Mini Investigation

Hypothesis: Older people (usually males) will hold the most power.

Transcript of separate conversations from Gogglebox from the same working class family:

-------- =separate conversations

J= Jonathan (Dad)        N= Nikki (Mum)       Jo= Josh (Son)       A=Amy (Daughter)

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Jo: Is that how you danced with your wrists dad at |bar mitzvahs|

J:                                                                                        |I know|

 N: Don’t criticize (.)  you’re father’s dancing  (.) he is fabulous

Jo: Is it (2) (dances) is |it| yeah

N:                                   |I| would never ever married someone who can’t dance (1) it’s such a turn off

 

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N: He is so stunning (.) you’ve got to admit he’s so good looking

J: You really like him don’t |you|

N:                                            |He’s| one of the best looking men on this Earth

J: Uh |huh|

N:      |He| |is|

A:               |Apart | from dad (3) after |dad|

N:                                                                 |He’s| stun|ning|

A:                                                                                       |After|dad

N: Yeah after dad

J: Yeah she really meant that didn’t she

 

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A: Dad (.) then their gonna come back at us (2)

J: Well unfortunately (.) they hate the west anyway (2) if don’t (1) if someone doesn’t have the ideology (.)

N: Then they |think|

J:                     |then| they’re going to destroy them just the same (1)

A: So then why don’t we just stay out of it and not get involved and |then|

N:                                                                                                                     |No because we can’t (.) they

J:                                                                                                                       |Because they will still all (.)

N: need| they need the support of countries like us and| America|

J: they’ll still attack us|                                                           |They| need (.) that’s why they are called allies (1) countries get |together|

A:                                     |So what’s| gonna |happen|

J:                                                                         |It’s| good fighting bad (.) it’s good fighting evil

 

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·         Interruptions: J=5    N=5    Jo=0    A=3

·         Sentence length: J=70    N=70    Jo=17    A=34 

 

Through all three conversations, interruptions were a constant factor. There were 13 interruptions overall: 2 in the first conversation, 5 in the second conversation and 6 in the last. The higher amount of times that someone interrupts could suggest that they are the more powerful participant within a conversation. Stereotypically males are more likely to interrupt than women. This is from Zimmerman and Wests ‘Dominance Theory’.  Another theory that could support interruptions as a significant feature in analysis is Fairclough’s ‘Unequal Encounters’. One person supposedly is more dominant than the others in a conversation, although it can change; if one person is interrupting more than others, they could hold the influential power, and they may appear to seem more dominant.

The parents interrupt the most and equally which was what I had originally expected, although I did think that ‘J’ was going to interrupt the more as he’s the dad of the family. In the last conversation ‘J’ interrupts 4 times, which is the most in the conversation. In the second conversation ‘N’ interrupts the most (3 times) which could suggest that between them 'J' is more dominant.

 

Another attribute that could show who has the most power is sentence length. If someone has the most power and dominance then they most likely would have longer air time. The data shows that overall in all three conversations, oddly, both parents had an equal amount of sentence length. 'J' spoke 10 times and 'N': 11. The reason behind this could be that they both spoke  lot when explaining to 'A' in conversation 3.

'Jo' isn't surprising to have spoken the least words considering he only spoke twice. 'A' spoke nearly half the amount as her parents which does prove my hypothesis. However it disproves The Dominance Theory when comparing her to 'Jo', who should have spoke more than her.

 

Goes against the theory/hypothesis:

·         'A' interrupts 'N' which is odd as 'A' is 'N's' daughter and so it is expected that the mother would have more dominance and power so her daughter would be expected to not interrupt.

·         'A' also interrupts 'J'-who is also her parent which again is surprising as she would be expected to 'respect her elders' and act like 'J' has the highest power overall, which he should do.

·         So, overall 'A' acts completely unexpected to as she should do, according to theory.

·         What is also unexpected is that 'Jo' surprisingly doesn't speak that much. H is present in all conversations, yet only speak in one. The Dominance Theory states that males will interrupt more and hold more power, so theoretically he should at least contribute to show his power.

Overall of my Mini Investigation

Introduction:

The topic I have chosen is Gender, focusing on women being stereotypically emotive and men more dominant. The aspect of language that I have chosen to analyse is the context and length, also how straight to the point both sets of tweets are. MY hypothesis is that men are more dominant and straight to the point. Whereas women appear to 'waffle' and be more emotive linking the Dominance and Deficit Theory.

 

Methodology:

To make sure that my tweets were unbiased, I chose a tweet after every certain amount. So every third tweet was chosen so that it was systematic. Due to it being systematic, it didn't have any obvious anomalies.

 

Analysis:

Overall, we have found out that our data does not support our hypothesis. The primary reason is because we chose extremely different people: a political leader and a reality star. What's significant is how unexpected our results were. Ed Miliband was more emotive than Amy Childs. The quantitive evidence to support my hypothesis is that women use more emojis and hash tags and so could be considered emotive. However there is also evidence to disprove it.

 

Conclusion:

My findings disprove my hypothesis. The main problem was that our approach to the choice of people was wrong. We should have chosen people that were a lot more similar; instead of choosing a politician and a reality star, we could have chose two reality stars (like Joey Essex and Amy Childs) or two politicians (Ed Miliband and Theresa May).

Also the data we chose for Ed Miliband was from when he was under pressure to get public votes for the election. He had to be positive and supportive of the public.

 

For the Future:

The draw backs of using Twitter is that people can out what they want on it. They don't have to hide from anyone and may react differently than they naturally would.

In the future I would need to choose more suitable people for the investigation. I would also have to choose the tweets from a more suitable time when there wasn't any elections.

A similar age for the people would also be a positive.

Transcript of The Apprentice

Transcript:

S: I  was the project manager I lost money (.) but the reason I lost money (.) and I could've made a fortune in that shopping centre this morning(.) if we started this |morning|

SA:                                                                                               |could've|

S:                                                                                                                cause I'm |good|

SA:|could've| (.) yeah (.) could've should've would've (.) yeah (.) but you didn't right

S: No Sir |Alan|

SA:         |No| (.) you didn't (.) yeah (3) I think I've heard enough (.) for me to make a (.) very difficult decision here |today|

C:                               |Sir| Alan may I say one more thing please (3)

SA: If you insist (1)

C: I think in this whole competition (.) if you sit back and remain quiet and under the radar (1) people assume their safe (1) and I've been bold and I know I'm vocal |and|

SA:                                                                                                    |you've| been bold |alright|

C: |and it |puts |me|

SA:                  |don't| worry| about that

C:                             |and| it puts me in a vulnerable position (.) I'm sorry I've |sat| here

SA:                                                                                                                |the| trouble is (.) you know (.) you never back off (1) you know what I'll tell you what I'm gonna do with you (.) I'll tell you what I'm gonna do with you (1) I'm getting sick and tired with you denying all of this (.) I'm sick of looking at you (.) now get out that door (2) get back to the bloody house (.) ok (.) get back to the house (.) yeah (.) because you're gonna be the next team leader (.) I'm sick of looking at you at the moment (.) get out that door (.) and get back to the house

 

Explanation:

1.       What is interesting about the language used is that despite the formal setting, there are constant interruptions. Although it is Sir Alan who interrupts the most (six times), which could be because of his power status. Both his influential and instrumental power allows him to be able to interrupt without sounding rude.

2.      I could use the Dominance Theory when analysing the transcript. Zimmerman and West put forward the idea that men interrupt more than women. This can be proven by comparing Sir Alan's interruptions, 6, to Claire's, 3.

3.      I could also compare the type of grammar that all three people. They have different levels of power and so use different types of words when talking to each other.

4.      The title I could use for an investigation into data like this could be: How does interruptions in formal situations show the difference in our language?

5.      Real data that I could collect is a transcript from a business meeting or formal situation.

Romance Fiction

Romance fiction with Clichés

This is the moment that every girl dreams of. Finding her true love.

As she walked up to the top of the stairs and overlooked the crowd of dancing masks, her eyes caught on another pair that were as black as coal. Tall, dark and handsome was one way to describe him, she thought. He looked at her, gazed almost, like he knew her.

Before she could take a step down the stairs he disappeared into the deep, dark, depths of the crowd.

With her fitted mask on her face and Cinderella-esque dress, she descended the staircase and joined the in-sync dancers. She searched through the crowd to find her 'mystery man', but he was nowhere to be seen; she decided to let fate come out to play.

Heels danced, jumped and twirled. Voices, both tuneful and not, sang along with the band. She was having the time of her life; little did she know, destiny would intervene and transform her life completely.

 

As the night grew older, the band became more upbeat and the masks became sloppier. Alcohol filled, yet still with some sense of awareness, Caroline swayed through the dance floor.

She remembered the nights when she was younger, when her mum told her fairy stories. She read everything with princesses in: Cinderella, Snow White, Rapunzel-she loved them all. The thought of her Prince Charming coming to save her, still inspired her to this day. 20 years of age and she hadn't yet found the one, she thought of this as she bumped into someone causing her to fall to the floor.

"I'm so sorry." A deep voice spoke. She looked up and it was her mystery man.

"No, I'm sorry, I, er, wasn't looking where I was going." She quickly took the blame.

"Yes well however true that may be, you are the one on the floor so I'm obliged to take the blame." He smirked holding his hand out for me to take.

I stood up and knew that this would be a long night.

Theories of Language and Gender

Language and Gender Theories

1) William O'Barr and Bowman Atkins, Dominance Theory

The dominance theory says that if there is a difference in our language, it's because males have always dominated in both the home and workplace and females have then had to play the domestic roles.

The theory suggests that men are more likely to interrupt than women. In a study in Santa Barbara by Don Zimmerman and Candace West, within 11 conversations, men interrupted 46 times and women only twice.

Some theorists state that in language some people use language that's known as 'weak female language', however O'Barr and Atkins came to the conclusion that it's 'powerless language' and have nothing to do with females specifically.

 

2) Deborah Tannen, Difference Theory

The difference theory suggests that females and males do converse differently. Deborah Tannen is one of the main theorists to this approach. There are many features that effect our language and how we speak including our environment and cultures. Deborah suggests that it starts in childhood that creates the difference. Parents would use words that talk about feelings where boys get spoken to using more verbs.

She said that there are six main differences (with what is found to be typically male coming first) in the language in men and women:

·         status vs support

·         independence vs intimacy

·         advice vs understanding

·         information vs feelings

·         orders vs proposals

·         conflict vs compromise

 

3) Robin Lakoff, Deficit Approach

The 'Deficit Approach' was mainly found by theorist,  Robin Lakoff. She said that women are disadvantaged in language use compared to men. She found that women's language conflicts with what is the male normal language.

She said that women's style of speech is ‘expressive of uncertainty, lack of confidence, and excessive deference or politeness', including features like hedges and tag questions. Our speech mirrors how lower we feel socially an personally to men and how they are treated. It is a concept that shows not only modern life but from decades ago. It is a widely considered idea that women have been treated lower than men for centuries and it reflects through their language.

 

Bibliography

http://www.allinfo.org.uk/levelup/enb2gender.htm

http://www.universalteacher.org.uk/lang/gender.htm#dominance

http://www.google.co.uk/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=6&ved=0CEUQFjAF&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.lancaster.ac.uk%2Ffss%2Fcourses%2Fling%2Fling201%2Fres%2Fdiss%2F2004%2Fwhite.doc&ei=Y9srVdDNMOqy7Qbwl4DwCQ&usg=AFQjCNESm0EE3sl3o08ep3tMkJKTdCFbUw&bvm=bv.90491159,d.ZGU

Theory: The Logic of Conversation

Theory: Logic of Conversation

 

Grice's Logic of Conversation states that there will always be a relevance for the second part of the adjacency pair. This is linked to one of Grice's Maximums: 'The Maximum of Relevance'. He saw that there were four Maximums: Relevance, Quality, Quantity and Manner.

He had many insights about 'The Logic of Conversation' which has explained the reasons behind why we use the language we do in conversation. He said that communication is a cooperative activity. When two people communicate, it's in their best interests to make the communication to go as smoothly as possible to achieve their aims. The speakers behave in  a predictable way.

However, sometimes there is a broken adjacency pair which is called a non-sequitur. This means that a piece of speech doesn't relate to what has just been said.

Example:

Lily: "This bottle's half empty!"

Jack: "Gosh-is that the time already?"

 

This adjacency pair doesn't initially seem like the pair are relevant at all. 'Lily' talks about the bottle then Jack 'randomly' says about the time. After you examine it you then see that it could be linked. For example after she made that comment he realises that he wants to go home.

Intro, Overview and 2 PEE Paragraphs

Language and Power

Plan:

 

Paragraph One:

 

·         Mr N gives very short and simple answers when asked questions.

·         Short answers because of low power that he holds

·         Barrister holds high power and so Mr N may feel he isn’t allowed to speak.

·         Barrister makes him feel like defendant.

·         And so because of that use Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategy, explain what ‘face’ they both use.

Paragraph Two:

·         Use Wareing’s Types of Power.

·         Barrister holds political power.

·         Expressions

·         Mr N, uses fillers due to the knowledge of the Barrister holding instrumental power.

·         Uses fillers and so looks guilty-doesn’t let the Barrister finish at end

 

Overview:

Because the Barrister holds instrumental power in this Unequal Encounter, Mr N knows not to challenge it and doesn’t.  So because of this Mr N uses negative ‘face’ to make him feel sorry for him. He uses fillers a lot which could suggest that in this case the Barrister makes him feel guilty and nervous. But at one point it looks like he might have tried to take power possibly.  However after it he continues to use short answers. The Barrister also holds political power (Wareing’s Types of Power) and so overall hold the most power.

 

PEE:

Mr Neil answers with short and simple answers when he is asked question by the Barrister, throughout the whole conversation. This could suggest that he holds low power in the adjacency pairs. What is quite clear is that the Barrister holds high power; this could then possibly make Mr Neil feel powerless. And perhaps maybe like he isn’t allowed to speak that much or at all. It is almost like Mr Neil is the defendant of the crime and not the witness. The Barrister uses the low frequency word “according” which is like he is suggesting to the court that he’s not telling the truth. It again makes him seem like he’s the guilty one and not the defendant, who the Barrister is representing. The Barrister put’s pressure on Mr Neil so starts to feel guilty himself. Because of this, it seems like Mr Neil slightly uses negative face (Brown and Levinson’s Politeness Strategy) to defend himself. He uses it to make the Barrister feel sorry for him which then causes the Barrister to feel more powerful.

 

Wareing’s Types of Power suggests that there are three types of power: political, personal and social. Due to the Barrister’s job, it is clear that he holds political power. That alone is enough to make someone feel nervous when they know that they are about to be faced with him. What I think adds to the power is the use of expressions from the Barrister. “Two and two together” and “shopped you to the police” are quite useful when trying to make someone feel guilty. The word “shopped” comes from the lexical field of legal and is also a slang word. Using slang suggests that the Barrister knows he holds power and so can speak informally towards the court, but more towards the witness as he holds that instrumental power. He doesn’t really need to worry about his job being effected by how he speaks so much as he’s obviously doing  a good job and know sit. However, it might not just be the position of power that affects his formality of language use; it could also be his idiolect. From the influences around him it could be in his nature to use expressions and slang words. So the Barrister holds instrumental power and political power and the witness, Mr Neil, knows this. This knowledge then affects Mr Neil in the way that he responds to the questions that he’s asked: he ends up using fillers throughout the conversation. When he talks about a situation with Mr Peterson’s gate, he has to admit that he “bumped it slightly” which he then carried on with “with er the rear of my car.” The “er” suggests that he is guilty which the Barrister then uses to make him look like the guilty one compared to the defendant.