Theories - English Language

What are the 4 points in Howard Giles’ Communication Accommodation Theory?

1. Argues that when we interact with others we adjust our speech, vocal patterns and gestures to accommodate with others

2. Explores the various reasons why individuals emphasize or minimise social difference between themselves and their interlocutors - (listeners), both through verbal and non-verbal - (paralinguistic) - communications

3. Is concerned with the links between language, context and identity

4. Focuses on both the intergroup and interpersonal factors that lead to accommodation as well as how power and context affect communication behaviours

What is Convergence?

Refers to strategies through which individuals adapt to each other’s behaviours in order to reduce these social difference - bring themselves closer

What is Divergence?

Refers to the strategies through which individuals attempt to accentuate the speech and non-verbal differences between each other in order to emphasize these differences - separate themselves

What is Code-Switching?

When individuals deliberately alter their language to suit the context

What are the three types of power Shan Wareing theorized could be exhibited through language?

1. Political or Legal power

2. Personal power

3. Social group power

What is Political and Legal Power?

Held held by people or groups conferred on them by the law - politicians set the laws, police and lawyers apply them

What is Personal Power?

Power that is held because of an individuals occupation or role such as teachers, employees, parents etc

What is Social Group Power?

The power someone has because of the social group they belong to, often owing to gender, race, ethnicity etc. So - utterly unfairly - a middle aged, white, upper class man may be seen as more powerful than a non-white, female, working class, young person

What are the only two functions of language that Brown and Yule theorized?

1. Interactional - social

2. Transactional - message

What does interactional language look like?

It is only concerned with the maintenance of relationships. The exchange serves wholly as an acknowledgement of the relationship and the answer is conventional

What does transactional language look like?

Concerned with the transmission of information

What is an example of a transactional and interaction LONG turn?

Transactional - a presentation or lecture

Interactional - recounting an anecdote

What is an example of a transactional and interaction SHORT turn?

Transactional - buying something

Interactional - social chat

What is Devyani Sharma's Accent Bias?

People have accents that theyprefer, usually because they are like their own or because of the positive/negative associations of certain accents due to differing social status. Awareness of this can lead to people consciously using or changing their own

What is Robin Lakoff's Gender Model?

The Deficit Model - women, especially in the 70s and maybe less so today - have adapted their language in relation to men to appear less dominant and therefore more uncertain, reflecting expectations of a subordinate role in a patriarchal society. Whilst this may be less true today, it is still evident in certain contexts eg if women adopt this role….

What is Paul Kerswill's Dialect Levelling

In recent decades, the diversity of different dialects has decreased and most people in the UK have converged towards a mutually consistent, understandable dialect. This makes it easier for us to communicate with people across the country. However many people consciously seek to preserve their regional accent, resisting this process to show pride in where they’re from

What is Deborah Tannen's Gender Model?

The Difference Model - because men and women to not perform the same roles socially, we have adapted different speech styles

Men favour ‘report’ talk, focusing on information, orders, advice, independence, status and conflict

Women favour ‘rapport’ talk, focusing on understanding, compromise, intimacy, support, proposals and feelings

What was Judith Butler, Penelope Ekert and Deborah Cameran's Gender Model?

The Diversity Model

Because gender is not an inherent binary, we perform based on our own sense of how to conform and the extent to which it is percieved to be desirable in different contexts. Therefore language differences are not biological, rather they are a performance based on our desired gender identity which might vary in different situations

What is Dale Spender, Pamela Fishman and Zimmerman and West's Gender Model?

The Dominance Model - due to patriarchy, men have traditionally been more dominant in society and therefore their language reflects this, both in the language they use and the expectations on them

What is Judith Butler's Gender Performativity?

We perform our gender through speech acts in order to conform to the gender role we chose or are forced to adopt in different contexts

Because Gender is not an inherent binary, these performances are socially constructed and may or may not align with our biological sex

What was Peter Trudgill's Norwich study?

The higher the social class the more likely people are to use features of Recieved Pronunciation. The lower the social class the more likely people are to use regional accent features. Exemplified through the “g-dropping” in Norwich

Men and are also more likely to use regional features than women, although not as much as they thought. Women are more likely to use features of RP but again not as much as they thought. However gender is less important as a factor than social class .

What is Michel Faucaults Power/Knowledge?

Using language to convey knowledge- eg through specialised terms, jargon, and occupational dialect - can help you achieve more power. People are also more likely to trust someone a poweful person and assume their knowledge is greater and true

What is William Labovs ‘Overt/Covert’ prestige

People can achieve power and status by either conforming to Standard English Recieved Pronunciation and/or adopting a higher, more technical register. This is called “Overt Prestige”

Power and status can also be achieved through “Covert Prestige” which is deliberately not conforming to these eg adopting regional features and lower register

What is Paul Kerswill's Sociolinguistic Maturation

When we reach adulthood we are less likely to adapt new versions of language as we have found our identity and this becomes relatively stabilised.

However young people are more likely to adapt new styles to fit in with their peers.

This is demonstrated in Milton Keynes by the children growing up together who adopted a new style while their parents did not.