1. Consider the 1st discussion question posed by Paltridge (2006) on page 20. I think that my pitch of voice can help people recognize my gender and age. Age can be also defined by the speed of speech. I find that elder people tend to speak a bit slower and the words are more separated and clearly pronounces. On the other hand, younger speakers tend to ‘swallow’ half of their words, merge, contract or omit some words. Lack of use of such words as “mate”, “bro”, “like” can define the age as well as ethnic background and exclude me from young Maori population. Accent is a big factor, and since I used to live, study or work in different English speaking countries, my original accent shifted a bit. People, in general, tend to find me either South African or European, but neither of them are correct in their guess. I reckon that the discussions that I can be part of is distinguishing factor for age and educational background.
2. Im not sure how to attach a screen shot from my MS document :( It has heaps of arrows and comments...
This is the link to task 2 for week 1. I think you are able to work in HTML only when you are creating your own blog and not replying to someone else's
Some interesting comments Alena. To what degree do you think the linguistic features that constitute our identity are consciously selected (i.e. we choose to speak in a certain way), or are they just the result of being exposed to certain communities?
I think they are exposed to certain communities. But we need to remember that it is a number of communities: school, work place, hobby society, friend circle, family, etc. We are not using the same type of language between 2 different communities. I actually do support Van Dijk's socio-cognitive model. sometimes it might seem that we respond immediately without cognitive thinking, but you do put on a 'suit' of a teacher when you enter a class and you have a set of rules that you would follow, going shopping, you know that you'll give money to the shopkeeper, get your purchase, say thank yous and good-byes. We teach our kids from early age how to behave and verbally respond in nearly each situation. Later on it just clicks in your brain as a set of rules. Although you always have choices the way you would respond, which would depend on several factors: your level of education, your mood that day, your position (superior/inferior) of that of the interlocutor, etc.
Interesting points, perhaps the analogy of a sportsperson might be relevant here. At some point in the development of certain abilities, these are consciously performed, but after some time they become automatic responses.
1. CT is unsure about how to start a topic with her superior. (yeah um yeah. I want to talk about um oh, etc) shows shiness, uncertainty. She is also annoyed and possible frustrated by bringing up the topic of someone else taking the position she was aiming at. This context, as well as the way CT approaches TR, indicates that she is inferior to him. CT is also not given a lot of time to speak, as sometimes TR’s statements are going straight after CT’s, like in line 27-28, 38-39). She is also interrupted a bit like in lines 48-51. However this interruption is also more TR’s confirmation that what CT understand is correct; give some reassurance, or clarification. It feels like TR is a slower speaker, who is more trying to find the right words to explain the situation properly without showing his superiority. He drawls, uses a few gap fillers )err, um), takes time to think (line 18, 54). At the beginning of the conversation, TR asks to take the phone, which also indicates his importance: a person in an inferior position will more likely to apologise for the ringtone and hang up on the caller (personal experience) 2. CT can be defined as a female, according to Fishman (1978), who argued that women tend to start a conversation, bringing up the topic but keep silence throughout most of the conversation. Also the way poor CT is ‘fighting’ for the position in the business world, indicates that, although we live in democratic society that is promoting equality between men and women, men are still preferred for a managerial position even if they join the company a short while ago and the woman has been working there a while. 3. TBC 4. They certainly know turn taking. CT pops in when TR drals (line 47-48, or when the statement sounds complete (line 55-58),or when she wants to confirm that she still has attention to what is being said (line 33-35, 61-63). CT is waiting for clarification of the situation that happened before, so she is rather listening more, she is looking for advice to rely on in the future. They also do predict what will be said or when the speaker will end the statement, otherwise the reassurance words and turn taking would be awkward and not synched.
5. It is interpretation of the Discourse analyst. We can never fully interpret it because we can never fully understand the position the other person is in, their feelings, their previous experience, or their view on the situation. Moreover, analysis of a live conversation from a text is missing on other factors, like environment, time, non-verbal communication between the speakers. With “Death of the author” on top of it, we can assure ourselves that it is a useless thing to do, as we don’t fully grasp the situation, the readers of our analysis don’t fully understand it either, then it goes on till it becomes Chinese whispers. BUT! It is a very useful thing. Think for example about detectives, who can actually deduce a lot of things from a piece of writing. Add psychology to that, understanding of the world, history, understanding of the environment, that is all the big D discourse, and it all suddenly makes sense. It also can be a very powerful tool for those who learn from discourse analysts. SO! Although any analysis is subjective, it does display a lot of information that is universal. 6. Lines 1, 18, 22, 33, 34, 44, 54, 59, 62 have at some point a number seconds (even when it’s up to a second) which does indicate we do have cognitive processes going on on the background. Repetition of parts of the utterances, like in lines 17, 40, 53 shows thinking of what to say next. Rephrasing, like in line 52 shows the same. Lines 1, 16, 22, 23, 28, 31, 40, 47, 52, 59 have small words like um, yeah, so, slow manner of speech. Those small gap fillers do not have the meaning as such but they give the speaker to think what to say next. The speakers do know their social status, the situation, their personal background, their previous experience etc, but they still need time to think, to form the sentences in the right way, to choose the right words. Any discourse (even when I’m writing now) we stop at one point or another to think of what is next. The whole process of speech or speech recognition and verbalisation of thoughts is a cognitive process.
Some interesting responses, especially to question 5. Yes in many instances discourse analysis can't determine how a person is personally feeling, etc. We will be discussing this in more depth in the area of conversation analysis this week. See Antaki's site at:
However DA can provide many insights into participants relationships, identities and values, etc. and how language is used to get things done and account for our accomplishments.
1. Consider the 1st discussion question posed by Paltridge (2006) on page 20.
ReplyDeleteI think that my pitch of voice can help people recognize my gender and age. Age can be also defined by the speed of speech. I find that elder people tend to speak a bit slower and the words are more separated and clearly pronounces. On the other hand, younger speakers tend to ‘swallow’ half of their words, merge, contract or omit some words. Lack of use of such words as “mate”, “bro”, “like” can define the age as well as ethnic background and exclude me from young Maori population. Accent is a big factor, and since I used to live, study or work in different English speaking countries, my original accent shifted a bit. People, in general, tend to find me either South African or European, but neither of them are correct in their guess. I reckon that the discussions that I can be part of is distinguishing factor for age and educational background.
2. Im not sure how to attach a screen shot from my MS document :( It has heaps of arrows and comments...
This is the link to task 2 for week 1. I think you are able to work in HTML only when you are creating your own blog and not replying to someone else's
Deletehttp://www.blogger.com/blogger.g?blogID=554936842208660983#editor/target=post;postID=7501056214259557350
It might be too tiny to see though...
Some interesting comments Alena. To what degree do you think the linguistic features that constitute our identity are consciously selected (i.e. we choose to speak in a certain way), or are they just the result of being exposed to certain communities?
ReplyDeleteI think they are exposed to certain communities. But we need to remember that it is a number of communities: school, work place, hobby society, friend circle, family, etc. We are not using the same type of language between 2 different communities. I actually do support Van Dijk's socio-cognitive model. sometimes it might seem that we respond immediately without cognitive thinking, but you do put on a 'suit' of a teacher when you enter a class and you have a set of rules that you would follow, going shopping, you know that you'll give money to the shopkeeper, get your purchase, say thank yous and good-byes. We teach our kids from early age how to behave and verbally respond in nearly each situation. Later on it just clicks in your brain as a set of rules. Although you always have choices the way you would respond, which would depend on several factors: your level of education, your mood that day, your position (superior/inferior) of that of the interlocutor, etc.
DeleteThis comment has been removed by the author.
DeleteInteresting points, perhaps the analogy of a sportsperson might be relevant here. At some point in the development of certain abilities, these are consciously performed, but after some time they become automatic responses.
Delete1. CT is unsure about how to start a topic with her superior. (yeah um yeah. I want to talk about um oh, etc) shows shiness, uncertainty. She is also annoyed and possible frustrated by bringing up the topic of someone else taking the position she was aiming at. This context, as well as the way CT approaches TR, indicates that she is inferior to him. CT is also not given a lot of time to speak, as sometimes TR’s statements are going straight after CT’s, like in line 27-28, 38-39). She is also interrupted a bit like in lines 48-51. However this interruption is also more TR’s confirmation that what CT understand is correct; give some reassurance, or clarification. It feels like TR is a slower speaker, who is more trying to find the right words to explain the situation properly without showing his superiority. He drawls, uses a few gap fillers )err, um), takes time to think (line 18, 54). At the beginning of the conversation, TR asks to take the phone, which also indicates his importance: a person in an inferior position will more likely to apologise for the ringtone and hang up on the caller (personal experience)
ReplyDelete2. CT can be defined as a female, according to Fishman (1978), who argued that women tend to start a conversation, bringing up the topic but keep silence throughout most of the conversation. Also the way poor CT is ‘fighting’ for the position in the business world, indicates that, although we live in democratic society that is promoting equality between men and women, men are still preferred for a managerial position even if they join the company a short while ago and the woman has been working there a while.
3. TBC
4. They certainly know turn taking. CT pops in when TR drals (line 47-48, or when the statement sounds complete (line 55-58),or when she wants to confirm that she still has attention to what is being said (line 33-35, 61-63). CT is waiting for clarification of the situation that happened before, so she is rather listening more, she is looking for advice to rely on in the future.
They also do predict what will be said or when the speaker will end the statement, otherwise the reassurance words and turn taking would be awkward and not synched.
5. It is interpretation of the Discourse analyst. We can never fully interpret it because we can never fully understand the position the other person is in, their feelings, their previous experience, or their view on the situation. Moreover, analysis of a live conversation from a text is missing on other factors, like environment, time, non-verbal communication between the speakers. With “Death of the author” on top of it, we can assure ourselves that it is a useless thing to do, as we don’t fully grasp the situation, the readers of our analysis don’t fully understand it either, then it goes on till it becomes Chinese whispers. BUT! It is a very useful thing. Think for example about detectives, who can actually deduce a lot of things from a piece of writing. Add psychology to that, understanding of the world, history, understanding of the environment, that is all the big D discourse, and it all suddenly makes sense. It also can be a very powerful tool for those who learn from discourse analysts. SO! Although any analysis is subjective, it does display a lot of information that is universal.
Delete6. Lines 1, 18, 22, 33, 34, 44, 54, 59, 62 have at some point a number seconds (even when it’s up to a second) which does indicate we do have cognitive processes going on on the background. Repetition of parts of the utterances, like in lines 17, 40, 53 shows thinking of what to say next. Rephrasing, like in line 52 shows the same. Lines 1, 16, 22, 23, 28, 31, 40, 47, 52, 59 have small words like um, yeah, so, slow manner of speech. Those small gap fillers do not have the meaning as such but they give the speaker to think what to say next. The speakers do know their social status, the situation, their personal background, their previous experience etc, but they still need time to think, to form the sentences in the right way, to choose the right words. Any discourse (even when I’m writing now) we stop at one point or another to think of what is next. The whole process of speech or speech recognition and verbalisation of thoughts is a cognitive process.
Some interesting responses, especially to question 5. Yes in many instances discourse analysis can't determine how a person is personally feeling, etc. We will be discussing this in more depth in the area of conversation analysis this week. See Antaki's site at:
ReplyDeletehttp://homepages.lboro.ac.uk/~ssca1/analysisintro.htm
However DA can provide many insights into participants relationships, identities and values, etc. and how language is used to get things done and account for our accomplishments.