Language in the media

Question 1

Robin Lakoff theory

Answer 1

Published her study in 1972, titled ‘Language and a woman’s place’, arguing that women have a different way of speaking to men, who hold the power in society.

Question 2

Robin Lakoff theory female uses:

Answer 2

•Minimal responses were common
• Overuse of qualifiers
• Hedging
• Use of super polite words
• Tag questions
• Frequent use of intensifiers
• Use euphemisms & diminutives more
• Lots of modal constructions
• Use indirect commands and requests
• Rare use of threats

Question 3

Otto Jespersen

Answer 3

Jespersen presented the ‘Deficit Model’, which viewed women as the ‘deficient gender’, and that their language reflects linguistic deviation from male counterparts.

Question 4

Otto Jespersen female uses:

Answer 4

• Hedging
• Use polite forms
• Tag questions
• Speak in italics
• Use empty adjectives
• Hypercorrect grammar and pronunciation
• Use direct quotations
• Have a special lexicon
• Use question intonation in declarative statements
• “wh-“ imperatives
• Speak less frequently
• Overuse of qualifiers
• Apologising more
• Avoid course language or expletives
• Use indirect commands and requests
• Use more intensifiers
• Lack a sense of humour

Question 5

Deborah Tannen

Answer 5

Presented the ‘Difference Model’ that theorised there was variation between male and female language, and that they have different aims from a conversation that was laid out in six different sections.

Question 6

Deborah Tannen sections:

Answer 6

• Status vs Support
• Independence vs Intimacy
• Advice vs Understanding
• Information vs Feelings
• Orders vs Proposals
• Conflict vs Compromise

Question 7

O’barr and Atkins

Answer 7

Theorised that language differences are situation specific, based on authority and power.

Question 8

Jeremy Tunstall

Answer 8

Tunstall researched the representation of women in the media and found that they are represented through roles:
• Domestic – contented mother
• Sexual – sex objects
• Consumer – eager consumers
• Marital – busy housewives

Question 9

Janet Holmes

Answer 9

• Metaphors to describe women are largely derogative
• Animal imagery for women is negative: sweet but helpless, whilst for men it is positive
(predatory, sexual prowess)
• Saccharine food imagery is common for women ‘sweetie’
• Less complimentary terms are also reserved for women ‘tart’
• Neutral or affectionate terms acquire negative connotations and refer to women as sexual
objects

Question 10

Zimmerman and West

Answer 10

Found that men interrupt more – 96% of interruptions were by men

Question 11

Power within the discourse

Answer 11

– power exercised by the choice of language e.g., formal register, more sophisticated language

Question 12

Power behind the discourse

Answer 12

-producers of the text have an external power behind linguistic features e.g., ideological, political, legal thus lexical choices reflect a wider power

Question 13

Wareing, 1999, theorised three different types of power:

Answer 13

1. Political power – held by a politician, world leader, police
2. Personal power – this is power one holds due to their occupational role e.g. a doctor or
   teacher
3. Social group power – power held by those due to social variables (age, gender, class)

Question 14

Wareing broken down types of power:

Answer 14

1. Influential power – this is power that is used by those who aim to influence you – e.g.
   advertisers, charity campaigners etc.
2. Instrumental power – this is power expressed by those who already have power due to their
   role with the social hierarchy – police, politicians, world leaders etc.

Question 15

Who made Synthetic Personalisation?

Answer 15

Fairclough

Question 16

What is Synthetic Personalisation?

Answer 16

• Synthetic personalisation describes the artificial friendliness that powerful institutions use to
reinforce their power

Question 17

What are the three stages of synthetic personalisation?

Answer 17

1. Building relations through personalisation – the use of personal pronouns, cultural
   references, informal lexical, grammatical and graphological choices creates an informal and
   intimate register 2.
   – cultural references in visual advertisements and linguistically in written and spoken texts are carefully selected to draw the implied reader or ideal reader into the ideology of the text producer
   Manipulation of ‘members’ resources or the readers cultural and cognitive understanding of
   the world
   3.
   men to present an ideology of beauty or heterosexuality
   Building the consumer into the ideal receiver of the ideological message received through a
   picture or language
   e.g., a girls teenage magazine may present images of makeup or young

Question 18

David Crystal and technology

Answer 18

• 15th century introduced the printing press
• 19th century development of the 19th century – people didn’t know how to respond to it and
how to talk
o Societal changes
• Broadcasting in the 1920s – fears of people being brainwashed by the new system o Has brought in different types of speech – e.g., sports commentary
• WWW arrives in 1991
• First google search in 1999
• First emails in the mid 1990s
• Text messaging and instant messaging – early 2000s
• Blogging in 2003
• Texting styles differ for what you are doing – e.g., blogging, texting, tweetingu

Question 19

The telephone

Answer 19

• Predates the digital technology that many of us use today
• Introduced a new, significant, discourse structure
• Schlegoff (1986) presented a pattern from this structure:
1. Summons/answer
2. Identification
3. Greeting’s sequence initiating conversation
4. ‘How are you?’ – phatic talk to consolidate connections
5. Pre-closing and closing: metatalk that focuses on the act of talking, e.g., ‘enough talk for
now’ or ‘it’s been good to catch up’

Question 20

Digital English

Answer 20

• Marshall McLuhan (1962) – technological determinism – focused on the role of printing as a
catalyst for personal and social change, creating the ‘typographic man’
• Digital Texts are viewed by many to affect personal and social change – constraining and
enriching
• ‘Typographic man’ – phenomenon – identity, beliefs, and language shaped by the media we
use
• Elizabeth Eisenstein (1979), however, argued that these changes were afforded possibilities,
not constraints
• How does social media affect how people behave?
o Often can be anonymous/hidden behind a screen – people are more likely to say harmful things

Question 21

Text Messaging

Answer 21

• Initially introduced by SMS (short message service), which could have been constraining as it
was added to mobile phones in the 90s to ease communication for engineers
• However, people quickly recognised the affordances of this technology and adapted it to suit
their needs
• Text messaging technology has produced a written form, text speak, of digital talk that
employs many of the features of spoken language that is both creative and innovative
• The speed and ease of communications as afforded many difference language practices,
from formal announcements, advertising, schools reporting to parents, and the infamous BBM scandal for co-ordinating the London riots (2011)

Question 22

Meaning and Typeface

Answer 22

• Typography is one of the most important forms of non-linguistic communication.
• It is employed for a differing effect in a range of contexts, from messaging to advertising
• Typefaces are employed to construct meaning based on identities created by previous uses
• For example: Obama’s team used “Gotham Typeface” during his 2008 election campaign,
Simon Garfield (2010) argued that its previous use in the GQ magazine as the logo for education TV channels, it implied a masculine sense of sophistication and style, whilst intellectual and serious
• The typographic choices for users of digital technology have gained importance as it contributes to the construction of meaning invested in the lexical terms it displays

Question 23

What is a Deontic modal verb?

Answer 23

– words that convey certainty and absoluteness

Question 24

What is a Epistemic modal verb?

Answer 24

– softer, suggestion of possibility, not certainty

Question 25

What is a Pre modifier?

Answer 25

– a word that comes before the noun and increases its strength / adds to it

Question 26

What is a Neologism?

Answer 26

– a newly formed or coined word

Question 27

What is Phatic talk?

Answer 27

– speech used to create personal connections between people (as opposed to conveying information to clarify something)

Question 28

What is a Initialism?

Answer 28

– an abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced separately e.g., IDK

Question 29

What is a Acronomy?

Answer 29

– abbreviation using the first letter of a group of words and pronounced as a single word e.g., YOLO

Question 30

What is a Rebus abbreviation?

Answer 30

– letters represent syllables e.g., G2CY

Question 31

What is Multiword sentences and response sequences?

Answer 31

-minimised to initialisms and acronomy e.g., YOLO, LMK

Question 32

What is Homophonic representation?

Answer 32

– single letters and numbers represent the sound e.g., M8