

• Throughout Western culture the masculine/male has been the unmarked normality in the language
• The feminine/female is the marked form for language
• E.g. Unmarked male forms used to be 'manager', 'usher' and 'Paul'
• E.g Marked female forms used to be 'manageress', 'usherette' and 'Pauline'

The 3Ds

3 theorists: Jennifer Coates, Deborah Tannen and Robin Lakoff thought of 3 factors in which langauge and gender is effected by:
Difference - Deborah Tannen (1989)

• Sees women as belong to different 'sub-cultures' 
• Women are differently socialised from childhood onwards
•  Women are naturally more timid and shy when it comes to being in conversation
• 'The desire to affirm that women are equal has made some scholars reluctant to show that they are different. There are gender differences in ways of speaking, and we need to identify and understand them'

Dominance - Jennifer Coates (1993)

• Women are the oppressed group
• Men are the dominant gender and women subordinate more
• We live in a patriarchal society
• Males dominate the world and positions of power and authority
• Women try to avoid conflict and hurting feelings

 Deficit - Robin Lakoff (1975)

• Male language is more powerful, more prestigious and more desirable
•  Women speak less frequently 
• Women use hedges ('sort of', 'kind of')
• Super polite forms
• Apologise more frequently
• Use tag questions
• Lakoff admits 'It is my impression, though I do not have precise statistical evidence'

What Language Barrier?

http://www.theguardian.com/world/2007/oct/01/gender.books

The author of the book 'Men are from Mars, Women are from Venus' Deborah Cameron speaks about the language and general difference between men and women.

One situation talked about in the article is how more women are employed in a call centre simply because 'women are naturally good at that sort of thing.' Women are believed to just possess these kinds of skills. But one of the issues surrounding men and women's fields of work is a theory made by author Baron-Cohen. 'People with the female brain make the most wonderful counsellors, primary school teachers, nurses, carers, therapists, social workers, mediators, group facilitators or personnel staff ... People with the male brain make the most wonderful scientists, engineers, mechanics, technicians, musicians, architects, electricians, plumbers, taxonomists, catalogists, bankers, toolmakers, programmers or even lawyers.' Notice the difference between the pay of these jobs. Clearly the women are seen to deserve less money for a living because of the stereotypes we put on genders.

Cameron thinks that the literature of Mars and Venus could be seen as 'remarkably patronising towards men. They come off as bullies, petulant toddlers; or Neanderthals sulking in their caves.' However, Deborah highlights the fact that the roles men stereotypically have in society could be used to their advantage. For example, the idea that men are no good at housework. These are factors that they might 'rather leave to women anyway.'

Another point discussed in the article is how the popular science book 'The Female Brain' claimed that 'women on average utter 20,000 words a day, while men on average utter only 7,000.' But Mark Liberman, a professor of phonetics thought that these figures were false. He researched into it himself, and managed to prove that the numbers were 'plucked from thin air'. Debrorah talks about the figures written in 'The Female Brain' are now footprinted into every day life and 'linger in people's memories'.

In conclusion, Cameron's main points are that 'The idea that men and women differ fundamentally in the way they use language to communicate is a myth in the everyday sense: a widespread but false belief.' She highlights the fact that obviously men and women are different, 'it's just how we're wired.' However, a lot of the differences claimed to be present are just myths, in which we believe, but shouldn't.

A Level English Language Exam Paper

Exam Questions at:

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77012-SQP.PDF

Exam Commentary at:

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77012-COM.PDF 

Student responses with examiner commentary at:

http://filestore.aqa.org.uk/resources/english/AQA-77012-CEX.PDF 

Bristol Uni Guide to Grammar and Punctuation

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

This is the grammar and punctuation guide that Bristol Uni have made in order to prepare everyone for later life.

a) Handy for revision

b) Structure – punctuation, graphology, discourse, form, audience, purpose, context, syntax (simple, compound and complex) and (imperative, interrogative, explanative and declarative), utterance

c) Lexis, semantics, pragmatics

d) Exam responses

e) Grammar and lexis

f) Style, form, purpose and audience

g) Handy for revision

Spoken Language - Genres of Speech

·         Expressive Interaction – ‘This porridge tastes like cardboard’ - When we want to express       how we feel

·         Referential – ‘So the reason we call spoken language temporally bound is because it takes       place at a particular moment in time.’ - When we want to supply information

·         Transactional Exchange – ‘Do you have this in a size 10?’ responded by ‘yes I think so, let       me just check.’ - When we want to get something done

·         Phatic Utterances – When we want to make contact with people so say things like ‘hello’.       They don’t mean much in themselves but are used as a social gel

·         Interactional Exchanges – When we want to exchange ideas and social information with         friends. They help us form relationships

Speech

• ·         When you have a normal conversation it's not usually recorded – so it remains only in the memory of yourself and those who heard it. – There is no permanence
• ·         When we talk, we use facial expressions, different tones of voice and body language to convey our feelings
• ·         When you talk to someone, you do this during a particular time period – another way of expressing this is by saying that it is ‘temporally bound'.
• ·         In addition to being temporally bound, speech is also ‘context bound'. That is, it takes place in a particular situation with all the participants aware of who is talking to whom about what. This can lead to speakers not needing to be precise about certain details.
• ·         Speech is usually an interactive process between two or more people – it's active. Writing, on the other hand is not dynamic in this way – the audience is more distant.

Written

• ·         Writing can be re-read and remains a permanent record for as long as the text is kept. It's this feature of writing that has made the written mode so valued as societies developed.
• ·         Writing relies on expressive words, on punctuation and graphological features to try to convey feelings. For example, if you want to convey surprise, shock or an outburst of emotion in writing, you'll probably use an exclamation mark.
• ·         When you read something, the chances are that you weren't present at the time that the writing was produced. Therefore the spoken mode has an immediacy that the written mode rarely possesses.
• ·         A written text cannot easily get away with using these expressions and needs to explain more precisely who or what it is referring to
• ·         To try to achieve more interaction with the reader, writers have to use different approaches. For instance, using the interrogative mood and/or the second person.

The most free-flowing, informal conversations we have are with people we know well and feel comfortable with. The example of unplanned speech is the first you will hear when you click the audio button. In unplanned speech:

• ·         The register is informal
• ·         There’s a lot of interaction
• ·         There are a number of deictic expressions
• ·         There are interruptions

Planned talk is almost always written down first with the intention of being spoken later. The example of planned speech is the second you will hear when you click the audio button. Here are some of its characteristics:

• ·         Fewer non-fluency features
• ·         In ‘conversations' there are fewer overlaps and interruptions
• ·         The words that are used are very carefully chosen
• ·         In many cases the register is more formal

Summary

• ·         We encounter many different types of spoken language every day.
• ·         We learn how to use language differently in these situations and have expectations about what is appropriate in a variety of contexts.
• ·         The most natural and free-flowing speech is casual conversation. There are other situations which are not entirely planned but where speech is used in a more predictable way. To one extent or another, speech in all these situations contains non-fluency features.
• ·         Planned or scripted speech is much more ‘crafted' and non-fluency features are often absent. This speech contains many of the features of the written mode.

Typical features of planned speech

• ·         The use of the inclusive, first person plural possessive pronoun draws in the audience to identify with the speaker.
• ·         Listing in a pattern of three is another effective rhetorical technique.
• ·         Antithesis (there's a lot of it in this speech). This is where there is a sense of opposites or contrasts – here in the words ‘many' and ‘few'.

Rhetoric

• ·         The art of public speaking – or rhetoric – has been an important way of influencing opinion since the ancient Greeks. A lot of the terms we use to describe rhetorical features were invented by them. The precise context and purpose for the speech will influence its style
• ·         Rhetorical questions can be asked – there's no reply expected and the answer is usually obvious.
• ·         The speaker can also ask a question and then follow it up with an answer, thereby driving home a point.
• ·         Emotive language – powerful language with strong connotations – is designed to provoke an emotional response from the audience.
• ·         A sudden outburst of emotion – usually a single exclamatory statement – also makes the audience feel that the speaker is serious and concerned about the topic.
• ·         Hyperbole – or extravagant exaggeration – can also help to emphasise the speaker's point.
• ·         The use of listing (often in threes) adds weight to the line of argument and can often have the effect of building up to an important point. It can also act in a similar way to repetition by further emphasising an idea by accumulating more examples.
• ·         Carefully chosen metaphors and similes can help to enrich the message by leaving the audience with effective images.
• ·         Many political speeches emphasise, in some way or another, the speaker's credentials and his or her trustworthiness and ability to do a good job. Use of the first person singular pronoun (I) is particularly important here and will be placed very carefully in the speech for maximum impact.
• ·         Many political speeches involve criticism of the opposing viewpoint. There are numerous ways in which this can manifest itself.

Spoken Language - Conversation Analysis

When we are in a conversation, we look for certain signs which mean that it is our ‘turn’ to speak, these include:

·         Stressing the final word of an utterance

·         Dropping the volume level of their utterance

·         Asking a direct question of the listener

·         Using phrases such as ‘you know’ and ‘but…er’

·         Using tag questions to prompt a response

Most interaction begins with an opening sequence which signals to a listener that we want to talk. These opening sequences are carefully, yet often unconsciously, adapted to make them appropriate to the situation. Here are some examples:

·         “I'm Karen Marshall. Did you have a good journey?” = meeting a business contact

·         “Hiya. You ok?” = meeting a friend in the street

·         “Excuse me.” = approaching a stranger for information

Adjacency Pairs

·     Have each part of the pair spoken by a different person

·     Always have a link

·     Always involve a second utterance following on from the first (although it may not follow on directly – there could be a short interruption).

The ‘chains' of adjacency pairs can be broken up or interrupted. This might happen if, for example:

·      Someone comes into a room and joins in the conversation

·      The flow of the conversation is temporarily redirected for a few utterances, perhaps  so that clarification can be sought

·     These temporary interruptions are known as insertion sequences when someone from ‘outside' joins, and side sequences when, for example, there is a need to clarify something before the original thread of the conversation is resumed

How do participants maintain and change topic in a conversation?

·     The subjects of our conversations – what we talk about – are called topics. A topic is normally initiated by one person and pursued until that person, or someone else, wishes to end the conversation or move onto another topic.

·     When a change of topic takes place, it's known as a topic shift and the verbal cues to make the change are called topic shifters.

·    Control of topics can be a sign of conversational dominance – where one participant has more control over what is said than others.

Do the participants correct any repairs, and, if so, how do they go about this?

·     Repairs occur when there's a need to correct a mistake. Sometimes the speaker will ralise that s/he needs to make a correction, sometimes another participant will correct. Here's Tracey and Faye, both repairing a couple of Tracey's mistakes:

·         T: “I got this really nice top from Next (.) no not Next (.) from what you call it (.)? Wallis (.) it's just off Surrey Street”

·         F: “you mean Norfolk Street?”

·         T: “yeah (.) that's the one”

 

In what ways do the participants feedback to one another?

·         Give minimal responses like hum and uh huh

·         Utter words such as ‘really?', ‘right', ‘OK' etc. (also known as back-channelling)

·         Provide non-verbal responses like nodding

How do participants bring their conversation to a close?

·    When we're aware that we're coming towards the end of a conversation, we usually try to bring it to a close in a way that is socially acceptable and ‘polite'. To end too abruptly is usually a sign that something has gone wrong.

A linguist called H.P.Grice developed the idea that there are 4 maxims for successful conversation:

·         The maxim of quantity.
Say just the right amount for the situation.

·         The maxim of relevance.
What you say should be relevant to the topic being discussed

·         The maxim of manner.
You should speak in a clear, orderly way.

·         The maxim of quality.
What you say should be truthful.

In her work on ‘The Politeness Principle', Robin Lakoff (1970s) maintained that speakers usually try to follow three rules when talking to others. These rules were:

·         Don’t impose

·         Give options

·         Make your receiver feel good

Brown & Levinson (1980s) maintained that positive politeness is shown when we:

·     Show people that we like/admire/have sympathy with them and make jokes (that we know the person will like)

·     Avoid disagreements – e.g. by choosing ‘safe' topics to talk about, or by softening our own disagreements

·    Assert what we have in common and are in agreement

Brown & Levinson thought negative politeness is shown when we:

·      Are indirect to avoid intrusion

·      Use hedges or questions

·      Defer to someone by giving a superior form of address – e.g. ‘sir'

·      Are apologetic

·     Brown & Levinson's ideas were more complex in that they also suggested that different cultures place more emphasis on some of these forms of politeness than others.