Theories and Concepts Flashcards
Interactional language
- Informal speech
- Has a social function
- Purpose=develop relationships between speakers
Referential
- Provides the listener with information
- Used to refer to objects or abstract concepts
- Speaker assumes knowledge from the listener
- Listener has to understand the context before they can understand the references
Expressive
- Highlights the speaker emotions, feelings and attitudes
- Language shows the speakers judgement/ feelings about another person, event or situation
Transactional
- Getting information or making a deal
- Has a specific purpose, so its driven by needs and wants rather than sociability
Photic
It’s used for social purposes rather than to convey serious meaning
- It could be a way of initialling consolation
- Usually called small talk
Speech Act
Suggests that grammatical form doesn’t always correspond to its function
- Form vs. Function
- Sentence vs. Utterance
- Sense vs. Force
Inference
This is what the listener/reader understands or guesses in the given context
This is generally based on the interpretation of the speech act itself
Implicature
What the speaker/writer is implying
Presupposition
This is what is already known or assumed
Grices Maxims Quantity
Give The most helpful amount of information
Grices Maxims Relevancy
What you saying we need to be relevant to that I’m going context of the conversation
Grices Maxims Manner
You should avoid any ambiguity and be orderly in your utterances
Grices Maxims Quality
You should be truthful and not say anything you suspect to be false
Influential Power
Used for persuading people in advertising and speech
Tells people to adapt certain ideas, behaviours, attitudes, etc without use of force
Synthetic personalisation
The process of addressing mass audiences as though they are individuals through inclusive language use
Instrumental power
That which is imposed upon society through law, the state and conventions created by organisations
Creates a fear factor
Accommodation theory
Suggest that we adjust our speech to accommodate the person we are addressing
Job interview, meeting people, to fit in, clarity
Convergence
This is when we move our speech closer to that of the other person It decreases the social distance between participants
Downward convergence
Someone with RP accent might tone down their accent when they speak to someone with a regional accent
Upward convergence
When someone with the regional accent eliminates regional features of their language
Divergence
Two speakers might emphasise their regional accents rather than converging their own language
Highlights the difference between you and other participants
Overt prestige
Some ‘puts on’ An accent that is generally widely recognised as being used by the culturally dominant
Covert prestige
To put on an accent to show membership of an exclusive community, Rather than to fit with the demand
Equal footing
Similar language to audience
Zimmerman and West
Proposed that Dominance model. His suggested that men were more dominant in opposite sex conversations. They recorded conversations between men and women and found that men interrupted 96% of he time
Jennifer Coates
Men will often reject topics of conversation introduced by women but women accept topics introduced by men. Men discuss male topics (sports) and women are more likely to initiate the conversation
Cameron
Suggested that language differences are caused by situation not gender
