Blog post on Bristolian dialect

Produce a blog post that is a case study of the Bristolian dialect.


Terry's Bristolian language lessons


Terry presents Bristolians as ones with a very strong pirate/farmer type of accent. I think he is right in certain situations, but personally I think that more older people rather than younger people talk that way. Also the fact that he says people will not understand the 'outsiders' they probably will, so this shows that he was clearly over-exaggerating  in some parts. This is probably because he wants to entertain the people who watch his videos. However we can see that he is very proud to be Briostolian and of the dialect and accent he has. However I think it depends what parts of Bristol you are from to the way you speak. So the strong Bristolian accent that he was representing is probably mostly from the Somerset/South of Bristol.


Beast clothing is a very stereotypical representation of Bristolians. it is a brand which makes clothing or gifts with the most use Bristol phrases such as 'gert lush'. This is probably the most common phrase used in Bristol which means something like 'very great'. However once again more older people would use in rather than younger because it belongs in their generation. This shows how words/phrases change during the years for Bristol.

Letter to parent of a student who is not making the grade

Divergence

 

 

Dear Sir/Miss,

 

I want to inform you about your son, he is not meeting the appropriate criteria for his grades. Unfortunately he has not been concentrating enough in class to reach the potential grade that we need from him, therefore personally I think you should know about this so he can understand how he can improve.

 

Your son is very much not doing his work properly and therefore underachieving in most of his subjects. I think this is a very big concern and that he may need some disciplinary, especially from his parents. He has been offered help at school but he did not accept this offer because he thinks that "it is not fair" that he is the only one to get put onto this programme for underachievers.

 

You as parents should definitely take this into account and realise that it can have many consequences. if he is underachieving and 'slacking' should I say, at the moment, it means he will carry on. this will result in very bad end of year terms where his ideal college may not accept him.

 

This is a very serious concern and I want you to carefully think about it. I am very disappointed in him because I thought there was potential in him, but I was wrong. Please do reply to this email ASAP on what your thoughts are and how you think the problem can be solved.

 

 

Yours faithfully,

P. Sobieralska

Tutor of Michael

 

Convergence

 

Dear Parent/Guardian,

 

Hello, I am the tutor of Michael, and I am writing to tell you that he has disappointingly been not achieving the grades. Unfortunately your child is not putting in as much effort into his work as he should. I think he should put more at home and school into his work to get his ideal grades for the year. I am concerned about him and that is why I am writing to you so you can talk to him about it. I hope you understand where I am coming from and that you can work with him to get the problem solved. Please reply to me on your ideas about this concern ASAP.

 

 

Thanks a lot,

Patrycja Sobieralska

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Robin Lakoff

-In 1975 she published an influential account of women's language called 'Language and women's place'.
Issues with the book:
-Data came from a very white middle class context
-Small dated sample
-40 years ago
-restrictive context
-Age varies

The theory she made up was called the Deficit theory/model, she thought that:
-Women prefer to use hedging, using phrases like "sort of" or "kind of"
-they use more (super) polite forms, e.g. "would you mind?"
-use tag questions, e.g. " you're going to dinner, aren't you?"
-speak in italics- to add emphasis
-use empty adjectives like: divine, lovely, cute
-use hypercorrect grammar and punctuation
-use direct quotation- men paraphrase more often
-have a special lexicon- women use more words for things like colours, men for sports.
-women often phrase statements as questions
-use "wh" imperatives - hidden commands
-speak less frequently
-overuse qualifiers, e.g.. "I think that"
-apologise more
-use modal constructions such as can, would or should
-use less swearing/taboo language
-use indirect commands like "it is cold in here" which would mean to shut the window or put the heating on
-use more intensifiers especially so and very
-lack sense of humour

My reaction to her theory:
Robin Lakoff has some good points on the speech of women, however they are mainly stereotypical. By this I mean she is judging women on how the society sees them because I myself as a women do not think most of her points are true. For example Lakoff thinks that women swear less but many don't not, there are women who swear equally as much as men. Also the fact that she says women lack a sense of humour is completely not true and very offensive. Some women cannot take certain jokes because they can be offensive rather than funny so the fact is that they usually interpret humour in a different way to men. The fact that she does not actually have much data and evidence which prove her opinions is why I disagree with her.

Text A analysis

How do the language features reflect the contextual factors of your given text?

The language features reflect the text in many ways. One language feature that reflects the text is that the register is informal. We can see this throughout the whole text through phrases such as "yer" or "i mean like yeah". This shows that they must be quite close as they are very colloquial and use fillers such as "like" which you wouldn't use in a formal conversation/speech etc. This reflects the context as being chatty which links to the mode being spoken. This is because if the conversation is spoken the language is usually much more gramatically simple and very contexualised because it is easier to explain than it is in written mode.

Another language feature that is used in this text is fillers like i said before. These are words with little meaning in between sentences. We can see this through words such as "yeah" or "like". This add sto the sentence to fill a pause or also they can show understanding. When Kat says a long sentence Sue uses the word "yeah" to show that she is listening and understanding what Kat has to say, even though it may seem rude because she is interrupting, it is not because she is just showing that she is interested in the topic of the conversation about education. This links in with the register of the text being informal because you would not use words such as "like" in a formal speech or conversation, this is because fillers are usually used in colloquial type of conversations.