Language and Technology

Question 1

Language on live commentaries: Context

Answer 1

often constructed as a conversation between commentator and co-commentator, often doesn’t address audience directly, may need continuous adjustment as action changes, assumes shared knowledge with listeners - will use specific lexis, shared semantic field

Question 2

Language on live commentaries: Lexis

Answer 2

will use special lexis and jargon, rest will be simple and undemanding, extensive use of names - audience expected to know, sometimes historical facts given, use of names has relevance to pragmatics

Question 3

Language on live commentaries: Grammar

Answer 3

may use elliptical forms and minor sentences, used often for speed and pace, commentator slips between past and present tense, adverbs may add detail to action

Question 4

Language on live commentaries: Discourse

Answer 4

constrained by the event it shows e.g. time, space; cannot determine exactly when to start and finish, simple connectives may be used to connect action ‘and’, pauses separate clauses rather than connectives

Question 5

Language on live commentaries: Phonology

Answer 5

transcripts often gives an indication of the pace of the commentary and the frequency and length of pauses, radio and TV broadcasts differ - TV can allow pictures to tell the story, radio cannot allow that long silence

Question 6

McLuhan 1962 Technological determinism

Answer 6

theorised the ‘typographic man’ - phenomenon that our identity, beliefs and language are shaped by the media we use

Question 7

Eisenstein 1979 argument against the typographic man

Answer 7

argued the changes experienced were affordances not constraints

Question 8

Text messaging

Answer 8

SMS added to mobile phones in the 90s to ease communication for engineers, produced a written form + text speak, employs many features of spoken language

Question 9

Synchronicity

Answer 9

synchronicity of a digital text determines the extent to which the communication has occurred in real time

Question 10

Vernacular writing

Answer 10

Hamilton and Barton 1998 refers to blogs and everyday writing as vernacular literacy practices, includes colloquial languages in blog posts and the informal register used to mimic this

Question 11

Emails

Answer 11

asynchronous, language features less likely to overlap with features digital English like texting, often formal settings

Question 12

Deontic modal verb

Answer 12

words that convey certainty and absoluteness

Question 13

Epistemic modal verbs

Answer 13

softer, suggestion of possibility, non-certain

Question 14

pre modifier

Answer 14

a word that comes before the noun and increases its strength

Question 15

binary opposition

Answer 15

2 direct opposites

Question 16

affordance

Answer 16

linguistic behavioural choices provided by technology

Question 17

constraints

Answer 17

linguistic and behavioural restrictions provided by technology

Question 18

orthography

Answer 18

the spelling convention of a language, non-standard spellings

Question 19

neologism

Answer 19

a newly formed or coined word

Question 20

digital technology

Answer 20

technique of storing, transmitting, and processing data used for mobile phones and computers among others

Question 21

phatic communication

Answer 21

speech used to create personal connections between people

Question 22

telephony

Answer 22

the working or use of telephones

Question 23

initialism

Answer 23

an abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced separately

Question 24

acronomy

Answer 24

using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced as a single word

Question 25

synchronicity

Answer 25

events that occur simultaneously such as communication

Question 26

rebus abbreviation

Answer 26

letters represent syllables

Question 27

logograms

Answer 27

numbers and symbols represent words and phrases

Question 28

punctuation marks

Answer 28

adapted to express feelings

Question 29

changes to multiword sentences and responses to sequences

Answer 29

minimised to initialisms and acronomy

Question 30

consonants

Answer 30

having higher information value than vowels e.g. pls, wht

Question 31

homophonic representation

Answer 31

single letters and numbers represent the sound

Question 32

vernacular

Answer 32

everyday regional language spoken by people

Question 33

vernacular writing

Answer 33

informal, non-standard writing

Question 34

corpus

Answer 34

a collection of written texts

Question 35

asynchronous

Answer 35

delay between utterances and responses

Question 36

synchronous

Answer 36

utterances and responses at the same time

Question 37

Timeline of internet

Answer 37

1989 WWW (made accessible to public in 1993)
2004 Facebook
2005 Youtube
2006 Twitter

Question 38

Average number of abbreviations in a text (%)

Answer 38

10%

Question 39

Fairclough Informalisation theory

Answer 39

written language is becoming more informal, especially in public domains - it is beginning to seem more conversational and more like speech

Question 40

Traditionally dichotomy

Answer 40

Spoken and written language were originally opposites (dichotomy), the line has now blurred due to technology