Language as a Window into Human Nature - Steven Pinker

In this video, Pinker makes a point about the Indirect Speech Act. This is when we don't say what me mean, but we find common grounds with each other. The speaker hopes for the listener to understand, read between the lines and recognise that it's a polite request. For example, 'It would be great if you could pass the guacamole' is a request which uses the imperative but without the dominance. He talks about innuendos and how we are more comfortable in conversation when these are said as opposed to direct requests. 

He generally talks about how the language we use makes us more relaxed and easy when not using direct requests. Usually, using innuendos to swerve around the imperative verb makes it seem less dominant and forceful.

Grice's Conversational Maxims

In 1975, Paul Grice created elements of language which we need to include in order to be conversationally cooperative. They consisted of 4 elements:

 

• Maxim of Quantity - To give the most helpful amount of information
• Maxim of Quality - Information that is not false
• Maxim of Relation - The information must be relevant to the topic
• Maxim of Manner - To put what you say in the clearest and most orderly manner

  

As well as this, successful conversations need to:

• Have adjacency pairs
• Flow in an expected pattern
• Have a preferred response, not a dispreferred response



Conventions of transcripts

Recently, I have been looking into transcripts from a variation of different sources such as TV programmes and real life situations. Along with this, analysing them has been something I've had to do as part of my course.

Conventions of transcripts:
Pauses:

• Can be of various lengths
• A pause in replacement of a comma is called a micropause

Utterances:

• Sentences that don't start with a capital letter
• Indicates a sense of finality

Intonations:

• Difference in tone of voice
• Rising intonation would be a question
• Represented by an up ↑ arrow or a down ↓ arrow

Interruptions and Overlaps:

• Shown by a '/' where the second speaker talks
• An overlap is where the first speaker continues to talk
• They can both show dominance over speakers

Paralinguistics:

• Body language
• Actions
• Tone of voice
• Can be indicated by square brackets, '[ ]'

John McWhorter - Txting is killing language. JK!!!

John McWhorter gives a speech on Ted Talks about written, spoken and texted language. 

John explains that texting compared to proper written language is so different. Text language is very loose, without the worry of including punctuation and capital letters. We can write the way that we talk, which is something that isn't normally acceptable for formal writing.

He also tells us that language has existed for at least 80, 000 years, and in this time, we have spoken a lot more than we have written. This is because it's 'what we're probably genetically specified for'. One quote that I love because he relates it to a way in which we will understand is 'if humanity had existed for 24 hours, then writing only came along at about 11:07 p.m.' This really puts into perspective how recent written language is compared to spoken language.

So, McWhorter begins with contradicting himself when saying 'texting spells the decline and fall of any kind of serious literacy' before 'texting is a miraculous thing'. The first statement highlights what a lot of people think about texting, but really, it's developing into a wonderful thing. I definitely agree with McWhorter when he thinks that it's a 
'linguistic miracle happening right under our noses.'

Manspreading

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/aug/28/manspreading-men-oxford-dictionary-sitting-position-gendered

A recent article 'Why should 'manspreading' be just for men?' has really made me question the rights of women in this world. As a feminist, I totally agree with Zoe Jewell's view that 'this seated position has become unnecessarily gendered'. 

Zoe makes a point at the beginning that 'men are aggressive and women are always pleasing, always good'. Is this expressing the opinion that it isn't acceptable for women to be sitting comfortably, but it is for men? 'Assertive behavior is still only associated with men' highlights the fact that equal rights in this world still hasn't been reached.

The Oxford Dictionary has now took this word and made it officially a part of its vocabulary. Adding the prefix of 'man' to the word has definitely touched a nerve for a lot of people. Zoe says 'In an admittedly minor rebellion, I started to sit like that too'. I think that it is important that we realise that women are allowed to be human and do human things. The fact that 'manspreading' is seen as 'unfeminine' just emphasises the point that our world today needs to be different to what it was 50 years ago.

'If my leg spreading annoys you, then tell me off for what it is, whether I'm male or female.'

Terry

'Terry the odd job man' is a Bristolian who uploads videos to Youtube, giving people language lessons. Being a Bristolian, I find his videos humorous mainly because I find the points he makes ridiculous. When he says 'Bristolians won't understand' if you say something in standard English, he is completely exaggerating the concept of how we speak. Despite this, I do find him funny, although I know a lot of people would find him offensive.

You say potato

http://www.panmacmillan.com/book/bencrystal/yousaypotato

Father and son David & Ben Crystal have come up with a great idea, to see how our accents compare with each other. This website allows us to look at the different ways people say 'potato' from all around the world. We can clearly tell the difference between a lot of places, but I have realised a a lot of places in England sound strangely alike. 

David and Ben also made an appearance on the TV show Sunday Brunch. They expressed the fact that accent is levelling across the country. The big cities such as London and Bristol are becoming so culturally and ethnically diverse that the well known accents are spreading to the outer suburbs of the cities. 

From David and Ben Crystal, I have learnt that there is no 1 accent. We have related a specific place onto how someone talks but really, no one has one accent.