Language research with name prompts Flashcards
What and when was Workman’s research?
- In 2008, Workman researched the perceptions of different accents.
- Participants listened to recordings of accents whilst looking at photos of people.
- Pictures with Yorkshire accents were rated the most intelligent whilst Birmingham accents were rated the least intelligent.
What and when was Zimmerman and West’s research?
- Zimmerman and West recorded interruptions in coversations between men and women in 1975.
- 96% of the interruptions were by men.
- This suggests men are dominant in male-female conversations.
What and when was Tannen’s research?
- Tannen, in 1990, described male and female language use in terms of differences
- Men are concerned of status and independence, leading them to interrupt more.
- Men give direct orders and don’t mind conflict.
- Men are more interested in gaining factual information and finding solutions to problems.
- Women are more interested in forming bonds. They talk less and agree more than men.
- Women use indirect language to avoid conflict.
- Women attempt to display understanding via compromising and offering support rather than solutions.
What did Beattie and Cameron say about the research on language and gender? When?
- Beattie (1982) criticised Zimmerman and West’s dominance research by stating that interruptions can be supportive.
- Cameron (2007) asserts that much of the research on male and female language is biased as it focuses on differences over similarities, of which there are many.
What and when was Trudgill’s and Cheshire’s research?
- Trudgill (1983) studied the class of men and women’s accents.
- He found women’s accents were closer to RP (received pronunciation) than men’s.
- Cheshire (1982) researched teenage speech.
- He found that boys use more non-standard grammatical forms than girls.
- Children who approve of criminal activities are more likely to use non-standard forms but this effect is more noticeable in boys
What and when was Robin Lakoff’s research?
-Robin Lakoff (1975) discovered that there were features used more often by women than men.
-These are: Hedges and fillers Tag questions Apologetic requests Indirect requests
- Robin Lakoff also discovered that women tend to speak less, use fewer expletives and use more intensifiers.
- Lakoff stated that this makes women seem indecisive and makes them be taken less seriously.
What did O’Barr Atkins have to say about Robin Lakoff’s research? When?
-O’Barr and Atkins (1975) suggested this may instead be to do with with women feeling less powerful as lower classed men and women reflected the same female speech patterns in court.
What was Goffman’s research? When?
- Goffman (1955) presented the idea that everyone presents an image of themselves called a face.
- He proposed that most of a conversation revolves around preseving oneself’s and others face by avoiding face-threatening acts.
- A lower status person will pay more attention to the face-needs of others.
- A positive face revolves around being liked whereas a negative face revolves around being able to exert power.
What are the proposed four politeness strategies?
Positive politeness: making the hearer feel loved and respected.
Negative politeness: avoidance of imposition,
Off record indirect: indirect requests.
Bald on-record: No measures taken to reduce face threatening acts.
What was HP Grice’s research? When?
- HP Grice proposed the theory of the four maxims in 1975. These were defined as what was needed for a conversation to work and the fact that people follow them is the co-operative principle . These were as follows.
- Maxim of quality: be truthful.
- Maxim of quantity: do not say more or less than is requried.
- Maxim of relevance: Everything said should be relevant to the conversation.
- Maxim of manner: avoid ambiguity, confusion and obfuscation.
- HP Grice coined the idea of conversational implicature in 1975.
- Three facts needed to understand conversational implicature are usual linguistic semantics, contextual informatoin and knowing if both parties are following the co-operative principle.
What was Drew and Heritage’s research? When? Who summarised it and when?
Drew and Heritage (1992) elaborated on 6 features of occupational language, as summarised by Koesher in 2004. These were as following:
- Work place conversations are very goal orientated.
- In some occupations there are explicit turn taking rules but in others they are implicit such as doctors asking more questions than patients.
- In different occupations there are different allowable contributions.
- The professional/workplace context may be reflected in the lexical choice.
- Workplace and professional interactions may be structured in specific ways.
-Workplace and professional interactions are often
asymmetrical, that is often one speaker has more power
and/or special knowledge than the other. Examples are
conversations between a boss and an employee, or a doctor and a patient.
According to John Swales what is a discourse community? What year did he develop this idea?
A discourse community is a group that has a shared goal and community whist using language to achieve that goal. (2011)
