Theorists Flashcards
Howard Giles Accommodation theory
Interested in why we adapt the way we speak to accommodate other people. Occurring through convergence and divergence.
Convergence: strategies through which individuals adapt to each other’s communicative behaviours to reduce social differences
Divergence: individuals accentuate differences in communicative behaviours
Trudgill Overt and Covert prestige
Overt: the kudos of speaking a more standard variety (mostly women)
Covert: the ‘cool’ status of speaking in a non-standard way (mostly men)
Robin Lakoff (1973) - deficit approach (superiority) dominance model (men dominating conversation)
Womens language is deficient
- Women’s language makes triggers assumptions of them being weaker and less certain then men (more cautious, filter their ideologies when communicating). She said Mens language is correct and women should speak more like them to be empowered. 10 features:
1) Hedging (mitigation) e.g. sort of, I think, maybe, potentially, possibly
2) Inessential qualifiers e.g. really (happy), so (beautiful/thankful)
3) Vague expressions e.g. kind of, sort of, stuff, thing, something
4) Tag questions
5) Rising intonation
6) Less swearing
7) Hypercorrect grammar
8)
Penelope Eckert (1998) Age
- biological and social age should also be considered
- people’s language is affected by important life events, so we can assume people of certain age ranges speak the same
David Crystal Grices Maxims - Tech
He said they are undermined and not adhered to
Quantity: informative as possible (as much information as necessary)
Quality: truthful
Relation: relevant
Manner: clarity and conciseness (avoiding obscurity and ambiguity)
Jenny Cheshire (1987)
Researched certain grammatical variations in the speech of young children
- variation is controlled by both social and linguistic factors
Boys: variation is governed by norms that are central to the vernacular culture, these are transmitted through the peer group
Girls: variation appears to be a more personal process and less rigidly controlled by vernacular norms
Vernacular norms (Jenny Cheshire 1987)
Norms in society
- common societal expressions
Face concept - Goffman (1955)
Face threatening: name calling, disobedience, talking back, protesting, command
Saving face: manners, greeting, agree, questioning
Hedging (face concept)
Mitigating imperatives alter the strength of a demand by adding words e.g. ‘just’, ‘actually’
Positive and Negative face - Brown and Levinson
Positive: an individuals need to feel valued, liked and appreciated
Negative: an individuals need to not feel imposed on or have their freedom or action threatened
Face Threatening Acts (FTA)
When communication can damage a persons sense of face or affect the needs of someone’s positive/negative face e.g. potential when asking someone to carry out a task or dealing with a sensitive issue
Style shifting - William Labov
Speech style: a way of speaking that is either formal/careful or informal/ casual
Changing from one to the other is called ‘style-shifting’.
Age theory - Arthur Holmes
When a linguistic variety is not part of the standard language, its usage tends to peak during adolescence (15-17 years old), “when peer pressure not to conform to society’s norms is greatest”
Fairclough (2001) - 2 types of power in discourse
Instrumental power: enforces authority and is imposed by the laws, state, conventions and organisations e.g. ‘shut up now!’
Influential power: persuasive and inclines or makes us want to behave in a certain way e.g. ‘please do not touch the wet paint’
Synthetic personalisation
Personalised language e.g. second person pronoun ‘you’ to construct a relationship between text producer and receiver
