Task 11 - Contemporary Language and Attitudes to change

What can studying contemporary language tell us about how people's attitudes have changed for example in using taboo language or dropping sounds from the ends of words as in 'goin'?

From studying contemporary language and asking family members (Grandparents and Parents) how their attitudes to language has changed I have found that the common feel is that contemporary language is very informal and lazy.

Speaking to family members they agreed that language is a lot more relaxed and informal than what it was in the past, however, the amount of taboo language and slang words that are used in today's contemporary language is a negative side to how language has become modern due to it making people seem very uneducated and illiterate due to filling spaces with such words when more formal words would be much more appropriate.

I feel that language has changed with society and the modern world; as the world has become more contemporary so has language; this makes language ever changing, interesting and exciting. New words are being developed to describe new creations (technology) and these words are now household words that majority of people know, whereas before only a few would perhaps know.
I feel that people's attitudes have changed drastically and that taboo language is no longer seen as taboo or something that should be frowned upon, but more of a common dialect that is said to emphasise an emotion/action/situation. Phonology has also changed over the years and now many people are dropping letters from words and no longer pronouncing them. e.g What becoming wha or wot. Through the dropping of letters and pronunciation, it shows that people have become lazy with language and are making it much more formal, this could be an aspect of dialect/sociolect, but the informality of language is becoming more and more widespread.

The Theories of Language Acquisition

Adapted Fairytale - Goldilocks and three bears

Everyone heard the story of Goldilocks and the three bears, and everyone thinks that I, Goldilocks, was breaking into the bear’s house, and eating their porridge and breaking their chairs, and sleeping in their beds because I'm a villain, but this simply isn't true.
This is the truthful and honest version of the story, from me, Goldilocks.

One hot summer’s morning I was slowly walking through the green forest wearing my favourite rose coloured sun dress and flower shoes, which complemented by Golden hair and sunkissed complexion perfectly, when suddenly, it started to rain! It was raining in summer time and I didn’t have my raincoat with me. I decided to turn around and go back home, and save my summers walk for a less rainy day, but now that everywhere was covered in puddles and thick rain drops were flying across the sky I couldn’t remember where to go. Then it hit me. Going home mean't walking through town and I couldn't possibly walk through town looking like this, what if someone saw me. Everyone knows and expects me to look clean and perfect all the time, but this rain was making me look like an animal! 
I kept walking down the muddy dirt track in the storm, trying to find some sort of shelter but there was nothing around me that would save me from this disgusting weather. I was just about to give up trying to find somewhere, when a small yellow cottage came into sight.
The small yellow cottage had a twig covered roof, blue shutters on the windows, and a chimney puffing out warm smoke from the fire pit inside. My mum always told me never to go into a strangers house, but if I didn't my hair and my clothes would become so wet and dirty that the name of Goldilocks would be ruined forever. I knocked on the bright red front door. Knock, knock, knock. No answer. I knocked harder. KNOCK, KNOCK, KNOCK. The glowing red front door swung open, allowing me and the torrential rain surrounding me to enter the warm, dry cottage. Carefully I stepped inside.
There was a delicious smell coming from the kitchen, matching my wild animal appearance, my belly growled like an angry animal with each step. Entering the kitchen, I saw three steaming bowls of entincing porridge. I sat down at the first bowl, the biggest. This was far to much food for me, I was trying to watch my weight, I couldn't possibly get a thigh gap and flat stomach if I ate all that. Moving to the next bowl of porridge, the smallest, I ate it all up, but I was still hungry. So I went to the middle bowl, and ate all that until I couldn't possibly eat anymore.
Now I know that eating one and half bowls of porridge that doesn't belong to me, does seem villan like but I didn't do it to be nasty, I was just hungry and cold and needed something warm and filling to eat before I fainted...or died! Anyone would eat another persons porridge if it was going to keep them alive surely?
After I ate as much porridge as I could physically could consume, I went into the living room to sit by the warm toasty wood fire to dry my once beautiful and clean hair, and my now dirty wet clothes. As I layed down on the sofa, stretching out my slim frame, the sofa collapsed from underneath me. I know I hadn't been to gym for a few weeks but surely I hadn't put on enough weight to break a sofa! Wanting somewhere to lie down after the awful events I just went through, I went in search of a bedroom.
Wandering my way up the wooden staircase, and into the first bedroom I noticed that this was a childs bedroom, with walls that was the colour of a baby chick and white furniture. As soon as I was lying down on the small bed I realised that it was far to short for me, I simply couldn't feel better without a good bed to sleep on. Moving to the next room I decided this was for the mum and dad because there an enormous bed, big enough for 5 people to sleep in. It looked far to cosy and inviting for me not to give it a try. Laying my fragile and delicate head onto the silk pillow I was instantly put under a spell and couldn't bring myself to leave the most comfortable bed I've ever layed on, I was in paradise.
Waking up from my brief nap, feeling fresher and ready to take on the world, I got up and went in search of a piece of paper to write to the owners of this fine house and tell them how grateful I am for there house being here. I wrote "Dear Owners, Thank you very much for leaving your house open whislt you was out. My name is Goldilocks and I was caught in the strom as I was walking through the forest. I came into your house and because I was hungry I ate your porridge, and because I was soaked from the rain I sat by your fire on the sofa and it broke, and because I didn't feel well I slept in your beds. I am feeling much better now, I have left £10 as a token of my grattitude. Thank you so very much. Love Goldi XOX"
The next morning I went into town and I couldn't help but notice that everyone was pointing at me and giving me the most disgraceful looks and then I heard it... I was a villan. And this is why I am now here, in prison explaining my side of the story. I'm not a villan, I was a young girl who felt poorly and needed some shelter from the torrential rain that was surrouding me. I didn't mean any harm but now all I will ever be known for is this huge misunderstanding.

English Language so far

This term I feel that I am doing Ok in English Language. The lessons so far have sometimes been quite filled with information and occassionaly hard to grasp but I now feel looking back that I understand all of the terminonlogy and with some revision I will be very confident on it.
I'm enjoying learning about and studying English Language and I'm glad that I picked it for As Level.

Reasons behind "Emily"

The commentary of Halloween flash fiction story “Emily” written for Year 7-9 within a school.

Lexical choices:
The lexical choices of the story are of a scary descriptive nature as the purpose of the story is to scare/ spook the audience. Whilst the purpose is to scare and also describe, due to the audience being of a young age the story can’t be too scary of gruesome, but it does need to make an impact and leave an impact on the audience. Some of the lexical choices from the story are many adjectives in order to describe. Some of the adjective picked from the story are: “Darkness”, “Deathly”, “Abandoned”, “musty”. The verbs used are: “Suddenly”, “Scurrying”. Also in the story first and second person is used. By first and second person being used it allows the audience to feel a part of the story and allows them to place themselves as the narrator due to them being nameless and only referred to as “I” or “You”

Discourse structure:
The discourse structure of this flash fiction story is of narrative, however, due to it being flash fiction the writer has to write a whole story within 500 words. Whilst the story still has a beginning, middle and an end it has been significantly reduced in order for it to still fit in with the term ‘flash fiction’.

Sentence Types:
In this flash fiction piece there are a range of different sentence types. In the very opening sentence we see the writer use single word sentences “Cold. Darkness.” By the writer using single word sentences it adds emphasis to the text and allows the writer to take a pause between each word and create a scene in their mind. In the story we see repetition of the word “Emily” due to her being the main character, “Halloween” is also repeated due to this being significant to the theme of the story and because this is the day that the story takes place on.

Phonological Features:
In the flash fiction story we also see a lot of phonological features such as: Sibilance and Onomatopoeia. The sibilance that we see in the text is “stupid school”, “stripy sea”. We also see the use of alliteration in the text “Wind whistling” “rats running”. 

Graphology features:
The features of graphology we see in the text is that the word Emily, is in a different font with red colouring.  There is also a picture included of a boy standing in front of a mirror with a ghost/scary looking girl behind him.

The reasons why I included all of these features were to appeal and create an impact on the audience. I wanted the audience to whilst feel tense and left wondering, due to them being of a young age I didn’t want them to be too scared. By including things such as alliteration it creates an emphasis on what is being described and leaves an impact on the audience. I chose the title “Emily” because it is the main character and by it being a single word, I felt that it would be more intriguing and bring more interest than a sentence or descriptive title.

Halloween Flash Fiction "Emily."

“Emily.” Flash fiction by Emma Tungatt

Cold. Darkness. Leaking Pipes. Smashed windows. Squeaking doors blowing in the deathly draft. You’d think this sort of place would be in an abandoned home or warehouse that’s been untouched for decades, but this room exists where you’d least expect it. The school toilets.

No one goes in the school toilets, unless you are the bravest of the brave. The school toilets aren’t just scary because they’ve been abandoned and neglected for years. It’s the little girl that makes them scary. The little girl called, Emily. Emily gets angry easily, especially when you go into the toilets without her permission… that’s why my friends and I went looking for her.

“I can’t believe we’re in school for Halloween this year! What’s scary about being in school?” Whined Amelia. “The only scary thing in this school is Mrs Cook when she hasn’t got make up on!” Billy joked. Billy was always trying to make a joke out of everything. “I know something dead scary that we could do...” Everyone turned to Charley, intrigued to know what this dead scary adventure would be. “We could go see Emily.” “Emily doesn’t exist! No one has ever seen her.” Billy protested. “That’s because they didn’t ask her to play! You have to ask Emily to play, so she’ll come out from her hiding place, my brother told me.” I corrected. “Let’s do it! I’m not having a boring Halloween all because of stupid school” Amelia whined, again. “Yes! Tomorrow lunch time, the 31^st of October, Halloween, we will go and find Emily!” Charley decided for the 4 of us. So that was it, we was going to find Emily.

Friday 31^st October. Halloween. Lunch time; we all met at the usual place, ate our lunch and set off to Emily’s toilets. Charley and Amelia went in first, me and Billy followed.

The rain was hammering against the filthy blackened windows. The wind whistling through the crumbling decaying walls. The scurrying and squeaks of mice and rats running around on the cracked tiles, the noise echoing around the room.

“We have to stand side by side, facing the mirror and chant ‘Emily, Emily, come out and play. Emily, Emily, what do you say? Emily, Emily come out and play.’” Explained Charley. So the four of us got into a line facing the mirror. Amelia, Billy and Charley started the chant; I just stood there silently with my eyes sealed shut. Suddenly, there was a scream. An icy chill spread around the room. I opened my eyes. There she was. Emily. Emily’s a small, timid, little girl with plaits and bows in her oaky brown hair and a musty pink pinafore over her stripy sea blue and dirty white top. Emily had blood on her clothes and hands. She was a little girl who had death in her eyes. Everything went dark. When the lights came back on Amelia, Billy, Charley and Emily were gone, I was alone. I never saw my friends or Emily again.

Transcript on Video Game

From the transcript I found out firstly that there are four young boys involved playing a video game.

From the transcript we can see that the young boys are intrigued by the game and have been taken over by the thrilling excitement from it. We can see that the boys are intrigued and concentrating hard on the video game due to the length of the pauses they are leaving between talking, the slower pace shows concentration and that they are talking slowly to make sure they are not distracted from the game/ distracting the player from the game.
Also, from the transcript we see a lot of sociolect such as "I got shot by an invisible enemy", "The machine gun", "Light sabre". The boys are using language that would only make sense to someone who knows either the game, or someone who understands that the boys are talking/playing a game.

We see in the transcript imperative verbs such as "throw" and "now" this shows to us how competitive the boys are about the video game and how excited they have become that they get a bossy tone. We can see that the boys are of a close relationship because it is unlikely that you would talk to someone who you are not familiar with in a bossy, authoritative tone, also David laughs over Andrew when he talking, showing comfortableness and informality with one another.

We can see that the boys are quite young due to the words that the boys are using. For example, if the transcript was of a teenage group of boys there may be taboo language in the text and would be ruder, however, at the end of the transcript we see Carl say "ha fatty" this shows his young, immature age and shows to us a lot about their characters when not playing a violent video game.

We see from the transcript the use of pronouns such as "him" a lot, this could be because the young boys are talking about an opponent who they do not know the name of, or a simply talking about a character on the video game who doesn't have a given name.