Hey so, I've had very little practice this year writing essays so I'm really rusty haha. Any constructive criticism is appreciated.
Topic: "Standard English" is an oxymoron. Discuss.
Spoiler
The very definition of Standard English is murky. As the author of The Oxford Companion to the English Language Tom McArthur puts it: "this widely used term... resists easy definition, but is used as if most educated people nonetheless know precisely what it refers to". Some see it as referring to 'good' or 'correct' English usage, others see it as the most formal and prestigious dialect of English; there is no real consensus amongst linguists. One would think that "Standard English" would refer to a linguistic standard with respect to elements like vocabulary and grammar. The simple fact that this is not the case suggests the very idea of having a standard English is impossible; after all, how can what which is not static be standardised?
English, like all languages enjoying widespread use today, is dynamic as a consequence of social and cultural change amongst its speakers. Its lexicon in particular has words added and removed at an astounding rate. Words that historically saw use with only a small group of people may receive recognition by the general public due to societal change. An example would be the influx of words brought into the mainstream lexicon by technological advances in recent years; the word e-mail (short for electronic mail) was once used only by the few with access to the Internet, but as Internet usage became more widespread the term gained traction. This highlights not only the dynamic nature of the English lexicon as a whole, but also the fact that it varies between individuals -- what one individual recognises as part of English may not be recognised by another. The phenomena of loan words further illustrates the dynamic nature of the English lexicon. As England colonised the new world, they discovered new objects for which there was not an equivalent term in English -- so, for the sake of convenience, they adopted foreign terms (eg. coffee).
The semantic meaning of pre-existing words is also in a constant state of change. Narrowing refers to a reduction in the contexts in which a word can appear; that is, its meaning becomes more specific. This happens commonly when a word has associations with taboo, be it through euphemism or due to an application of its original meaning to a taboo context. For example, 'seduce' once meant to lead astray but has since narrowed to a purely sexual sense. Words may also experience complete changes in meaning (semantic shift) -- as with 'gay', which has changed from meaning joyous to homosexual -- or more subtle changes in connotation. The vocabulary of the English language as a whole is never static and thus any attempt to create a standard in this regard is futile; the very nature of language makes this impossible.
The idea of a standard English becomes even more ridiculous when we consider its many individual dialects. Although the syntax of written English is relatively homogenous (generally following the subject-verb-object sentence structure), this is not necessarily the case with spoken English. For example, "you what, mate?" -- a colloquialism used by speakers in the United Kingdom that means "what did you say" -- does not conform to written English syntax. The different dialects each have their own unique nuances. The English spoken by 'bogans' -- a term unique to Australian English referring to individuals of an unsophisticated background -- differs markedly from the English that would be used in a formal business setting. They would be an obvious difference in regards to lexicon, pronunciation and perhaps even syntax. Profanity may have very different connotations depending on the speaker - the term 'c*nt' has become one of endearment amongst 'bogans', but in a business context would be seen as offensive and completely inappropriate.
A potential counterargument is that the language spoken in a formal setting should be the default simply because it is more refined than alternatives. The truth is that even if we were to pretend that the dialects of English exist in a dichotomy of "formal" and "informal", the idea of championing one variety over another is an undesirable one. Linguistic prescriptivism stunts creativity and prevents the creative use of language. Furthermore, it is not logical to make a dialect 'standard' simply because it is perceived as being the most formal; that is not the purpose of a standard.
"Standard English" is an oxymoron. Its heterogeneous nature means that no two dialects are the same, and that every dialect has its own distinct nuances and grammatical and lexical patterns. Furthermore, change in English as a collective is inevitable, be it in regards to its lexicon or the meanings of individual words. It is simply not possible to prescribe a standard to a language that is so diverse and dynamic.
Okay I guess I'll add to the limited Eng Lang posts we have in this forum haha
This is one of the essays I've written earlier this year (and I don't think it was under timed conditions either).
I'd love for some feedback on this, and maybe this will motivate me to write some more pieces.
Thanks
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Topic: “Contemporary Australian English is losing its identity. Discuss.”
Spoiler
Australian English (AE) is a major variety of the English language used in contemporary Australian society, and as a result it has an important role in representing the country on the global stage. Consequently, there has been scrutiny directed toward what AE has become and it has been suggested that AE is losing its identity due to some of the changes it has undergone. On the contrary, AE is merely evolving to fit into a society that is becoming increasingly global, while still retaining Australian values embodied in the language. There has been a distinct shift toward General AE, an increasing influence of American culture, and an influx of first generation Australians along with their respective ethnolects. Despite these changes, the values ingrained in the Australian identity have certainly not been lost.
There is a clear trend where Australians are moving toward a more General AE in an effort to become more intelligible in an increasingly globalised world. Conversely, there has been an decline in the Broad and Cultivated varieties of AE. Speakers of the Broad AE accent are known for a usage of slang such as “strewth”, “crikey”, “stone the crow” and “dinky-di”. These non-standard lexemes are expressions which convey surprise or shock while the latter translates to ‘speaking the truth’. However, to a non-Australian these may sound nonsensical. Because globalisation is becoming more and more significant in contemporary society, the language of choice needs to accommodate a larger audience, and as such, a move away from Broad AE aids this purpose. While non-standard lexis such as this does depict culture well, that does not mean that the decline of this often unintelligible Broad variety indicates a loss of identity. In fact, these vernacular expressions are instead being replaced by alternative, more contemporary phrases such as “no worries”, “take it easy” and “fair enough”, which not only convey Australia’s egalitarian and friendly nature, but is also easier to understand. On the opposite end of the spectrum sits the Cultivated AE, which has slowly diminished as ties with the British Empire waned in the past century. This dissociation portrays a stronger sense of national identity independent of the British influence, and so the overall shift toward the General middle ground variety of AE has refined the identity of Australia.
The influence of American culture is becoming more apparent and it is contended by some that the process of ‘Americanisation’ is diluting the identity of AE. While AE has certainly adopted some American terms and phrases, these are all selectively accepted as more appropriate and effective options to any out-dated phrases of Australian English. This fussy nature of choosing evidences that Australians remain aware and proud of the colourful expressions of Australian English, but are self-conscious about the image they want to convey to the rest of the world. Some lexical items adopted into the AE lexicon include ‘dude’, ‘gotten’ and ‘wicked’, yet these additions do not necessarily indicate a step-down of the Australian identity. In fact, as they become more and more popular in society, these terms often culminate into something with an Australian twist. Australian bodybuilder and Internet celebrity, Aziz “Zyzz” Shavershian, popularised ‘brah’, an Australianised construction of the lexeme, ‘bro’. This diphthong sound, /oʊ/, in the latter is reduced to the weaker monophthong, /a/. This phonological reduction reflects the informal and casual nature of the Australian identity. Its prevalence in the vocabulary of the youth is so great, that it has been seen as a contemporary replacement of the typically Australian lexeme, ‘mate’. Despite having a different appearance, this substitute carries the same underlying semantics as ‘mate’, and that is mateship, a core ingredient in the Australian national identity. New words and phrases will always be implemented to express the views of Australia and so there is no reason to believe that AE of today is losing its identity.
The inflow of ethnolects in contemporary Australian society is another concern for prescriptivists who believe AE is losing its identity. However, the use of non-standard lexemes in these ethnolects actually reflects the cultural diversity that is valued by Australians. As the migrant population has increased substantially in the past decade, it has become more common for first generation Australians to speak in their respective ethno-cultural variety of English. Among many of the youth of Samoan background, there is the popular use of “sole” (“sɒ-lɛ”) which is the Samoan equivalent of ‘mate’. Arab teenagers are often seen using the phrase ‘Wallah’, which translates to ‘swear to God’ or literally “promise by God”. The semantic field of ‘food’ also offers some lexical items such as ‘enchilada’ (Mexican), ‘laksa’ (Malaysian) and ‘ramen’ (Japanese). These borrowings have become a norm in AE today, and one might argue that it is therefore losing its identity due to the influence of foreign lexemes slipping into the lexicon. On the contrary, one of the qualities Australians bear is the willingness to accept other cultures. According to the Department of Immigration, “Australia’s multicultural policy embraces our shared values and cultural traditions.” The song “We are Australian” is a perfect portrayal of this sentiment. The line “We are one, but we are many” refers to Australia being made up of various different cultures united as one. Even with borrowings and influences from other cultures, AE has not lost its identity. This diverse society only highlights Australia’s shift to a more global-centric community.
AE will continually grow and develop in different ways to accommodate for the constantly-changing society. Despite evolving to appear as if old Australian traditions have been lost, the values of the Australian identity including egalitarianism, friendliness, informality, mateship and multiculturalism remain perpetuated through contemporary lexemes, typically Australian phonetic reductions and borrowing. Even by adapting and bending, Susan Butler notes that “the end result is still a unique Australian blend”. In other words, in spite of the changes it has undergone, to assert that AE is currently losing its identity could not be further from the truth.
I'm really lost on the topic of informal language in general; I have to rote learn all of these concepts like reducing social distance and creating rapport as well as all of these slang expressions because I don't use them much, and then I run into the problem of not having good examples. I'll fail if I have to write on informal language in the exam )':
Spoiler
Informal language has a variety of functions in Australian society. What do you see as some of the crucial roles of informal language in contemporary Australia?
In Australian society, informal language is a very important language variety that serves a diversity of useful social roles. Colloquial Australian English exhibits various aspects of Australian culture, promoting national identity, while informal language can also promote group identities and enhance expression. Therefore, the variety of functions displayed by informal Australian English makes it an indispensable tool of communication.
Colloquial Australian English promotes national identity through its close adherence to Australian cultural values. Diminutives, for example, reduce social distance and exhibit the nationally recognised Australian value of being laid-back. This is seen in the difference between “I’m having a barbeque at my house this afternoon” and “I’m havin’ a barbie at my house this arvo” in register and formality; the latter sounds distinctly friendlier and more relaxed, reduces social distance and creates covert prestige amongst the speakers, common features of informal language in general. Likewise, affectionate nicknames like “Richo” for football player Matthew Richardson, “Warnie” for Shane Warne in the media and names like “Jonno”, “Gordo” and “Stevo” between friends also help to reduce social distance and exemplify the laid-back character of Australian culture. Equally, Australian English has various lexical items that reflect Australian identity. Terms like “g’day” and “mate” have been ingrained in Australian as representing mateship, a cornerstone of Australian culture to the point that outrage has erupted over the replacement of these with the American “hey” and “buddy”. This is also reflected by Richard Castle’s comment that “through its culturally ingrained connotations of egalitarianism and mutual respect, ‘mate’ suggests an openness, at least a relationship of equal”, explaining the intrinsic importance of this lexeme. Another feature is swearing. According to Kate Burridge, the “Great Australian adjective” ‘bloody’ has “now become an important indicator of Australianness and of cultural values” like “friendliness, informality, laid-backness and mateship”. Evidently, swearing in Australia is not as strongly taboo as in other countries, reflected by the positive reception of the TAC “bloody idiot” and “don’t be a dickhead” campaigns and the Toyota “bugger” ad campaign. Such positive public reception demonstrates that Australians have accepted swearing as characterising Australian culture, showing how Australian informal English reflects national identity.
Informal language can also promote group identities. Slang, as an ephemeral, informal variety of language, allows the younger generation to separate themselves from the old by outdating older slang terms like “ace”, “rad” and “blood” with “sick”, “boss” and “bro”, immediately allowing the younger generation to create their own identity. It can also allow individual groups to separate themselves from each other. There are a vast number of slang synonyms for “good”, like “amaze-balls”, “sick”, “rock” and “boss” and numerous ones for “bad”, like “cruddy”, “crap”, “bogus” and “skank”. A group can signal its identity by the common adoption of particular slang expressions for good and bad, which strengthens the cohesive ties within that group. This is also seen on a professional level. In Australian hospitals, hospital staff have been known to speak of “FLK” for “funny looking kid”, “cactus” for “death”, “vegetable” for “comatose patients” and “crumbles” for the frail and elderly. Such irreverence for human life allows the staff to cope with the reality of their jobs, identifies dealing with these patients on a daily basis as routine and identifies shared experiences and jobs, which strengthens group identity, reduces social distance and improves the friendliness of the work environment. Thus, informal language is important for signalling group identity.
Furthermore, informal language has an additional function in enhancing expression. It allows people to communicate concepts and ideas much more concisely than in Standard English. This is done by the various creative word formation processes available to slang. Blends and compounding allow the resulting concoctions to possess semantic properties of the words used to create them. For instance, “bootylicious”, a combination of “booty” and “delicious” to suggest physical attractiveness; “vomatose” as a blend of comatose” and “vomit” to mean disgusting; “tree hugger” as a compound to describe environmentalists and “couch potato” as a compound to pejoratively describe a physically lazy person, all increase the expressive capability of the English language by creating new phrases with different semantic properties. Also, swearing can provide a large variety of meanings as well. The word “f***” can be used as an expletive of frustration; as a verb describing coitus; to describe ruining like “f up”; to describe indifference like in “f that shit”; in the form “f-ing” as an intensifier like “f-ing awesome” or as a dysphemistic insult like “f-ing idiot”’; the actual meaning of f*** depends on context. Clearly, informal language broadens the available linguistic resources to speakers, allowing more complex situations to be described concisely.
Informal language has many uses, from creating national identity to acting as the “masonic mortar to stick members together” according to Burridge and broadening the language’s expressive capability. Thus, its varied uses make informal language a ubiquitous and essential tool of communication to maintain social harmony.
Please be as negative as possible when reading this. I would LOVE to see people tear it apart constructively (:
While we're on the topic of discussing my rather uncertain essays...would someone look at this one too? I never used much online language so I don't have much knowledge on that.
Spoiler
Should the community be concerned that technology is replacing traditional forms of oral communication, such as face-to-face communication?
With society’s increasing reliance on newer technologies, people are worried that technological forms of communication such as blogging, social media and instant messaging will replace traditional forms of oral communication. It is true that technological communication is often more convenient than face-to-face communication and promotes linguistic creativity more so than oral communication. However, face-to-face communication is renowned for its emotive quality evident from the inherently personal nature of the spoken mode as well as the array of prosodic features at its disposal. Therefore, while technological communication usage is on the rise, face-to-face communication will not be completely replaced; the two modes of communication can coexist.
The rise of technological communication is partly due to its advantage in convenience over speech. Face-to-face communication, by its very name, requires the interlocutors to be at a similar physical location at the same time, which in today’s fast-paced and busy society can be quite difficult to organise. Technological communication, however, can mirror speech’s speed and spontaneity through instant messaging like Facebook, Messenger and texting without the restriction that the interlocutors be physically close to each other, allowing people to communicate with each other on the go. This is especially useful with social media such as Twitter in keeping people up-to-date with the latest news about their favourite celebrities. The growing popularity of chat rooms and online dating demonstrates how people have noticed the ability of technology to facilitate real-time communication between people separated physically. Likewise, through emails and similar forms of communication, the interlocutors can respond at leisure, which is ideal for busy people and those living in different time zones to their friends. Thus, technology allows people to “expand the choice about where, when, how and with whom conversations take place”, according to Marie Jasinski’s Conversations – creating a space for learning and innovation. Also, technological communication’s written nature makes it more convenient for communicating large volumes of information than speech. Online, two people can have a conversation in which multiple topics are discussed at once through sending long chat messages to each other, something impossible in speech due to its fleeting nature. Thus, the freedom in being able to control various aspects of the conversation help to explain the popularity of technological communication.
Another advantage of technological communication is its freedom of expression, which is unparalleled in speech. Freedom of expression arises online due to the ability to create multiple identities to remain anonymous and the general lack of impact to a person’s real-world image. This results in people voicing their opinions more openly and with less embellishment online, leading to online disputes over Youtube videos and religious and political arguments on Facebook photos. As the internet provides a place for people to voice their innermost thoughts and beliefs and to even meet like-minded people on places like forums, the internet is a valuable place for communication. Also, this freedom of expression means technological communication is a chief source of neologisms and creative word formation. Some of these are due to the character limit in texts and tweets, such as morphological concoctions like the rebus “m8”, the acronym “lol” and the abbreviation “tgif”, meaning “Thank God it’s Friday” incydk, or in case you didn’t know. Other morphological shortenings stem from the elision of several unnecessary letters, the absence of which does not impact the comprehensibility of the message. Such examples include “u” for “you”, “thx” for “thanks”, “cld” and “wld” for “could” and “would” and “pls” for “please”. The power of technological communication has even codified some of these neologisms, such as “lol” and “gg” which may be heard in spoken communication amongst friends now. Thus, both aspects of the freedom of expression granted by technological communication exemplify Nathan Rosenberg’s comment in The Age that it allows people to “say things they wouldn’t normally say”.
Despite all of the advantages of technological communication, speech has unique qualities that enable it to coexist with technological communication as a viable form of communication. Regardless of all of the emoticons and facial expressions that technological communication has at its disposal, technological communication lacks the interpersonal interaction that is so crucial to speech. In speech, the interlocutors are able to more accurately gauge each other’s emotions through paralinguistic features like facial expressions and gestures and prosodic features like stress, pitch and intonation, features which can also communicate various shades of meaning like holding the floor and a participant’s reaction to an utterance and cannot be conveyed as accurately in technological communication. This is reflected in the fact that formal speeches are still given for important occasions to allow the orator to infuse the speech with their own emotions, such as Julia Gillard’s Condolence Speech regarding the Queensland floods in 2010-2011 or Kevin Rudd’s apology to the Aborigines in 2008. As these were presented in spoken form, they were perceived as more sincere, heartfelt and effective, characteristics deriving from the prosodic features of the speech, and demonstrated the emotional power of spoken communication. For this reason, spoken communication is also deemed to be more personal than other forms of communication. Relationship breakups, for instance, are preferably announced in person as it is more interactive and shows more respect than the technological alternatives, while if a family member is injured or killed, the police will generally not send a text message or email, but will instead make a personal visit to the family, which again indicates respect. Therefore, speech’s irreplaceable personal and emotional characteristics mean that it is able to coexist with technological communication.
As technology becomes an ever-increasing part of people’s lives, the reliance on technological communication will increase due to its convenience and linguistic freedom. However, there are aspects of speech, such as its personal and emotive aspects, which cannot be replaced by technological communication. Thus, the community does not need to fear the replacing of speech by technology because the two modes of communication have separate purposes.
Can someone have a look at this one? Thanks :)
Spoiler
How is Australian English changing to reflect the evolving identity of Australians in the twenty-first century? Discuss at least two of the subsystems in your response.
Australian English has undergone a number of changes in recent decades. Globalisation of language, which has resulted from the development of a wide range of technologies, has resulted in the incorporation into Australian English of a number of Americanisms. In addition, the linguistic diversity of Australia has been enhanced by the migration into the country of a large number of individuals, all of whom bring to the country a myriad of values and beliefs that have been instilled in their language. The Australian accent has also evolved dramatically since British colonisation, and this is reflective of the changing values of Australian society.
The globalisation of language has been facilitated by the development of a wide range of technologies within recent decades. This most markedly includes social media websites, such as Facebook and Twitter, which allow exchange of linguistic features to occur between different parts of the world very readily. It is believed by many Australians that, as a consequence of this rapid technological development, Americanisms have infiltrated the nation’s language. Many Australians are apprehensive about a loss of national identity that could result from this invasion of their lexicon. These individuals are perhaps concerned that American English may eventually become the most prevalent English spoken in Australia; concerned that the values instilled in Australian English may eventually be completely subsumed by those associated with American English. Despite these fears, very few Americanisms have integrated into Australian English, and those that have include only a select few lexical items, including “buddy”. The likelihood that a few lexical items from American English could completely destroy the Australian identity is very unlikely. The apprehension of Australian speakers towards Americanisms is unfounded, and even if dramatic changes were to occur in the future, this is not necessarily a bad thing. English, after all, is the result of the mixture of a number of different European languages. Incorporation of additional Americanisms into Australian English, perhaps including some syntactic features, would merely add an additional layer to the Australian identity. After all, these Americanisms were accepted by choice; they were not forced upon Australian speakers against their will.
According to Hugh Lunn, if you lose your language, “you lose your personality, your character and who you are.” Ethnolects allow those who migrate into Australia from non-English speaking backgrounds to preserve the cultural values of their previous country. This widespread presence of a variety of different ethnolects in Australia is indicative of the nation’s multiculturalism. In addition, migrants from foreign countries may also preserve their cultural heritage through the use of some unique paralinguistic features. Despite this, it often hinders assimilation into the Australian culture. Migrants from Asia tend to make minimal eye contact during conversations, given that in most Asian nations it is considered polite. However, the opposite is true in most Western nations. The use of such a paralinguistic feature by an Asian migrant may be affronting to an Australian, and may result in the perpetuation of unjust prejudices, such as that “Asian people cannot be trusted”. Therefore, while the use of ethnolects and other features derived from a migrant’s original language may allow the preservation of culture, it may also hinder assimilation into Australian society.
The Australian accent has undergone dramatic changes since colonisation of Australia by the British. Initially, Australian English was simply a mongrel of many different British dialects. Soon after, these Australians distinguished their identity from that of the British by constructing their own distinctive language. The cultivated accent was used by the socially elite to demonstrate their power in society and command respect from others. However, in modern Australia, there has been a trend away from the cultivated accent. The current attitudes and beliefs of Australian speakers do not meld with the arrogance exuded by the cultivated accent, and according to linguist Kate Burridge, “one often encounters hostile or amused reactions to the cultivated accent.” As a result, the prevalence of the general accent, which combines the egalitarianism and friendliness instilled in the broad accent with the high levels of education indicated by the cultivated accent, has increased. Nevertheless, Australia’s speakers remain linguistically diverse, with geographical location a main determinant of the accent used. Individuals living in rural areas are far more likely to adopt a broad accent, which is perhaps correlated with the lower levels of education received by most rurally-located individuals. In addition, there is continued borrowing of lexical items from Indigenous languages. “Hard yakka” is a distinctively Australian phrase originally derived in such a manner.
The Australian identity is represented in English used by its citizens. The introduction of Americanisms into Australian English, which has resulted from rapid technological development in recent decades, has elicited great apprehension from many of these citizens. Nevertheless, currently, the Americanisms evident in the language of Australians are purely lexical. The multiculturalism of Australia is enhanced by the presence of a wide range of different ethnolects. These ethnolects, among other linguistic features, allow migrants to maintain the cultural identity of their previous country, but at times may hinder their assimilation into Australian society. In addition, the accent of Australian speakers has undergone a number of changes since colonisation of the country by the British, and this is indicative of the predominating attitudes held by society. The Australian identity is powerfully reinforced by the language spoken by its citizens.
And yeah, be harsh (I feel at times I was just telling a story rather than analysing anything)
Hey guys, very much appreciate any feedback on this essay, be as harsh as you like.
Spoiler
"'Your use of language sends out lots of little messages, not just about your level of education and where you come from, but about how you would like to be perceived"
Our language is the means through which we communicate with one another. However, above and beyond this communicational function, language shapes the way we are perceived. Through idiosyncrasies in the way that we use language aspects such as educational level, geographic location, socio-economic status and the groups to which we belong may be inferred. Therefore in order to create particular identities, people vary their language at different times and in different contexts to portray characteristics they see as desirable. This is evidenced through the broad to general continuum of Australian accents correlation with education, status and Australian qualities, the increased use of ethnolect’s in establishing a unique identity and the informal, ephemeral slang and jargon employed by our younger generations.
One of the most striking features of an individual’s speech is their accent. Many Australians, particularly from regional areas are clearly identifiable by striking phonological features such as drawn out vowels, long single vowels /a:/ and the use of diphthongs in place of monophthongs; resulting in words like “mate” sounding like “mite” . These Broad Australian features associated with low education and socio-economic status are employed as they portray salient Australian values such as informality and anti-intellectualism. No longer is a cultivated accent depicting high education and wealth desirable, with linguists suggesting that people deliberately choose low status accents in order to invoke prestige. This was evidenced in John Howard’s success throughout his terms as Prime Minster in using a Broad Australian accent to portray a down-to-earth identity, but interestingly however not reflected in Julia Gillard’s terms as Prime Minister with her Australian accent harshly criticised, suggesting care-free anti-intellectual qualities are not seen as acceptable coming from a female. As well as this a person will modify the severity of their accent according to the extent to which they wish to assert their identity. For example a person who speaks with a General Australian accent may use some broad features when conversing with Australians with this accent to signpost Australian identity in an attempt to fit in. As seen people are able to portray an identity highlighting low-education, anti-intellectualism and egalitarianism through phonological features of their speech.
In a similar way, the accent and lexis of multicultural Australia shows how language may be used to convey identity. As immigrants integrate into society and adopt English as a language, most look for ways in which they can accentuate their origins, with many of them doing this through language. One such example is the Italian/Greek/Lebanese communities accent/variety described as “wog-speak”. Characterised by pronunciations resulting in words such as “measure” rhyming with the word “bar” and borrowings from original language for instance “habib” “uleh” and repeated use of lexemes such as “brah” this variety clearly signposts the geographical origins of the speakers who use it. This ethnolect is seen in TV shows such as “Fat Pizza” and is particularly prevalent among youth, with evidence of spread even beyond people with a European background. Indeed through language variations Identity is demonstrated and maintained.
One of the most prominent linguistic talking points of contemporary Australia is the slang and jargon characterising the speech of younger generations. Influenced by technology and social media, the lexis of young Australian’s serve to identify its speakers and at the same time exclude speakers who do not use “correct” or “current” terminology. Examples of this jargon and slang is seen in the Australian TV series Summer Heights High where Chris Lilley effectively captures the language of a teenage boy using phrases such as “homo” “ranga” “shit” “motherfucker” and a teenage girl using expressions such as “oh my god” “povo” “random” “like”. The transient nature of this slang however, has even seen some of these terms become obsolete and it is for this very reason that the variety acts as such a successful group marker as older people who try to pick up the lingo are caught using old phrases and come across as daggy or lame. As such through slang and jargon our younger generations have a functioning system through which they are able to portray an identity as a young person.
The language we use is a main ingredient of the image which we project into the world around us. As seen through phonological and lexical features of our speech we are able to portray, our level of education, geographical origins and qualities we feel are most important and through the slang and jargon we use the generation to which we belong.
Unit 4 AOS 2 SAC 1
Spoiler
Australian English is made up of many different varieties. Discuss the range of variations within Australian English and the different attitudes people have towards them.
The non-standard varieties as well as Standard Australian English makes up Australian English – the means of communication in Australia. The diversity of these varieties is only natural as it reflects the myriad of ethnicities, cultures and faiths practiced within the country. Attitudes towards these linguistic variations will not detract the validity of the languages themselves.
Although Standard Australian English is regarded as the benchmark of language usage in Australia, it does not mean that it is superior than other non-standard varieties. Standard Australian English (SAE) is the common language, the national variety, of Australia and is used in the government, media, courts and education. Its role is to simply act as the codified norm in dictionaries, grammar books and be the standard for spelling and grammar. SAE follows British English spelling, including ‘o’ after ‘u’ such as in ‘colour’ as Australia was colonised by Britain and indeed, as linguist Bruce Moore states, “language is a bearer of history”. Therefore, Australian English retains influence of British English in its language varieties. Diminutives, the shortening and suffixation of –ie/-y/-o, is a characteristic unique to Australian English with examples being “Aussie”, Australia, and “muso”, musician. This feature reflects affability and friendliness which Australians identify with because the diminutive form of words used in Australian English indicates linguistic creativity and the playful casualness of Australians. Standard Australian English is perceived as the standard of language use due to being enforced in education. The Australian Curriculum, Assessment and Reporting Authority (ACARA) states that participation in Australian life “depends on effective communication in Standard Australian English”. These prescriptivist attitudes will not affect how language is used as language is constantly evolving and adapting to best suit our communicative needs. Kate Burridge, Monash University linguist, acknowledges that the standard variety has overt prestige as “it is associated with power, education and wealth” which is “highly valued by many people” but the other existing varieties of Australian English are just as valuable as long as messages are able to be conveyed and received by interlocutors. Prestige is not the only requirement for a language to be used.
The existence of migrant ethnolects is an indication of how culturally diverse Australia has become but with it comes the problems which may arise. Ethnolects are not considered as prestigious because it is spoken mainly by migrants or their children whose English has been influenced by their native language. Ethnic identities may be expressed with ethnolects – users may exclude those who are not of the same ethnicity while also lowering the social distance between those in the in-group. Borrowing of lexemes is a feature of ethnolects which supports this purpose. For example, the term ‘habiib’ is used in Lebanese Australian English to greet close friends. Its equivalent in Australian English is ‘mate’ but the multi-cultural variety employs ‘habiib’ instead because it retains its Arabic meaning and values of friendship which is stronger than ‘mate’, thus, strengthening the bond of the group’s users through the similar values and cultural tradition shared when using the term. In this way, their ethnic identity is asserted even amongst a country where the dominant culture is Anglo-Australian. Ethnolects are perceived by some as incorrect English or not upholding the standards of Australian English. Italian migrants end every word with a vowel in their mother tongue; their phonological pronunciation of words are often criticised because of this. For example, in Italian Australian English, ‘football’ would be pronounced as ‘footaballa’. This is parodied or mocked in the media with the movie ‘Wog Boy’ and ‘Acropolis Now’ being evident with this. The different in not just phonology, but lexicon and syntax of ethnolects are changes which have developed over time to Australian English, particularly since the Whitlam government abolished the White Australia policy. Although the cultures co-exist, friction may occur between them and the language variety used may be discriminated as a product of the prejudice against its users.
Aboriginal English is a non-standard variety which “differs from Standard Australian English at every level” according to the Department of Education in Western Australia, in order to express its users’ identity as separate from the values of Anglo-Saxon Australians. This variety is embedded with the values which Aboriginals hold. Including the importance of the group relationship as evident with the reliance of context to infer meaning even when ellipsis occurs and timelessness, as explicated with the lack of past tense marking. Examples of this such as “she tell him to stop them” is perceived as grammatically incorrect when compared to the Standard Australian English, “she told him to stop them”. Language is pertinent to the culture of Aboriginal people; Standard Australian English is considered as “flash language” and any Aboriginal using the standard variety would be deemed as “stuck up” (Eagleston) because of the ethnic groups’ attitudes towards the Anglo-Australian users of that variety. Not using Aboriginal Australian English would mean exclusion from the group. It was not until the 1960s that Aboriginal English was officially recognised as a distinct variety, a dialect, of Australian English in levels of government and in education. Nowadays there are publications regarding Aboriginal English and its use in courts and in schools. By doing so, even the variety’s feature of using ‘bin’ as a marker for a completed action would not be perceived as the distortion of the word ‘been’ – attitudes that regard Aboriginal English as inferior to Standard English is misconceived due to lacking the understanding of the pragmatics and importance of context used in this variety.
Just as Australian author Tim Winton embraces the nation as one that “honours its own stories and accents”, the plethora of Australian English varieties should be celebrated as a reflection of Australia’s current identity as a living, growing nation. The perception towards these varieties will not change the way that communication is being held between Australians nor tarnish the validity of how others express themselves in the wider community.
By taking a range of examples from the different subsystems of language, discuss how at least one particular group of individuals has constructed their identity. Explain the range of attitudes that arise in response to this constructed identity.
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There are two purposes of language – it is used as a platform for communication and a way of dividing people into groups which they do and don’t belong to. This has been executed by individuals to negotiate their identity; how they perceive themselves as well as how they want to be perceived as by others is indicated through their language repertoire which is used to best fit their social needs. People who play online games have their own lingo and jargon to allow for efficient communication with like-minded people as themselves. This group’s identity is clearly defined by their interests while other cliques are formed through other similarities such as age or gender. Though these speech communities implement linguistics in ways which help trademark their image, it may also act as a repellent to those who are not a part of their group.
Gamers – people who play video games– use language to best accommodate to the instantaneous nature of games where conveying messages to teammates or other players is the biggest priority and the key to winning. To successfully communicate with other players while winning the game, specialised lingo is employed and retains features of spoken texts such as language not being planned, its spontaneity and the omission of words or phrases – all of this occurs due to the environment of the gaming world. Non-standard grammar, syntax and spelling are generally disregarded by these people when playing as it would only hinder the flow of the game. Due to the discourse generally being via e-communication, this group’s language includes features such as abbreviations, acronyms, elision and ellipsis to allow for the quickest way of getting across their message while also limiting the need to type less letters on the keyboard. Their vocabulary includes mainly terms which are relevant to games – jargon such as the initialisms “NPC” (Non-player character), shortening of “OP” (overpowered) and the lexeme “Steam” (an online store where players can purchase games) are such examples. People within the group can quickly understand each other, thus, strengthening the bond between members who have the same refined level of knowledge of the activity. Their language also acts as a way of excluding people who are not part of this group. The pejorative term “noob” or its variation “newb” is used in reference to people who are “new or terrible at a videogame” as defined by Urbandictionary. The use of these lexemes positions members of the in-group as a unit that is superior in their knowledge of the activity. At the same time, the refinement of this group’s speech which maximises the efficiency of game-play may be overwhelming indeed to these “noobs” which would therefore conjure up pejorative attitudes towards the seemingly hostile gaming community whose lingo is exclusive of the out-group. Outsiders whose gaming terminology is not as comprehensive as gamers who are more proficient and see the need for such lingo will not see the value of using such developed speech. Of course, gamer-speak is applied while playing or when discussing about games with fellow players – this type of speech is not used in every day conversations but instead is flexibly used when the player is interacting within a game environment.
Language is manipulated by teenagers to indicate what their views and values are as a group. The speech which this community uses, dubbed as “teenspeak”, includes linguistic features such as swearing and taboo language, creative non-standardisms and slang. Although swearing and taboo is considered as rude and inappropriate in formal contexts, adolescents gain covert prestige amongst their peers as social distance is low and interlocutors are accepting of this profanity as a shared norm. Obscenities are also associated with this generation; the group identifies themselves with rebellion and asserts a difference between themselves and older generations through their language. The slang “YOLO”, an acronym for “you only live once”, demonstrates that youths are constructing themselves as being recklessness and risk taking. This behaviour and the lexemes which exhibit these views are ultimately condemned by those who do not agree with what is being expressed. By straying away from standards of other groups, teenspeak serves to strengthen the community’s own presence - this can be done through the use of slang. Slang is generally short-lived with the intention of being secretive with examples of such including: “ily” (I love you) and “OMG”, an abbreviation for oh my God/goodness. As journalist John Humphries articulates, “the whole point” of teenspeak is to in fact act as the group’s “own language” which acts as a means of excluding outsiders and by doing so, those who attempt to assimilate into the group by mimicking their speech would perceive the in-group as unfriendly and intolerant because they were rejected despite using the group’s lingo. Prescriptivists would also devalue teenspeak as the group’s linguistic creativity with their shorthands, initialisms and acronyms can be perceived as defacing English language.
Even youth subcultures such as young females assert their identity through language which is often mocked in the media. These teenagers deliberately set themselves apart from the rest of their peers by using linguistic features differently from others. Their speech is heavily influenced by popular culture and trends. Feminine teen speak can be identified through the group’s use of High Rising Terminal as it suits the social purpose of inviting feedback which lowers the social distance between interlocutors while also adding a flirtatious element to their speech- this is because HRT phonologically sounds as if the speaker is asking a question. The group generally aligns themselves with fashion, make up, partying and boys – the last factor perhaps being the most influential on their speech. In an attempt to appear clumsy or ditsy in order to gain attention from the opposite gender, people within this speech community use variations of words such as “totes” (totally) and “awks” (awkward). These non-standardisms constructs them as being silly with language which can be regarded as being uneducated by those who do not understand that their language was intentionally manipulated. The use of “whatever” explicates the notion that these girls are flimsy and are apathetic towards things which do not interest them. They are straightforward with things that they do not like – the latest trend of ‘vocal fry’, the vibration of low notes being drawn out, is prominent by this group as they are influenced by celebrities such as Britney Spears and Ke$ha who employs such a feature. For example, by drawing out the vowel sound in “interestaaaaaang”, the girls are attempting to be seductive with their voices while using irony to their boredom. This speech and its users are often subjected to ridicule by the general public as the superficial lifestyle and the direct malice which the girls associate themselves with are not values desired by the dominant culture. Journalist John Hajek from The Age newspaper mimics this speech, “and I was like ‘Oh my god,’ and it’s so like, whatever,” with surprising accuracy to satire the indirectness of their speech which requires context to be understood – a factor that can only be obtained if the speaker was part of the same language clique and not as an outsider who he identifies himself and his readers as.
Indeed, as David Crystal mentions in A Glossary of Netspeak and Textspeak, individuals constantly evolve, adjust and adapt their language to best fit their social needs and “act as a badge of identity” for groups which they identify themselves with. Attitudes which stem from the sorts of language which groups use arise in accordance to whether the individual agrees or disagrees with the values being expressed by the speech community – a natural occurrence as a person either belongs to the group because they do share their beliefs or they don’t belong to it because they differ to what the group stands for.
He guys, could i get some feedback on this essay. Be as negative as possible, i really want to improve on my writing. Also if any of you have any contemporary examples for this topic, that would be very helpful. Thanks.Spoiler
Language is a powerful and emotive communicative tool which can be manipulated to benefit the use and deceive its audience.
Language is unarguably the most powerful communicative tool at our disposal. People use language rhetorically and emotively to elicit a response from the audience. Because of this, language can be conducive to its user. It can be manipulated in many ways as seen in doublespeak, euphemisms, political language and PC language in order to deceive the audience. This gives users of language great power with the ability to use language manipulatively to deceive an audience to benefit themselves. This is seen in politics where politicians and public figures will often use doublespeak, euphemisms and political language to obfuscate the truth and make certain things sound better than they are. Language is obviously a very powerful tool which can be used to benefit the user.
Euphemisms are replete in modern society especially in the semantic field of warfare with the function of obfuscating the truth. The topic of war causes a furor in society and so euphemisms such as “collateral damage” and “friendly fire” are put in place to soften the impact of the true meanings behind these phrases. The designing of the atomic bomb was referred to as “The Manhattan project” and the two atomic bombs used on Japan were named “Big boy” and “Little Boy”. These euphemisms in no way reflect the devastating outcomes of the impact that they had on Japan. Though American citizens after hearing these terms seemed less concerned and more ignorant towards what was going on. This shows how language can be used to obfuscate and make things sound better than they are as supported by George Orwell’s statement “Political language is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable”
Language can also be manipulated to change the views or persuade an audience to benefit the user. The Australian army will often refer to itself as a “defense force” but refer to the Iraqi army as a “military”. Although the two arms are the same in nature, built for the sole purpose of killing, the positive connotations of the lexical item “defense force” give the Australian army the positive qualities of sacrifice, honor, loyalty and protection. While on the other hand, the Iraqi army is seen as being ruthless and merciless. Often language used to influence thought thrives on the presence of connotative meanings of lexemes. Missile strikes may be referred to as “surgical strikes” as surgery has the positive connotations of fixing, repairing and making something better. Using language emotively is another technique incorporated by speakers for their own benefit. Advertisements will largely use emotive language to convince an audience to buy their product. Online dating sites will often advertise themselves as “the pathway to finding your soul mate”. They will often use phrases such as “find the one for you” to appeal to the emotions of the audience eliciting an emotional response from them, thus persuading them to use their site. Evidently, language can be used to change the perceptions and behavior of an audience and thus benefit the user.
Sophisticated language and formal language such as jargon and complex sentence constructions are also used in the public domain to conceal the truth. Nominalisations and passive sentences are often prevalent in political language. A sentence such as “A pre-emptive strike was designed to ensure the safety of citizens” is passively constructed to purposely conceal the agent (the military). In doing so, users of language have the ability to deflect responsibility for wrong doings. Sophisticated language such as jargon also is used to obfuscate and conceal the truth. Politicians are often masters at using highly elevated language to confuse their audience in the hope to divert attention from anything that may bring harm to themselves or their political party. This can be seen in media conferences with former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd where he bamboozled the audience with uses of long complex sentences with successive subordinating clauses, nominalizations and jargon. A classic example of Kevin Rudd using overly sophisticated language is his infamous “detailed programmatic specificity” when answering a question on climate change. As seen, language has the power to confuse audiences and hence hide the truth and deflect responsibility.
Obviously language is a powerful tool which can be used to influence the way in which people perceive things. It can also be used to conceal the truth and deflect responsibility for a person’s wrong doings. Language can be used emotively to elicit an emotional response from audiences to benefit the user as well as manipulatively, thriving off positive connotations of lexemes. It can be seen that language is unparalleled in its ability to manipulate an audience and hence benefit the user.
Hey thanks for the feedback that helped a lot. :)Could you have a look at this essay too? Again, criticize freely.
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Should we fear language change or embrace it?
In modern Australia, language change is inevitable. There are many perception and opinions on language change. Prescriptivists often believe that it may lead to a declining of language and even a loss of identity with the recent bombardment of Americanisms. However descriptivists view language change as a necessary means for Australia as a nation to join the rest of the world politically and economically. They believe that a changing of language is not "wrong" and there is not prescribed guideline of what language "should be"
There has been noticeably increasing amounts of Americanisms flowing into the Australian society and vocabulary. This is due to the dominance of American pop culture and media. Many prescriptivists see this influx of Americanisms as a loss of our own national identity. Words straight from the white house eg. "homeland security" are used in the Australian parliament. "Teenspeak" is also evidently becoming more and more American in its linguistic nature as teens are now replacing the Australian "g'day" and "mate" with American "whatsup" and "dude". Although this lexical borrowing does not necessarily represent a loss of identity but rather a changing perception of how we typically see ourselves on the world stage. After all, change is ongoing and is not just occurring in this period of time but since the start of English itself. The English language has ten thousand "borrowed" French words mostly in the semantic field of food. Of course, Australia as a nation has become much less parochial joining the world politically and economically, and so understandably our language has changed to reflect this evolution. We no longer use archaic idioms such as "Drier than a dead dingo's donger" or "face like a half sucked mango"unless we are being deliberately "retro" and incorporate more Americanisms in our speech. Although despite the vast amount of Americanisms entering our borders, Australians still tend to put their own "spin" on these lexemes, be it through accent, pronunciation and even semantics.
The advancement of technological communication has also strongly impacted our language. With this new advancement we are now able to communicate with anyone across the globe quickly and efficiently. Though through this advancement the lines between written and spoken modes have been blurred in the medium of E-communication such as Emails, instant messaging, SMS etc. The major cause of this is the expectations of a quick reply and because of this new expectation, grammar has become less important. Text messages are replete with shortenings "y" and "sup" which are derived from the words "why" and "whatsup" allowing for more efficient communication without hindering the intelligibility of the text. Acronyms are also prevalent in instant messages such as "ROFL" and the most recent "YOLO". This is mainly due to the word limit in text messages as well as making it quicker to communicate. Rebuses such as "m8" and "b4" also play a similar function. In the eyes of a prescriptivist, these are all errors and mistakes and a declining of the English Language. However Linguist David Crystal believes that texting has improved our English contrary to popular belief. This idea is based on the fact that we must understand the rules in order to break them. Everyday when we break the rules in text messaging, we are doing so purposefully and not accidentally and so are in fact reinforcing our knowledge of grammar rather than deteriorating it. He argues that "any reading and writing is good for literacy". Descriptivists also argue that the main function of language is for communication and because these shortcuts in our language do not hinder out ability to communicate and even aid in it, there is no problem with it. As David Crystal states "The vast majority of spelling rules in English are irrelevant. They don't stop you from understanding the word in question". Evidently, language is changing, but also adapting to our social needs and expectations.
The PC language movement has also dramatically affected the way in which people choose to use language in modern society. The values of our society at a particular point in time dictate the way in which our lexicon is chosen. Nowadays political correctness dictates we stray from any discriminatory language, be it racism, sexism, age-ism or discriminating against the disabled. This is seen in our sensitivity of the adjectives "black", "fat", and "retarded". We now prefer to use the more mild "African American", "voluptuous", "mentally disadvantaged". In a day and age where "blackboard" and "whiteboard" are being replaced with "marker-board" these adjustments in language are necessary to keep up society's values.
Obviously, our society is changing, and so language must change in order to meet our needs. We have new expectations of fast replies which our technological advancements provide to us. The PC language movement has also changed the lexemes we choose. Language changes pertaining to our social needs and values and should not be feared as it is necessary so that our communication can keep up with our fast paced lives. ;
Thanks again for the extensive feedback. Here's another one i wrote up recently. However i find it hard incorporating contemporary examples in this topic. Any suggestions? feedback would be nice too.
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Our language choices have a powerful impact on others. How do we construct our language to promote social harmony and build rapport with others?
Communication through language depends on interaction with one another, be it through the spoken or written modes. In interactions of any sort with another, there will often be politeness conventions being used. Politeness is a language to used to make interactions more smooth and harmonious. Politeness also has much to do with the context of our surroundings. Using the right register in certain contexts allow people do identify with their interlocutors. Speakers will also often vary their language according to social circumstances so that the language being used is the most appropriate. Our language choices include what we choose to say in order to respect the face needs of another and what we choose to omit in our speech. Our choice of phrases and words can often promote social harmony with others.
Appropriate language use can often aid in communicating in a harmonious way with others. This means that we must consider the sociolinguistic variables to assess how we choose to use language. Swearing is becoming less taboo in our society with expletives such as "F***" being blurted out frequently by younger generations. However, young people will still tend to omit these swear words in certain contexts such as when an elderly is within an ear shot, or if there is a teacher nearby, thus avoiding any trouble showing how speakers will vary their language according to audience. Speakers will also vary language depending on context. For example, one may speak one way when at a football match and use a different register when in the office at work. In the office we will tend to use more formal and standard language. Most likely, we will use honorifics such as "sir", "ma'am", "Mr" and "Mrs" when addressing superiors. However in a football match, the language we choose to use will become much less formal with frequent use of slang such as "cairn the pies" helping us identify with our interlocutors and consequently helping us build rapport with them. In tight social groups we are more inclined to use the groups sociolect as well as a more relaxed register to build solidarity within the group. This is highlighted in "teenspeak" where slang and the jargon of a group are used to promote group solidarity. The language we choose to use aids in harmonious communication as well as solidarity building with others.
People will often use positive politeness conventions to build rapport with one another. Positive face needs is the desire of a person's skills, goals, ideas and attributes to be desired upon by another. It is also the need to be liked by others. Typical Australian diminutives such as "Nico", "Johno", "Robbo" help make social interactions more comfortable and intimate as well as addressing the positive face needs of the audience. Using these casual forms of address as well as"mate" and "buddy" are essential to help build rapport. Compliments are also forms of positive politeness which help discourse to run smoothly. Often on greeting, one will compliment another to start a conversation or break the ice. This is highlighted in game shows or talk shows and media interviews where the host will introduce the person coming on stage with a "put your hands together for the lovely (person's name)". This allows the person to feel warmly welcomed while setting a friendly tone for the rest of the discourse. It can be seen that our language choices can have a powerful impact on the way other people feel.
People also use negative politeness conventions to help conversations run smoother. Negative politeness conventions address the negative face needs of a person or the want of a person to not be imposed on. Negative politeness conventions include the use of "please" , "thank you", as well as weak modals "could", "may" which make social interactions run smoother. For example, if you were to use the imperative"pass me the salt" without any politeness markers it would sound very demanding and imposing. By adjusting slightly to "could you pass me the salt please? thank you." the imperative now sounds more like an interrogative thus sounding less imposing to your audience. The use of weak modals in such sentences is a form of hedging and is often used when asking a person to do something for you. The term "saving face" is often associated with negative politeness. Some"saving face" methods include hedging eg. "i would come but like i can't". The use of the discourse particle "like" weakens the force of the sentence and thus shows an attempt at being polite. Hedges are often incorporated into the language of politicians in the form of adverbs "possibly" and "basically" as it allows them to not answer a question directly. Speakers will also use language to show authority and to increase social distance between them and the audience. Negative politeness conventions allow a person to establish social hierarchy. This is seen when a student uses the honorific "Sir", "Mr" or "Mrs" when addressing a teacher. This increases the social distance between them and also allows the student to acknowledge that the teacher is his superior thus showing politeness and respect to the teacher. Evidently, our choices of language in the form of negative politeness conventions can have a powerful impact on others.
Our language choices obviously play a big role promoting social harmony and rapport with others. Our choices of register allow us to avoid trouble as well increase solidarity within groups. Our choice of lexemes to respect the face needs of others also promotes social harmony. Our language choices undoubtedly has a powerful impact on our audience.
Could somebody please give me feedback on this essay? Be as harsh as you like, as long as you have constructive criticism and it isn't just berating me on my writing.
Australian English defines who we are as a nation and a culture. Discuss.
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Australian English is possibly one of the most, if not the most distinctive variations of English. However we are a young nation and it is not simply whether Australian English is distinctive, but whether the vernacular reflects our culture as a whole. Through use of slang we express our cultural identity and values, while the rather homogenous nature of Australian English signifies that we are as Bruce Woodley so elegantly put it, ‘one and many’. Nonetheless what that ‘one’ group identity is differs depending on ethnic background, and a very different cultural identity can be shown through the language of those in separate ethnic communities.
The prevalence of slang in Australian English allows us to easily convey cultural attitudes and values in our daily language. Although slang is an integral part of any language, Australian slang can be used regardless of both social distance and status. Where other varieties of English leave slang for only the most informal of registers, Australian slang is even usable in politics. Take for instance John Howard’s use of ‘Howard’s battlers’ as a complimentary term for supporters of his 1996 campaign who were of the working class. From the term ‘battler’ we can see the classically Australian admiration of hard workers, especially those in adverse situations. Conversely through the idiom ‘cutting down tall poppies’, which means essentially putting down those who excel past their peers, it can be said that our language expresses strongly egalitarian ideals. In contrast with this we have developed a plethora of phrases pertaining to relaxation including ‘the land of the long weekend’, ‘don’t bust a gut’ and ‘she’ll be right’. Complaints are also generally frowned upon and thus the derogatory term ‘Whinger’ was created. Furthermore this term had another use in the amalgamation of ‘whingeing pom’ which firmly encapsulates the attitudes towards the British in the modern day. Moreover our cultural obsession with alcohol is demonstrated vividly by our use of colloquial terms including ‘shout’ ‘grog’ and ‘stubbie’. The slang explored here can be likened to a single raindrop in an ocean of terms, nevertheless it can be seen quite clearly how slang defines our cultural values.
As a nation our language is almost uniform signifying how a majority of the population shares a similar, but not necessarily the same, national identity. When juxtaposed with our colonial counterparts in America, we have very little variation in how we speak. If we look the phonetics of our speech it can be seen that there are common nation-wide trends, namely the shift of the /æ/ phoneme in ‘make’ to the /aɪ/ phoneme in ‘Mike’. There are however some considerable lexical differences, take for instance the expression ‘Toorak tractor’ which refers mockingly to a four-wheel drive vehicle which is driven around the city by the rich. ‘Toorak’ in this expression is replaced by other wealthy suburbs such as ‘Mosman’ in Sydney and ‘Dalkeith’ in Perth in order to keep it relevant. Some terms are not as transferrable as this as demonstrated by the Sydney derogatory term ‘westie’ for those who live in the western suburbs. While in Sydney the people in the western suburbs are typically of a lower socio-economic background, this may not apply to somewhere such as Perth and thus it is restricted to its place of origin. Similarly compounds pertaining to ‘stingers’ such as ‘stinger enclosure’ and ‘stinger suit’ are of no interest to say, a Melbournian as they only relate to the precautions those from tropical Queensland must take. It is evident here that although there are modifications due to the circumstances surrounding different areas, people from all ends of Australia tend to share some aspects of national identity through language.
As with any rule there are exceptions, and although mainstream Australians stick by the linguistic trends mentioned earlier, many ethnic groups have created their own vibrant ethnolects. In the 20th century immigrants from Southern Europe and Lebanon were met with rampant xenophobia on their arrival shown by the lexemes ‘wog’ and ‘lebo’. The retaliation for these terms was the establishment of ‘skip’, a derogatory term for Anglo-Celtic Australians. In the modern day however, young people of Southern European descent have used the label ‘wog’ affectionately for themselves, appropriating the stereotypes and connotations surrounding the lexeme. Although these youths come from a variety of backgrounds, they have a sense of group identity through their bi-cultural identity and thus speak in a very similar fashion. For example the /ð/ sound of the lexeme ‘them’ is frequently elided by ‘wogs’, whereas the final sound in the lexeme ‘pleasure is pronounced with an /ah/ phoneme. The inflectional suffix ‘-s’ is typically multiplied in informal conversation, for example ‘hey youse goings to Westfields?’ Furthermore the use of double comparatives is routine among ‘wogs’ with phrases such as ‘more better’ and ‘less stronger’ These distinguishing features have allowed young ‘wogs’ to create their own identity separate to both Anglo-Celtic Australians and their parents whom had experienced cultural cringe due to the initial xenophobia.
Identity is shown through language in countless different ways. It would be a terrible falsehood to say everybody in this country shares the same identity. Though there is a general national identity that may apply to the majority of the country through slang, differences in language both regional and ethnic tell us that this generalisation only goes so far. Ultimately a single Australian English cannot define the culture, nor the national identity, of a multicultural Australia.
Can I have some feedback on my essay please? I think I focused too much on Aus Eng
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"Language acts as a badge of identity" Discuss.
One of the major roles of language is to act as an indicator of identity. This is evident especially with the unique lexicons of different dialects and registers of a language, but also with their different phonological and morphological features. Different registers and dialects are for most part mutually intelligible, but they each have their own quirks differentiating them and enabling them to be used to signal identity.
Different varieties of English demonstrate differences in their phonetics and phonology. Pronunciation of words differs between different varieties of English, and this can be used to mark the nationality of a speaker. For example, American English is rhotic (meaning that the /r/ phoneme is pronounced in nearly all positions of a word) and its speakers would pronounce "water" [wɔːrtər], whereas Australian English is non-rhotic (meaning the /r/ phoneme is only pronounced only if it is followed by a vowel sound in the same phrase) and its speakers would pronounce "water" [wɔːrtə]. Additionally, Australian English has retained the /j/ phoneme in words such as "new" ([nju:]) which has been lost in American English (where "new" is simply pronounced [nu:]). These phonetic differences enable different dialects of a language to function as markers of identity.
Varieties of language may also show unique prosodic features: many speakers of Australian English use a rising intonation at the end of their non-interrogative utterances (the high rising terminal). The high rising terminal is highly symbolic of Australian identity, reflecting its friendly nature and encouraging inclusiveness. The similarity to a questioning intonation expresses uncertainty and doubt, which enables it to act as a hedging device in case something offensive was said. The interrogative nature of the high-rising terminal may also prompt back-channelling, enabling the speaker to remain aware of the needs of the listener so that conversation can proceed smoothly. Prosodic features also serve to provide information about the speaker. It is quite easy to tell the rough age of a speaker from the way they speak (with softer, less rhythmic speech found at older ages due to less efficient vocal organs) and also their gender (females tend to have higher pitched voices than males).
Language can also indicate identity through its lexicon. Registers are most easily differentiated when their lexicons are compared. For example, the term "oxidative phosphorylation" comes from a biological register and those who are not in the field of biology would likely not be familiar with it. Thus, language is able to serve as a tool for determining who is in the "in-group" and who is not: it is likely that those acquainted with these field-specific jargon are knowledgeable in that field. The same lexeme may be found in different registers with different meanings. In the medical register, the lexeme "stat" means immediately, whereas in the online gaming register the term is an abbreviation of "statistics". The lexis of national varieties of English also differs, and offers insights into aspects of their respective cultural identities. For example, the Australian lexeme "battler" and the American lexeme "try-hard" are equivalent in their denotative meaning, but their associated connotations differ markedly. "Battler" has positive connotations and reflects the notion of egalitarianism deeply rooted in the Australian identity - trying hard is something to be applauded, no matter what your situation. Conversely, "try-hard" carries negative connotations, reflecting a culture where a huge emphasis is placed on winning and where trying is demeaned. The frequency of profanity in Australian discourse is another example of language acting as an identifier. Profanity has become an "important indicator of Australianness and of cultural values such as friendliness, informality, laidbackness, [and] mateship" (Burridge). In many Australian contexts, lexemes such as "cunt" carry positive connotations and see use as terms of endearment: this would definitely not be the case in countries like Britain, where the lexeme is seen as incredibly offensive and vulgar.
Different varieties of language may have distinct morphological features, which can highlight cultural values and reinforce group solidarity. Australian English is unusually fond of diminutives, a form of derivational morphology including suffixes like -o, -y and -ie as in "smoko" for cigarette break. Many of these hypocoristics are uniquely Australian and would be unintelligible to those speaking other dialects of English. They reflect Australia's informality and promote solidarity amongst Australians. This is highlighted by McDonalds referring to themselves as "Maccas" in Australia in order to appear more Australian and more appealing to the Australian consumer.
Language is able to function effectively as a badge of identity. Unique linguistic features serve to reflect the cultural identity of the speakers of a language and to serve as a means of being able to identify members of a particular group, whether it be a nation, a profession or a social group.
Practice analysis for the article at http://blogs.abc.net.au/thebuzz/2011/04/d-for-disappointing.html
My analysis skills are greatly lacking so please critique it harshly
Spoiler
D for disappointing.
This informal, written blog post, D for Disappointing, was created as an angry outburst about a disappointing performance by Bob Dylan. It takes place the night after the author went to Bluesfest to watch her idol to perform, Bob Dylan. Since she could not see him perform, she creates the blog as a rant which contains numerous morphological and lexical patterning to aid her in discharging her anger.
Morphological and lexical patterning:
There are multiple morphological and lexical features in the text. The primary function of these elements is to stress the informality of the text through the use of nonstandard English. The use of contractions such as “couldn’t” and “that’d” enhances the informality of the text since they are non-standard features of spoken language. By doing so, it enables her to discharge her anger more effectively by appealing to a more intimate audience. This is complemented by the use of assimilation for the lexical item “nothin’” which further stresses the informality of the discourse.
Syntax:
There are myriad syntactical features within the text. Frequent use of fragments and short, simple sentences in the text enable it to be an easier read for a larger range of audience while allowing the author to emphasis her point. On line five, the author uses the two sequential fragments “Bob Dylan. In the flesh” to highlight the importance of seeing the musician play live. This serves a social function as it contrasts with the annoyance of him in the letter, thus portraying her disappointment in him. Furthermore, the use of the imperative “Get over yourself” is indirectly intended for Bob Dylan which serves in allowing the author personal satisfaction as well as a release of anger and tension
Discourse Structure:
Since the text is an extract from a blog post, it conforms to the convention of the text type. This is achieved through the distinct use of coherence such as the heading, “D for Disappointing”, and short paragraphs. These short paragraphs highlight the informality of the text as they demonstrate a lack of complex sentences. Furthermore, the discourse incorporates a letter to Bob Dylan for the last segment as a contrast from the normal convention of a blog post. By doing so, it further emphasises the social function of the text, expression of the disappointment in Bob Dylan.
As this is an opinionated piece, it includes numerous amounts of hedging expressions such as “about” and “kind of”. These phrases are exploited to avoid a definite commitment for the blogger and to remove social distance between the blogger and the audience. Likewise, the writer utilises the euphemistic metaphor “you’re kind of a tool” to be insulting yet polite. This is done so that the author would remain in a positive viewpoint from her audience thus persuading them to agree with her.
Feedback on my essay would be greatly appreciated. Please be as critical as possible :P
Spoiler
Language has the power to shock, offend and incite emotion. How have recent stories shown this to be true?
Language can be manipulated to incite a positive or negative emotion according to audience and context. Language is used to conform to covert and overt norms, in which there is an ‘in-group’ and an ‘out-group’. This causes different audiences to interpret language differently, influenced by human experience and their identity. Recent stories in the media reflect these, where advertisements and statements from public figures have evoked mixed reactions from the audience.
Covert and overt norms cause audiences to respond to language differently. The language will be molded in a way that only the ‘in-group’ can comprehend the intended semantics behind the language used, while often the ‘out-group’ will be shocked or disturbed by it. An example of this can be seen in a banned Call of Duty advertisement that was released in 2012, in which utterances such as “some people have steady aim and other people just spray everywhere” were said. This sparked controversy because the wider audience, who were the ‘out-group’, argued that the commercial was inappropriate because of the sexual connotations in the semantics. Conversely, players of the game - who were the ‘in-group’- considered it to be humorous and consequently it built rapport with them. This reflects how the media can strategically formulate language to incite emotions such as shock or humour from their audiences.
Language that might shock some audiences can also be used for social purposes. As Australia values egalitarianism and anti-authoritarianism, swearing does not offend the large majority of the Australian general public because this is perceived as a method of reducing social distance and building solidarity. In 1960 Helen E. Ross explained that “social swearing was intended to be friendly and a sign of ‘being one of the gang’” which accurately describes the purpose of swearing in an Australian setting. In 2012, a leaked video of the former Prime Minister Kevin Rudd showed him swearing for its expletive functions such as using declarative “this fucking language…” Although some were offended by it, many Australians perceived Rudd to be more relatable and a ‘true Australian bloke’.
However, society does not tolerate language that targets gender, race, religion, sexual orientation etc. Lexemes that discriminate aspects of people that they cannot change, for example being a woman, being of African-American descent, or being homosexual, are less tolerated and are often more loaded. The media will often employ swearing for its stylistic feature although it will cause controversy from some audiences, but offensive language will spark controversy from almost all audiences without the need to swear. For example, current Prime Minister of Australia Tony Abbott said in February 2010 “we just can’t stop people from being homeless if that’s their choice.” The Australian audience perceived this to be incorrect and offensive as they argued that homelessness is never a choice. Swearing was absent in Abbott’s statement, but it was still considered offensive because it targets a certain group for something beyond their control which evoked the audience’s morality.
Stories in the media and public figures prove that language can incite emotions of shock, humour or empathy from the audience. They respond to language differently because of covert and overt norms, where some groups embrace the pragmatics behind the language and others reject it. To Australian audiences, language that is deemed offensive and shocking such as swearing by other countries is often perceived as relatable and ‘Australian’. However there is a distinction between swearing and offensive language, in which the latter is more loaded and touches on society’s values for social justice. Authors Frompkin, Blair and Collins attest to this in stating that “words and language are not intrinsically good or bad but reflect individual or societal values’.
Feedback on my commentary please! It's on Obama's speech announcing bin Laden's death. Speech under first spoiler tag, commentary under second.
Obama's Speech
Barack Obama Announces Osama bin Laden’s death
May 2011
Good evening. Tonight, I can report to the American people and to the world that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden, the leader of al Qaeda, and a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women, and children.
It was nearly 10 years ago that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history. The images of 9/11 are seared into our national memory -- hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon; the wreckage of Flight 93 in Shanksville, Pennsylvania, where the actions of heroic citizens saved even more heartbreak and destruction.
And yet we know that the worst images are those that were unseen to the world. The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace. Nearly 3,000 citizens taken from us, leaving a gaping hole in our hearts.
On September 11, 2001, in our time of grief, the American people came together. We offered our neighbours a hand, and we offered the wounded our blood. We reaffirmed our ties to each other, and our love of community and country. On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to, or what race or ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family.
We were also united in our resolve to protect our nation and to bring those who committed this vicious attack to justice. We quickly learned that the 9/11 attacks were carried out by al Qaeda -- an organization headed by Osama bin Laden, which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country and around the globe. And so we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies.
Over the last 10 years, thanks to the tireless and heroic work of our military and our counterterrorism professionals, we've made great strides in that effort. We've disrupted terrorist attacks and strengthened our homeland defence. In Afghanistan, we removed the Taliban government, which had given bin Laden and al Qaeda safe haven and support. And around the globe, we worked with our friends and allies to capture or kill scores of al Qaeda terrorists, including several who were a part of the 9/11 plot.
Yet Osama bin Laden avoided capture and escaped across the Afghan border into Pakistan. Meanwhile, al Qaeda continued to operate from along that border and operate through its affiliates across the world.
And so shortly after taking office, I directed Leon Panetta, the director of the CIA, to make the killing or capture of bin Laden the top priority of our war against al Qaeda, even as we continued our broader efforts to disrupt, dismantle, and defeat his network.
Then, last August, after years of painstaking work by our intelligence community, I was briefed on a possible lead to bin Laden. It was far from certain, and it took many months to run this thread to ground. I met repeatedly with my national security team as we developed more information about the possibility that we had located bin Laden hiding within a compound deep inside of Pakistan. And finally, last week, I determined that we had enough intelligence to take action, and authorized an operation to get Osama bin Laden and bring him to justice.
Today, at my direction, the United States launched a targeted operation against that compound in Abbottabad, Pakistan. A small team of Americans carried out the operation with extraordinary courage and capability. No Americans were harmed. They took care to avoid civilian casualties. After a firefight, they killed Osama bin Laden and took custody of his body.
For over two decades, bin Laden has been al Qaeda's leader and symbol, and has continued to plot attacks against our country and our friends and allies. The death of bin Laden marks the most significant achievement to date in our nation's effort to defeat al Qaeda.
Yet his death does not mark the end of our effort. There's no doubt that al Qaeda will continue to pursue attacks against us. We must -- and we will -- remain vigilant at home and abroad.
As we do, we must also reaffirm that the United States is not -- and never will be -- at war with Islam. I've made clear, just as President Bush did shortly after 9/11, that our war is not against Islam. Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al Qaeda has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.
Over the years, I've repeatedly made clear that we would take action within Pakistan if we knew where bin Laden was. That is what we've done. But it's important to note that our counterterrorism cooperation with Pakistan helped lead us to bin Laden and the compound where he was hiding. Indeed, bin Laden had declared war against Pakistan as well, and ordered attacks against the Pakistani people.
Tonight, I called President Zardari, and my team has also spoken with their Pakistani counterparts. They agree that this is a good and historic day for both of our nations. And going forward, it is essential that Pakistan continue to join us in the fight against al Qaeda and its affiliates.
The American people did not choose this fight. It came to our shores, and started with the senseless slaughter of our citizens. After nearly 10 years of service, struggle, and sacrifice, we know well the costs of war. These efforts weigh on me every time I, as Commander-in-Chief, have to sign a letter to a family that has lost a loved one, or look into the eyes of a service member who's been gravely wounded.
So Americans understand the costs of war. Yet as a country, we will never tolerate our security being threatened, nor stand idly by when our people have been killed. We will be relentless in defence of our citizens and our friends and allies. We will be true to the values that make us who we are. And on nights like this one, we can say to those families who have lost loved ones to al Qaeda's terror: Justice has been done.
Tonight, we give thanks to the countless intelligence and counterterrorism professionals who've worked tirelessly to achieve this outcome. The American people do not see their work, nor know their names. But tonight, they feel the satisfaction of their work and the result of their pursuit of justice.
We give thanks for the men who carried out this operation, for they exemplify the professionalism, patriotism, and unparalleled courage of those who serve our country. And they are part of a generation that has borne the heaviest share of the burden since that September day.
Finally, let me say to the families who lost loved ones on 9/11 that we have never forgotten your loss, nor wavered in our commitment to see that we do whatever it takes to prevent another attack on our shores.
And tonight, let us think back to the sense of unity that prevailed on 9/11. I know that it has, at times, frayed. Yet today's achievement is a testament to the greatness of our country and the determination of the American people.
The cause of securing our country is not complete. But tonight, we are once again reminded that America can do whatever we set our mind to. That is the story of our history, whether it's the pursuit of prosperity for our people, or the struggle for equality for all our citizens; our commitment to stand up for our values abroad, and our sacrifices to make the world a safer place.
Let us remember that we can do these things not just because of wealth or power, but because of who we are: one nation, under God, indivisible, with liberty and justice for all.
Thank you. May God bless you. And may God bless the United States of America.
Commentary
The text is a speech by US President Barrack Obama announcing the death of Osama bin Laden, leader of the terrorist organisation al Qaeda. It's ostensible function is referential; it is informing the American people -- and those of the wider world -- about bin Laden's demise as well as giving information about the 9/11 attacks and the impacts they had on the American community. However, it also serves a secondary function in promoting the Obama administration to the American people, making them more willing to vote for them in the next election. The text's register is formal and is reflected through the use of formal lexis such as 'billowing' (11), 'conducted' (5) and 'counterterrorism' (31) and the text's general syntactic complexity.
The text's lexis reflects its social purposes. Obama's use of proper nouns 'Osama bin Laden' (5), 'al Qaeda' (5), 'Flight 93' (11) and the 'United States' (4) immediately conveys to the reader the nature of the speech and sets the tone as a serious one. The noun phrase "9/11" (19) is used throughout the text and is an exophoric reference to the plane hijacking that occurred on September 11, 2001. Obama utilises inference to convey his message in a more concise and effective manner - his audience is familiar with what "9/11" refers to and the term has come to represent the event. Obama uses the active lexical verbs 'collapsing' (10), 'conducted', 'killed' (5) and 'saved' (12) to effectively convey the events that have happened, and the use of the active voice serves to make the events more personal to the audience, as well as placing syntactic front focus on the persons responsible. For example, the clause "that the United States has conducted an operation that killed Osama bin Laden" (5) emphasises that it was the United States that killed Osama bin Laden and the use of the active voice subtly suggests that bin Laden's death was a result of a sustained, active effort on the part of the United States; they did not simply stumble upon him. Obama also is trying to stress the importance of unity amongst the American people, and this is achieved through the repeated use of lexeme 'unity' and near-synonyms such as 'indivisible' (22,24, 105,115) and the prevalent use of inclusive pronouns in the text 'we' (14,24,27,31, etc), 'our' (20,21,30,45,etc), which serves to make American listeners feel as if this is their achievement and helps reinforce Obama's point that together the American people are strong. This also helps fulfil the text's secondary function in making the Obama administration look more appealing to American voters - Americans who are not Democrats are encouraged to put their differences aside and support Obama, whom is portrayed is a very capable leader thanks to the killing of bin Laden. This is further exemplified by Obama's description of bin Laden as al Qaeda's 'leader and symbol' (57) and his killing a 'significant achievement' (59), making the American people feel that America, and thus by extension the current Obama administration, has made great strides forward in the war against terrorism.
Obama uses figurative language to paint a vivid picture in the audience's mind of the devastation caused by al Qaeda on 9/11. The metaphor 'that a bright September day was darkened by the worst attack on the American people in our history' uses the contrast between the denotations of lexemes 'bright' and 'darkened' to convey how devastating the 9/11 attacks were, highlighting the text's referential function. Similarly, the metaphor 'hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky' (9-10) exemplifies the destruction caused by the hijacked planes by making the audience visualise the planes as sharp knives that are destructive enough to cut even the sky. Obama describes the immediate aftermath of 9/11 in vivid detail through the use of short, active, descriptive sentences strung together in a paratactic style 'hijacked planes cutting through a cloudless September sky; the Twin Towers collapsing to the ground; black smoke billowing up from the Pentagon' (9-11). This is used to help capture the chaos that surrounded 9/11; the use of discrete sentences strung together captures how quickly the events unfolded - one thing occurred after the other, with there being very little time to react. Obama also employs the rhetorical device of triplets frequently. The triplet 'a terrorist who's responsible for the murder of thousands of innocent men, women and children' (6) is used to highlight the indiscriminate nature of bin Laden's killings and how nobody was spared, even if he or she was a child. The use of near-synonyms 'citizens', 'friends' and 'allies' (28) in the triplet 'we went to war against al Qaeda to protect our citizens, our friends, and our allies' (28) that differ slightly in meaning reinforces America's resolve to protect anybody on their side. His use of triplets also serve a more general function in making the speech more engaging. Obama also employs euphemism and buzzwords that are characteristic of political discourse in his speech. In line 32, he euphemistically refers to how America 'removed' (32) the Taliban government. The verb 'remove' does not have negative connotations and the audience does not associate it with the bloodshed and horror characteristic of war; it is painted as a quick, clean operation akin to removing a stain from a shirt. The euphemistic 'firefight' (55) is also used to describe the killing of bin Laden rather than the more appropriate 'assassination'. Assassination carries very negative connotations and Obama does not want the audience to view this as a state sanctioned assassination; rather, he is painting it as a two-sided conflict where bin Laden fought back and where the only option the NAVY Seals had was to kill him. The jargonistic buzzword 'targeted operation' (52) is ambiguous and is also used to avoid explicitly stating that it was an assassination.
Syntactically, the speech's structure is predominantly complex and compound-complex, reflecting its formal register. Obama uses relative clauses to provide the audience with additional information such as 'that were unseen to the world' (14) and 'which had openly declared war on the United States and was committed to killing innocents in our country' (27), helping to fulfil the text's referential function. However, short simple sentences such as 'No Americans were harmed' (54) are employed occasionally to break up the rhythm and make the speech sound more interesting, as well as to convey information concisely. In fact, Obama employs a paratactic style by stringing together discrete sentence fragments together in lines 14-16 'The empty seat at the dinner table. Children who were forced to grow up without their mother or their father. Parents who would never know the feeling of their child's embrace'. These sentences fragments are noun phrases and refer to those who were affected most by 9/11 - the families of the victims. The lack of predicates in these sentence fragments places emphasis on these people and gives it a greater impact by forcing the audience to dwell over and think about the consequences 9/11 had on these people without explicitly stating it. The majority of sentences in the text are declarative, fitting in with it referential function and helping to facilitate the effective communication of information. The imperatives 'May God bless you' (117) and 'may God bless the United States of America' are part of the formulaic closing and is characteristic of the text's formal nature and its text type as a presidential speech. He utilises adverbials of time frequently to pre-modify his sentences, allowing him to paint a timeline of events in the reader's mind for the actions leading up to the eventual killing of Osama bin Laden and thus serving to make the speech more coherent by giving it a logical structure. The adverbial "On September 11, 2001" (19) is used to qualify when the 'American people came together' and when the American 'time of grief' was. The use of the adverbial "so shortly after taking office" (41) to describe Obama's direction to CIA director Leon Panetta to make killing or capturing bin Laden a top priority paints the Obama administration in a positive light; they seem competent and attuned to the interests of the American public because they were able to deal with bin Laden. The adverbial "For over two decades" (57) is used to premodify a sentence on bin Laden's role in al Qaeda and serves the text's referential function by informing younger readers as to how long Osama bin Laden has been a thorn in the side of the US. It also emphasises how great the achievement of killing bin Laden is, which fulfils the text's secondary function through making Obama more appealing as a President for the American people. Obama also employs antithesis in line 66-67 'Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murder of Muslims' in an effort to make Americans more sympathetic to Islam and more aware of the fact that Muslim extremists are not representative of the entire religion. The contrast between 'Muslim leader' and 'mass murderer of Muslims' turns Muslims from perpetrators to victims in the eyes of the American public, and helps the audience understand that Muslims too detest bin Laden.
The speech is a cohesive and coherent one. Anaphoric references are frequently used, such as 'we' in line 19 referring to the 'American people' (19). This reduces clutter in the speech through not repeating lengthy noun phrases such as 'American people' and thus makes the speech more cohesive. A topic comment structure is also employed in lines 22-24 "On that day, no matter where we came from, what God we prayed to or what ethnicity we were, we were united as one American family. We are also united in our resolve...". This makes the speech more coherent by grouping ideas thematically; Obama brings up the concept of unity, and then elaborates on it. Sentence initial coordinating conjunctions such as 'yet' (37), 'and' (41) serve to link ideas together and make the speech more cohesive and coherent by giving the speech a logical ordering.
Overall, the speech is a coherent and cohesive one that fulfils both its referential function in informing Americans and people of the world of the killing of bin Laden and its secondary function in promoting the Obama administration.
Practice analysis for the Blurb at [url=http://www.sustainableseafood.org.au/Sustainable-Seafood-Guide-Australia.asp?active_page_id=697]
Please critique harshly
Spoiler
Promotional Blurb Analysis.
Text 5: Promotional Blurb Analysis
This text is a formal promotional blurb for the “AMCS Sustainable Seafood Guide”. The social purpose of the text is to inform potential customers of the damage done by overfishing in Australia to persuade them in buying this guide about buying sustainable seafood.
Lexical choice:
The text incorporate a frequent use of the first person plural pronouns- “we” (6, 7, 11, 12, 42, 44) and “us“(6, 10)- as well as the first person plural possessive pronoun- “our” (1, 14). By doing so, it demonstrate to potential buyers that the result of destruction in the ocean due to overfishing is due to them, therefore, making them responsibility for fixing it. This aids the social purpose since it persuade them to buy this guide as it will help solve the “global fishing crisis” (45). Fishing and cooking jargon such as “marine” (26), “panacea” (11), “aquaculture” (32) and “southern bluefin tuna” (37 are also utilise within the text. By using these lexical items, it adds credibility to the statistics that show that “overfishing is the single biggest threat to our oceans” (23), thus persuading the customers that this is a great crisis that need to be dealt with, hence, the need of the seafood guide.
The rhyming phrase “clean and green” (4&5) give a visual memory cue of the high standard of produce we rely on. Adjectives such as “Leading” (26), “dispassionate” (30), “alarming” (23) and “grim” (42) give the audience a vivid image of the situation while adding credibility and formality to the text. This demonstrates to the audience that the threat from overfishing is indisputable and must be dealt with.
Syntax:
Since this text is attempting to persuade future customers by using factual evidence, it primarily uses declarative sentences such as “Leading marine scientists are saying that unless we fast-track massive changes to the way we manage our seas, we face a continued crash in fish stocks” (26-28). In general, the text utilises an active voice to clearly demonstrate a cause and effect relationship in solving the overfishing crisis as seen in line 44-45, “If we act now, we can avoid the global fishing crisis- if we take action now”. By using the active voice, it obviously demonstrates to the audience that this crisis can be solved by buying this guide.
Cohesion and Coherence
This text is structured by the use of paragraphs to allow a logical progression of ideas throughout the text which aids cohesions. The first 2 paragraphs give an introduction to how fish has become the “centrepiece of Australian cuisine” (6). This is built upon in paragraph four which demonstrate the damage done by overfishing using factual evidence to support it social purpose of persuasion. Finally, the text concludes this progression of ideas in the last two paragraphs by concluding that “we need… a guide without commercial bias” (47-49) which clearly states the overall function of this text.
Thanks
Feedback for the below essay is appreciated. Am I using enough contemporary examples?
Topic: How are the linguistic features of public language used to exercise power and authority in contemporary Australian society?
Public language is the language of political and business leaders and civil servants; the language of power and of influence (Don Watson). Hence, as public language is associated with the upper echelons of society, it follows that it serves a role in highlighting power differentials and asserting authority. In contemporary Australian society, this is achieved through the depersonalisation of texts, the use of jargon in establishing expertise as well as to obfuscate meaning, and the conformance to negative face norms.
Formal syntactic features are frequently employed in public discourse in order to depersonalise and obfuscate. Nominalisation is frequent and involves the conversion in word class from verbs to nouns. Hence, actions become concepts, which are inherently more abstract, and harder to comprehend. For example, the sentence 'I met my friend' becomes 'I was in attendance at a meeting with my friend', which is lengthier, more complex and more difficult to derive meaning from. The nominalised style makes texts more authoritative and distant because it is reminiscent of the erudite style of formal academic texts (Burridge), which is objective and depersonalised. Agentless passives also serve to depersonalise by removing the actor of a sentence altogether, removing the human quality of a sentence and thus making it a more objective, detached recounting of facts. This depersonalisation removes the ability of the text to appeal to human sentiment and thus removes any potential common ground between writer and audience, emphasising the social distance between the two and hence underscoring the authority of the speaker. The fact that the performer of an action is ellipted altogether with the agentless passive also serves to obfuscate; information can deliberately be withheld from the audience. The ostensible function of this may be to omit irrelevant or unnecessary information, but it also means that those in positions of authority can hide information under this pretence of it not being relevant to the public. This cements the power differential between those in positions of power and those not, as it implies that the public is not qualified to or needs to know such information, but those in positions of power do.
Jargon is also a linguistic feature that is frequently used to exercise power and authority in the public domain. It is the technical language of a particular field, and its use makes the speaker seem more knowledgeable and more authoritative on a particular issue. Jargon's ostensible function is to convey meaning precisely and economically to an in-group that is familiar with the field being discussed and thus familiar with its associated jargon. However, its frequent use in a political context - a context where a good portion of the audience is not familiar with the jargon being used - is not done with the interests of clarity or the audience at heart. It is deliberately used to make the speaker sound like he knows what he is talking about whilst being vague, ambiguous and difficult for the audience to understand. In the Australian Government's Budget Speech for the fiscal year beginning July 2014, Treasurer Joe Hockey used complex, jargonistic terms such as 'medical research endowment fund', 'Economic Action Strategy', and 'corporate welfare'. The audience is able to roughly decode the meaning of such terms, but what Treasurer Hockey is actually referring to is unclear. For example, the proper noun phrase 'Economic Action Strategy' likely refers to the government's plan for tackling the budget deficit, but it is not clear to the audience if this refers to the actions outlined in the budget or some devious measure yet to come. Furthermore, jargon has been applied broadly to many inappropriate contexts, and the consequence of this is that it loses its denotative meaning and becomes a 'weasel word' - a meaningless word whose only function is to sound impressive. For example, Treasurer Hockey describes the budget's tough measures as 'sustainable' - the lexeme 'sustainable' has had its meaning eroded through 'repetitive parrot like use' (Don-Watson) and in this context functions as nothing more than a hollow justification for the government's tough measures. This serves to paint the government in a better light and to make it seem as if they have a good idea of what they are doing, thus asserting power and authority.
Maintaining social distance is a key facet of asserting power and authority, and hence adhering to negative politeness principles is a technique that can be used to underscore power differentials. Verbs of high modality such as 'will', 'must', 'can', 'may' dictate obligation, permission, ability and desire and hence their use implies that the speaker is in a position of authority. For example, the terms and conditions of the 2014 Australian Open states that 'guests may not bring children under 3 to the AO without a ticket for that child'. In this context, the modal auxiliary 'may' is used to assert what guests are and are not able to do, setting boundaries and asserting the power that the management of the Australian Open has over the guests at the event. Prime Minister Tony Abbott also frequently employs the modal auxiliary 'can', for example 'We are getting spending down, so that we can get taxes down'. Its use implies ability but not obligation; the government is not committed to action, merely stating that doing one thing will give them the ability to do another. In the world of politics, the mastery over the precise denotations of words is a necessity, as it enables politicians to play games with semantics. In the above example, Abbott technically did not promise to lower taxes, and hence if he does not follow through he can argue he has not actually broken any promises. This sort of careful language use enables politicians to manipulate public perceptions towards them and thus allows them to stay in power for longer. Society also dictates that those in positions of power are referred to by honorifics such as 'Prime Minister', 'Sir', 'Madam'. The non-reciprocal use of address terms highlights the difference in power and position between two individuals - for example, in a classroom environment a teacher would call a student by their given name, but a student would use the address term 'mister' or 'sir'.
As linguist Norman Fairclough put it 'the use of language for control purposes is simultaneously a reflection of existing power relationships and an exercise in extending and entrenching them'. Therefore, power and authority can be entrenched and extended in the public sphere in contemporary Australian society through the use of obfuscation and depersonalisation, the conformance to negative politeness norms, and carefully crafted lexical choice.
Please help critique and mark my essay. any feedback will be appreciated and be as honest and harsh as you want. Please provide what you think it would be marked out of 15 also. Thanks :)
Spoiler
What does Australian English look and sound like today, and how does it reflect our identity as nation?
Australian English is a major variety of English used across Australia, containing many distinct linguistic features making it look and sound unique to other Englishes. It serves as a fundamental token of the Australian national identity and is forever adapting to reflect this ever-changing notion. The Australian accent is arguably our most salient feature which has undergone great change and is an important bearer of history in regards to our identity. Australia’s use of slang and taboo language contribute to manifesting the national identity, however in the modern age, America’s dominance in the entertainment industry has had a large influence on Australian English. Language use in Australia has adapted and currently is indubitably an important medium to express the modern Australian identity.
The Australian English vernacular reflects the history of the nation and the values that are instilled in Australians. The abstract noun ‘mateship’ or the common noun ‘larrikin’ are examples of distinctly Australian lexis which reflect the self-perception of the Australian identity as they value comradery (mateship) and actually endorse boisterousness and cheekiness within a good hearted person (the modern idea of a larrikin). Instead of adopting the rhotic emphasis on /r/ that Americans are characterised by, Australians have continued to pronounce words like butter as /bʌtə/ showing the Australian perception of being laid back and easy going and unwilling to conform to American pronunciation. The broad Australian accent is internationally recognised as being iconically Australian, despite it only being spoken by the minority today. The accent veered up the continuum towards the more prestigious cultivated accent late 19th century as an inflow of British immigrants arrived and the Received Pronunciation became prominent. Then during the First World War, in order to distinguish Australians from the British the accent moved away from cultivated towards broad again which played a significant part in developing the Australian identity. The general accent is the middle ground and is the most popular accent spoken nowadays in Australia by roughly 80 per cent of the population. This accent is as Bruce Moore describes it, our “bearer of history” and maintains our identity by still sounding undeniably Australian but avoids the negative stigma often associated with the broad accent.
An underlying aspect of Australian English is the inventive and spontaneous use of colloquial language particularly in regards to swearing allowing us to invoke humour and reflect our values of informality and mateship. Australians take pride and show morphological innovation in their use of diminutives such as ‘servo’ for service station and the more taboo word formations such as ‘shit-faced’ for drunk. Dave Hughes demonstrated this bold sense of humour in last year’s Melbourne Comedy Festival when he employed the innovative expletive ‘whoop-de-fucking-do’. Our fondness for such colloquial usage transcends our counterparts in British and American English, which demonstrates the Australian identity and how easy-going and laid-back we are in the way we see humour from irreverent language. One only has to look at the plethora of idioms used in Australian English to sense our colloquial and humorous personalities. At a recent funeral I attended, the idiomatic expression “even though he’s carked it, he’s still here with us,” was used, showing that even in the most formal and sincere of contexts this characteristic of Australian English is present and playful colloquial language is therefore an innate characteristic of our identity.
International influences such as the juggernaut of American culture are affecting modern Australian English and modifying the national identity, in particular with younger generations. America’s dominance and omnipresence in the entertainment industry has led to various Americanisms entering the Australian vernacular. Morphological changes include the spelling of inflections from –ise to –ize in words such as ‘realise’ and ‘authorise’. A powerful example of the extent of their influence is the spelling of a major Australian political party, the ‘Labor Party’ who opted to change the spelling of their party name from the current and at the time Australian spelling of ‘Labour’ to ‘Labor’. Many prescriptive commentators condemn the use of such Americanisms but Australians have a propensity to using Americanisms where they see fit as stated by Pam Peters, a professor of linguistics at Macquarie University when she said “people see them as invasions but Australians have imported them, adopted them and adapted them. It’s not exactly colonialism.” Lexical borrowings such as the concrete nouns ‘dude’ and ‘buddy’ are now as commonplace in the Australian vernacular as the iconic Australian noun ‘mate’. The American term ‘ketchup’ frequently replaces ‘sauce’ and has contributed to the demise of the Australian rhyming slang term ‘dead horse’. These Americanisms are often adopted by younger generations to distinguish themselves from older generations. They demonstrate the nature of language change in Australia and display that the national identity is constantly evolving and reflecting these changes to become more global now than ever.
Australian English contains its own distinct look and sound. Its unique look regarding lexis, taboo language, idioms and Americanisms reflect the relaxed, humorous and adaptive nature of the Australian identity. The iconic sound of the Australian accent holds the essence of Australian history and is pivotal in reflecting the true Australian national identity.
Thought I might revive this thread. Below is a commentary, text used is from VCAA 2001 (http://www.vcaa.vic.edu.au/Documents/exams/englishlanguage/englang2001.pdf), I did the Section 2 text.
Feel free to absolutely rip it to shreds, don't worry about my feelings :D I feel like my writing goes out the window when I have to write it timed and it ends up being shallow and repetitive...
On that note 2014 ELers post up your stuff and we can all mark eachother's work so we can all improve :D.
Section B - VCAA 2001 Commentary (Section 2, Text 3)
Wordcount: 703 words Time: 45 min
The text is a transcript of an extract from an ABC radio commentary of the Men's 400 Freestyle Swimming Race at the Sydney Olympics on 16 September 2000. There are three interlocutors: A, B and M. A and B are regular sports commentators on ABC radio, whilst M is an expert guest commentator who is also a swimmer. Being a radio commentary, the text's function is referential in describing the race as it happens and this is exemplified through the predominant use of the present tense throughout. A is the dominant interlocutor in the text, delivering the bulk of the commentary, while B and M play a more supportive role. The audience is likely to be comprised of Australian swimming fans, and the text's register is relatively informal.
The text's social purpose in describing the race as it happens is reflected by the language used. The present tense permeates the whole transcript, and this coupled with the active voice helps immerse the audience in the race, making them feel as if they are there watching the race themselves. This is exemplified when A says "Rosolino is in second place" (10); here the use of the present tense verb "is" captures a sense of currency, helping keep the audience on the edge of their seat. Parataxis is also frequently used by A, for example in lines 25-28 "Coman is in third, and..., and there's a terrific battle for the minor placings'. [240 words, end of page 1] This paratactic style both is indicative of its unplanned nature, but also enables A to effectively describe what is happening in the race as it happens with little effort - more information can easily be threaded on simply through adding another coordinating conjunction.
The context of the text is also reflected by the text's stylistic features. The use of the surnames of the athletes to refer to them requires inference to understand, with proper nouns such as "Rosolino" (10), "Hacket" (11), and "Coman" (28) used without elaboration. This is reflective of the target audience of swimming fans, who are expected to know who these athletes are. Furthermore, the use of the hypocorism "Thorpie" (2) by B highlights that the commentators are Australian; "Thorpie" is an Australian nickname for the swimmer, and this illuminates the identity of the commentators. Furthermore, use of swimming jargon such as "sprinting" (3) reflects the expertise of the commentators regarding swimming, and in relation to the audience, is able to convey what is happening concisely and accurately through relying on inference.
The turn taking of the piece reflects its text type as a sports commentary. Speaker A is dominant throughout and this is perhaps indicative of him being the senior sports commentator. [206 words, end of page 2] B plays a supportive role, for example after A says "he goes through in forty five o nine" (21), B adds "two seconds under the world record" (22), providing some additional information to the reader in helping them appreciate just how well Ian Thorpe was swimming. Speaker M, as the expert guest commentator, does not speak often. He does give his opinion on how Ian Thorpe is going in line 5-7 after being prompted by B via a direct interrogative "Is he Mark?". This shows M's expertise in the field of swimming, because B is clarifying his interpretation with M. A employs the rising intonation frequently to hold the floor, for example "but now Ian Thorpe" (16) and this coupled with an extensive use of parataxis signals to the other interlocutors he still intends to speak. There is only one instance of overlap in the whole text in lines 64-65, which is due to a timing error as evidenced by A stopping and letting B finish, This is evidence of a cooperative discourse .
The prosody of the commentators reflects their emotions and excitement. B employs emphatic stress in line 1 "this is inc^redible" which emphasises the adjective "incredible" and hence conveys how amazing Ian Thorpe's performance is. A's increase in volume in lines 32 "<F what a sensational swimmer he is F>" shows his excitement over Thorpe's inevitable victory and his emotional investment into the race [236 words, end of page 3]. This is perhaps done to enthuse listeners and to make them more engaged in the race knowing it is nearing its climax .
Analytical commentary of text 4 from VCAA English Language (Specification and sample) at
http://www.google.com.au/url?sa=t&rct=j&q=&esrc=s&source=web&cd=1&ved=0CCIQFjAA&url=http%3A%2F%2Fwww.vcaa.vic.edu.au%2Fdocuments%2Fexams%2Fenglishlanguage%2Feng-lang-samp.pdf&ei=yMtEVMnEGcGD8gXHj4DYCg&usg=AFQjCNEmiwqta6Khk69sZwhjSAjG5zZZ9Q&sig2=6jbm7hfjGBdJf9deF75tcg
Spoiler
This text is a formal speech given by a student in a public speaking competition. Its social purpose is to motivate and encourage the audience at the premier’s building, to buy Australian produce through the use of a myriad of persuasive devices.
To commence his speech, S utilises the interrogative, “Why should we buy Australian?” (1). By using this topic management tool, it complements the texts overall coherence by introducing the audience straight to the issue at hand, buying Australian products. Before answering this question, he continues with a discussion of the current situation our country is in. In doing so, he incorporates the similie “That’s like… more than half the cup” (6-7) to explain the current value of the Australian dollar in laymen’s terms. This further builds his case of persuading his audience into buying Australian product which is then preceded by his first main argument, “If we buy Australian, our farmers, our land and our economy will be resurrected” (17-19). In doing so, it incorporates some unusual linguistic features that are strategically utilised to aid the social purpose of persuasion. This includes the use of parallelism to link three consecutive issues to one solution; fronting to place emphasis on “our farmers, our land and our economy”; repetition of the first plural possessive pronoun “our” to show that it is an issue for everyone, and the use of the modal verb “will” to indicate intent.
S continues his speech by cohesively linking buying Australian products to providing opportunity to Australian. He does this by discussing several, proud Australian products such as the Hills Hoist, penicillin, the retractable syringe, meat industry, and the wine industry. This evidence he provided further develops his argument thereby aiding the social purpose of persuading the audience to “Buy Australian” (92). This repeated imperative acts as a cohesive tie by linking his arguments together to the social purpose as well as instructing the audience in go buy Australian products.
Given that the speech is trying to persuade its audience into buying Australian products by linking that notion to Australian values, it features many lexemes regarding the current Australian society. This include jargon from the semantic field of economy such as “Australian businesses” (26), “exporting overseas” (28), “The Australian dollar” (4) and “industry” (85). These lexemes adds credibility to his argument by showing that he has thoroughly research the issue which in turns support the social purpose of this text. In contrast, Australian colloquial language such as “hard yakka” (76), “helping hand” (76) and “back on their feet” (10) are utilised to link his argument to values of our nation, once again building upon the social purpose of this speech. Adjectives such as “remarkable” (35), “huge” (62), “worst” (2) and horrendous (3) are also frequently used throughout the text to allow the audience to create a vivid image of the ideas presented to them. This effect compels them to show their support to S speech thereby aiding the social purpose of persuading them into buying Australian products.
Since this text is obviously well rehearsed and scripted, there is a distinct lack of non-fluency for the entire text. This demonstrates that S was well prepared for his speech which in turn, point towards the context of this text, that is, a public speaking competition. Absence of non-fluency features also aids the social purpose of this text by demonstrating expertise and comfort in this topic which adds credibility and gravitas to the text.
S also manipulates his prosodic features to add emotion and excitement to the text while allowing clarity in his speech. In line 1 (“Why should we (.) buy (.) Australian(…)), he uses short pauses create a dramatic effect in his interrogative, and a long pause to allow the audience time to contemplate the question. In line 19 (“Will be resurrected”), he emphatically emphasis “will” to stress the intent of the restoration of our society if we buy Australian products. Furthermore, he incorporate stress and prolongated sounds on line 47 and 48 (…mill:::ion… mill::ion) to indicate the huge benefit Australian products have on our society. This once again complements the social purpose of this text by highlighting the necessity of supporting Australian products for our society.
Any critical feedback is welcome
Here is a weak attempt at a section C essay, haha. Any feedback and ideas for improvement is welcome. Cheers
Language can both establish a sense of solidarity and belonging as well as reinforce social distance and authority. How is this true in the current Australian context?
Spoiler
Language can both establish a sense of solidarity and belonging as well as reinforce social distance and authority. How is this true in the current Australian context?
Language can serve a myriad of indirect functions which are important in our current Australian context. Our identity as individuals, groups and as a nation is publicly expressed by our language choices. In doing so, it also create a sense of solidarity and belonging while also forming a sense of alienation and power to certain groups. This is evidently seen by members of authority who manipulate their language to reinforce social distance, such as in political speak. Furthermore, Australian English allows our country to portray a distinct national identity, creating a national sense of belong. In a similar manner, minority groups, such as ethnic and social groups, can use language to create a unique identity which in turn, reinforces solidarity.
To express their group identity, many social and ethnic groups make deliberate language choices to differentiate themselves from society. By doing so, it allows them to earn covert prestige within the ‘in-group’, resulting in the reinforcement of group solidarity. Users of teenspeak clearly illustrate this notion through their deliberate language choice. This is evident by their use of the elongated vowel sound in the adverb “so” for further emphasis as well as their frequent use of colloquial slang such as “soz” (sorry), “shweet” (intensifier for “sweet”) ,“cool” and a diminutive “selfie”. These language choices also demonstrate the value of being informal and easy going among teenagers which thus create intimacy between the users and thusly, a sense of belonging. Another social group that demonstrate the phenomena of the relationship between language and group identity is the online community known as speed cubers. These ‘cubers’, utilised jargon that is related to twisting puzzles such as the initialisms “OLL” (orientation of last layer) and “PLL” (Permutation of last layer), to show that they have similar knowledge in this unusual field of solving Rubik’s cube which create a strong connection between each of the members, again, demonstrating how language can develop rapport between individuals. Ethnic groups also acquire the use of non-standard language to allow them to integrate into contemporary society while maintaining their ethnical identity. In doing so, they create a new dialect that combines elements of both their native and new language which are referred to as ethnolects. This is observed by the linguistic innovations of the ethnolect; Greek Australian English which contains a distinct lack of prepositions as evident by the phrase “come my house” (come to my house) as well as the use of epenthesis in their utterance such as the addition of the inflectional plural suffix ‘-s’ to form the non-standard, second person plural pronoun, ‘youse’. These non-standard language choice acts as a distinguishing marker of their social identity while displaying their unique culture and heritage which in turn, earn the user cover prestige among that speech community. All of these conscious, language choices made reiterate the value of language in earning fellowship among minority group.
Australian English has constantly been evolving to “… meet the social and psychological needs of [its] users” (Crystal) and in doing so, reflect our contemporary national identity. This unique dialect of English plays a quintessential role in uniting members of our society together in both troubled and peaceful times. Former Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, utilised the ability language has to bond our nation together by specifically incorporated a broad accent in her press conference that followed the tragic floods in question. Having this more stereotypical, Australian accent, it allow her to create a sense of unity for all Australians who were in distress and thus illustrate the power of Australian English in our society. This is again evident by Australian’s frequent use of the high rising terminal in our speech as well as our use of diminutives such as ‘g’ (Melbourne Cricket Grounds), “shep” (Shepparton), “brissy” (Brisbane), “uni” (university) and “bloody”. These unique features are “important indicator of ‘Australianness’ and of cultural values” (Burridge) such as friendliness, informality, laid-backness and mateship which shows the importance of language in our nation. In doing so, it illustrates how users can earn overt prestige in our society, allowing them to reaffirm their identity of being Australian and thus, develop a sense of belonging within our nation.
Even though language plays a key component in establishing identity as individuals and groups, it can also be manipulated so that it can be used to earn power in our society while alienating others. Both political language and political correct language provides evidence to this as they obfuscated and users can put their own individual desires in their language. The asylum seeker issue in our society has brought to light many examples that illustrate this. Titles such as “illegals” and “queue jumpers” which are frequently used by the press, has demonised these people and thus, separating them from the rest of our society. Furthermore, the politically correct noun, “homosexual”, has alienated that sexual orientation group from society by making their sexuality appear as a disorder, when compare to the more vernacular noun phrase, “gay people”. In doing so, it has resulted in the promotion of social distance between them and the rest of society and has thus, illustrate the subtle power language has in our society.
Language use is a two edged-sword when it comes to building relationship between different members in our society. On one hand, it can be used by minority groups to create a group identity that allows the members the privilege of earning an illusion of solidarity and belonging. This notion is again emphasis by how Australian English can empower our nation in creating proud, national identity that allows it user to connect through its unique features. On the other hand, language can also alienate individuals and groups while establish a hierarchy in relationship in our society. All of these subtle, yet important functions of language demonstrates the power it has.
Hey guys, the following is an AC I wrote based on the 2012 VCAA text. I’d greatly appreciate it if someone could review it (pls be harsh ;) ) and give it a mark out of 15, and let me know how I can cut it down since 900 words imo is too long for something that should be ~700. Also note that the 3rd body imo is a little weak mainly because I really had no clue what to write for it, so if you have any suggestions to bolster it I’d greatly appreciate it.
Thanks in advance :)
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The written transcript of the spoken conversation between Margaret (M) and Joan (J) presents a discussion of their dogs, Bella, Scruffy, and Patch, as well as J’s mascara. Within the verbal exchange, an informal register is utilised, alongside with a casual style, in order to maintain the social purpose of the dialogue: to foster in-group membership and promote equality between the two friends, hence establishing social intimacy. Furthermore, the phatic function of the verbal exchange, which occurs in an open domain on a Melbourne suburban train, is to maintain the fluidity of the conversation between M and J, with M being the dominant interlocutor prompting engagement with J, whilst J being the supportive interlocutor encouraging M to hold the floor. Given the setting, M and J experience an array of non-fluency features within their conversation, thereby evidencing its unscripted and spontaneous nature.
Through the use of an informal register, M and J are able to bolster social rapport and intimacy, thereby fulfilling the social purpose of the conversation. The use of dysphemistic language, which is a salient feature of Australian English, with the expletives “stupid” (76) and “crap” (102) enables J to appeal to M’s national identity, thereby augmenting the positive face needs of M through this expression of this shared national pride. As such, J bolsters in-group solidarity and closes social distance with M, hence contributing to the social purpose of the discourse. Additionally, the use of these expletives, simultaneously with emphatic stress, in a public setting allows J to cement a relaxed tone, thereby reducing the formality of the conversation to encourage equality with M so that they can foster social rapport. Similarly, the implementation of “the Yarra” (1), being a shortened form of the proper noun phrase ‘the Yarra River’, which refers to a locality in Melbourne and requires inference to be understood, promotes an informal register, thereby closing social distance between the two interlocutors. M and J’s mutual understanding of this reduction indicates their shared identity as citizens of Melbourne, thereby allowing M to enhance the positive face needs of J by appealing to her national identity, thus furthering this establishment of in-group membership. Moreover, the employment of complex lexical patterning with the non-Standard variations of the adjective ‘dumb’, such as “dumb-dumb” in line 57 and “dummy” in line 81, allows M to reciprocate this use of informality in order to promote togetherness with J. In this way, M and J are able to embolden equality within the discourse through this use of informal lexis, thus achieving the interactional social purpose of establishing social rapport.
Within the spoken conversation, M adopts a dominant role in progressing the conversation by promoting engagement with J, whilst J acts to support M in holding the floor, thereby enabling the development of a smooth conversation so that the phatic function of the text is achieved. In line 4 and 6, M uses antithesis, whereby M contrasts the singularity of Bella “[getting] out of the water” (4) harmlessly with the plurality of “everyone else” (6) who helped her, only to be inflicted with “scratch[es] in the process” (6). Here, this juxtaposition within the syntactic patterning allows M to add to the entertainment value of her newly initiated topic, thereby promoting engagement with J to support the fluidity of the conversation. In response, J laughs to this exaggeration, hence expressing her interest in the topic so that she encourages M to continue holding the floor, thus appealing to her positive face needs. In a similar fashion, M employs a hyperbolic simile with “it’s as if we’re murdering him” (26) in relation to bathing her dog Scruffy, thereby exaggerating Scruffy’s response to being washed, so that she can keep J interested in the topic, to which J responses with overlapping laughter, indicating her approval of the topic to encourage M to maintain the floor. J’s facilitative role is further evidenced through her use of interrogative tags, such as “she’s good isn’t she?” (52), relinquishing the floor to M and promoting her to develop the discussion in regards to Bella’s independence, hence enabling the fluidity of the conversation to be preserved. However, near the conclusion of the spoken transcript, J takes a dominant role, shifting the topic to mascara she bought from a discount chemist, as seen in lines 91 to 94, where J uses parallelism of simple sentences, as well as elongation of the /IPA/ diphthong in the intensifier “so” (94), in order to emphasise the poor quality of the beauty product, thereby maintaining M’s attention. For the most part of the conversation, M maintains a dominant role whilst J acts as a facilitative interlocutor, hence allowing for a fluid dialogue.
With the informal conversation being conducted on a Melbourne train, M and J undergo a series of non-fluency features which indicate the unprompted nature of the discourse. The false start in line 31, for example, where J begins to ask “so how ol-”, followed by her correction “how big’s Scruffy?” indicates that J may have realised her initial interrogative had the potential to offend, given the negative connotation surrounding the lexeme ‘old’, thereby demonstrating the non-fixed manner of the conversation. Moreover, the occurrences of interruptive overlapping speech, such as in lines 10 and 11, where M mistimes her minimal response “yeah” before J had finished her utterance further indicates the spontaneity of the dialogue. Finally, the elongated pause in line 85 exemplifies the unplanned nature of the conversation as J is thinking of her next utterance to continue the newly initiated topic. As a result of the situational context which the dialogue takes place, M and J’s conversation is consequently inherently plagued with a myriad of non-features, including false starts, interruptive overlapping speech, and pauses, indicating its unscripted nature.
I FINALLY GOT MY FIRST ESSAY COMPLETE OUTSIDE OF A SAC!!!!!
I have been procrastinating all year about doing practice essays, and my final SAC is done. But I now have a tutor who is being hard on me and made me do this essay in two days, and I ran out of time as well, so it's not very well done.
My tutor hasn't actually done English Language so she doesn't understand all of the metalanguage and concepts to well (although she is incredibly smart at normal English and is trying to learn).
I am mostly looking for feedback on my use of metalanguage and whether I have used any of it wrong. Anything to do with the general, structure or layout my tutor can help me with.
The topic is "Who upholds the standards of language in modern Australian society? Discuss with reference to the use of standard Australian English and other Varieties"
essay
In today's Australian society there is a massive variety of different varieties of English that are spoken, everything from Standard Australian English to ethnolects like Greeklish and Aboriginal English. There are different people in these different parts of society that uphold a different Standard of English and for different reasons, some put effort into the language to keep it uniform whereas others do without even trying. The teachers uphold the Standard English by making sure everything is taught in a Standard way that everyone understands, some varieties of English in Australia like ethnolects aren't actually upheld by anyone and there are different ways of speaking that are wildly different from each other.
Standard English is the main English that is taught in schools. The teachers job is literally to teach the students the correct way of doing things and that includes in both written and spoken language. "Teachers have to give students access to Standard English to protect them against [] prejudice" is what Kate Burridge said in 2001, it is talking about how people who cannot use standard English properly and use phrases like "I done it" are generally seen as not as educated and therefore less employable by potential employers. However by making sure that schools are properly teaching Standard English it then alienates the children who have learning difficulties, as if they are unable to properly learn Standard English they will be a minority and their lack of English skills will stand out more than if Standard English wasn't properly taught by teachers in schools.
Ethnolects are upheld by the people who speak it and there is no one whose aim is to keep the ethnolect going. Ethnolects are varieties of English that have been formed when a group of people from a culture that doesn't primarily speak English starts living in an English speaking region, this creates a sort of hybrid of the two languages. Ethnolects are mostly just the speakers using different Lexemes from their culture instead of the English ones, although there can be some syntactical differences as well. Because the ethnolects just happened and no one pushed them there is no one upholding these sorts of English, except for of course the families who speak it and pass it on which is of course a form of upholding the language by simply using it.
There are a few ways of speaking that are considered not as common but they have a community of people upholding them to these standards. These are the people with Broad and Cultivated accents both on the opposite sides of the spectrum. In reference to cultivated accents they are the accents in which the highly educated university professors and similar speak in, they are given a standard which they must adhere to by the people around them and that helps uphold the language. On the other hand of the spectrum however is the people who speak in a very broad accent, they are very distinct in their accent and their sense of community helps them uphold the accent and it isn't a specific person.
Language is upheld by different people in society depending on what the purpose of it is. There is not a single person or group who does and it is a collective effort from all of us. There is a group of people (teachers) who teach us the standard English but otherwise ono specific groups of people actually do.
'While Australians pride themselves of giving everyone "fair go" , they don't always approve of the use of non-standard varieties'
Spoiler
'Despite our current era equal opportunity for all many are still discriminated against for speaking a non-standard dialect' -Kate Burridge. In the public domain some non-standard varieties are used such as Aborignal english (to some extent) and colloquial English. However many other non-standard variteis are left in the dark such as ethnolects and some aspects of aboriginal English (AE). The public domain is dominated by standard English showing the inequality affecting non-standard varieties in Australia.
Very Few times does colloquial phrases appear in the mouth of politicians, but when it does it is hilarious. Former Labour Leader Bill Shortern had called Scott Morrison a 'simp' for the United States, 'simp' being a noun in teenspeak used to downplay each other. Bill''s choice of words shows that he is comfortable using teen speak publicly. Similarly Scott Morrison wielded colloquial English in a tweet where he refereed to his home made samosas as 'scomosas' very punny indeed. The pun is a feature of informal language and the fact he had used it in a tweet shows again that Australia fruitfully uses colloquial language. These examples of teen speak and puns used by powerful entities show that Australians approve the use of colloquium English in the public domain.
Indigenous History is core to our culture and it is unsurprising that some language features appear in our lingo. In our school preceding any announcement the greeting 'womindjeka' is used, translating to welcome from the wurudenji people. The use of this greeting shows that we acknowledge and honor the tongue of native Australians. Aboriginal languages also finds itself in flora and fauna, our national animal the kangaroo and the cuddly koala are both borrowing from the continuum of indigenous languages. Once again our honoring of native tongue in present in the domain of flora and fauna . This representation of Indigenous languages through the use of greetings and naming shows that it is welcome in SAE, however this is not entirely the case.
The ridicule of AE for its 'incorrectness' is present in Australian society. AE has constantly been downplayed for 'broken English' due to their unique conventions. 'Like it or not the language we use has implications for how we are judged (Stimulus A)'. This is the case of AE as many are judged for using the non standard language. In AE the overcompensation of the sound 'h' is present, a phrase such as 'uncle henry' might be hyper corrected to 'huncle henry' differing AE from SAE phonologically. Additionally the absence of auxiliary verbs sets up AE for ridicule, for example the phrase 'we eating dinner now' omits the auxiliary verb 'are'. This creates the false image that speakers of AE are 'simple minded' . These distinct syntactic and phonological features of AE are seen as 'substandard' and broken when compared to SAE. Because of this stigma of AE it is very rarely seen in the Public domain shwoing our lack of acceptance for non standard variety that is AE.
Despite the multicultural nature of Australia the voices of ehtnolects are unheard in the Australian context. The portrayal of Lebanese culture in Australia is often downplayed and mocked for the use of lebspeak. Phrases of lebspeak include 'yallah' translating to lets go or 'habib' translating to mate and the overuse of vocatives such as bro, cuz and more. 'Here come the Habibs' and 'Fat Pizza' are crude representations of lebspeak with many of these phrases being the runt of the joke due to their lack of 'proficiency' in language. 'A persistent theme in linguistic diversity..... seen as laziness, stupidness... migrant speakers are often denigrated this way' (Stimulus B). The themes of 'stupidity' paint the image that ethnolect speakers are unintelligent and are just materials for humor. Therese portrayals of ehtnolects show that Australian society does not give immigrant varaties a 'fair go'.
As Bruce Moore stated 'Language is the most important indicator of identity', maybe this lack of acceptance for new variteis reflects a change in our 'fair go' egalitarian nature we once held
Any feedback is appreciated ;)
Hi there Corey!
Apologies, I only had time to look at your intro and first body paragraph. Here is my feedback! :)
Intro
I'd reword it to something like to make it a bit more concise:
This highly informal press release email promoting Meghan Trainor’s new single was written by a media outlet to consumers of the media outlet. The media outlet adopts a casually intimate (is there another word you could use to describe this (e.g. personal)? I haven’t seen the text myself, but I feel like you could be a bit more clear here – as long as you describe what you mean if you wish to discuss the tone and relate it to other bits of metalanguage and concepts in your analysis) and authoritative tone, building rapport and creating social distance (I'd say increasing/extending here instead and possibly building rapport whilst/yet increasing social distance?) in order to persuade their audience to purchase Trainor’s single.
You've referred to register, social purpose, and elements of context here, which is great! :)
Function paragraph
This press release’s primary function The primary function of this press release is to persuade consumers to purchase Meghan Trainor’s new single as demonstrated through the use of prosodic features such as volume (l. 4, 5 & 6) (merged the sentences together) (perhaps describe the volume here. Also, if this is a written text, how is volume used? Also, how does the use of this prosodic feature help to achieve the function of the text?). The author uses attention grabbing techniques to help achieve this. Prosodic features such as volume (line 4, 5, 6). The author utilises the passive voice (perhaps give a specific example, rather than saying the whole paragraph 3) to increase social distance, by (maybe?) creating a feeling of authority in knowing what you want (I’m not entirely sure what you mean here as I haven’t seen the text – is the feeling of authority created in the audience? Does the passive voice encourage the audience to want to purchase the single? If so, how?) (all paragraph 3), which is of course, to purchase Meghan’s new single (perhaps you could reword this to: the author utilises the passive voice (e.g. “…” (l. number)), increasing social distance through (e.g. is there agentless passive? Maybe adopting a formal manner makes the advertisement less appealing to the audience? etc.) which creates a feeling of authority in knowing what you want. The use of verb-phrases (give an example and line number!) decreases the formality of the text (how?), creating rapport with the audience (how?), making what the author has to say more relatable and the audience more likely to listen (great!)
Just as an aside - when analysing - think 'what is the language feature?' (identify and give an example), 'why is it used?' (use analytical verbs here!), 'what is the effect?' (or what does it achieve? bring it back to what the paragraph is about - function). Also, I know I kinda shuffled things around a bit in your paragraphs but just wanted to emphasize that it might be helpful to focus on what you write rather than how you write.
Great job! :)
Hello Harrycc3000, this is looking like a great response! Here's a few things I might suggest:
Intro
This is good as you've covered mode, register, context, audience, social purpose and also touched on function and some more detailed analysis (comment on semantic fields). However, beginning your discussion with Pearson's aim makes this intro slightly less direct; it may be better to make the text itself the subject of this sentence (something like 'The text is a spoken, relatively formal eulogy delivered by Pearson to pay respects to former Australian PM Gough Whitlam') so that assessors/teachers immediately recognise that you're talking about the text.
P1
The speeches various functions and social purposes are fulfilled via a variety of stylistic features.
I think it's the right idea to use your topic sentence to state that stylistic features support textual functions and social purposes; however, 'stylistic features', 'various functions', and 'social purposes' are all very generic terms that don't relate to particular language features and aren't specific to the text. You go into repetition, lexical choice, and prosody mostly in this paragraph, so a bit more specification eg. 'Inclusive lexical choices, prosody, and syntactic patterning support the commemorative function of the text and fulfill the social purposes of promoting in-group membership and supporting positive face' could be a clearer starting line. Also lets you sprinkle in some metalanguage :)
Repetition is applied on the noun phrase ‘old man’ throughout the text (lines 12, 29)
Great discussion with thorough links to social purpose. You could also add that this repetition supports cohesion and therefore acts as an engagement strategy (keeping the audience actively listening and supporting the text's expressive function)
This fulfills the text’s commemorative function by clearly acknowledging the many accomplishments in Whitlam’s career but also appeals to the Whitlam family’s positive face needs by demonstrating how valuable Whitlam was to Pearson himself, and also the many Australians and audience members (who clapped and applauded in response to Pearson’s listing of his accomplishments.)
This is a good point but it's quite a difficult sentence to read. Also, when arguing that Pearson personally valued Whitlam, you may need to explain further (as the listed actions all pertain to Whitlam's governmental actions affecting Australia rather than anything personal with Pearson, so you might need to relate this to Pearson being Australian or Aboriginal). Also, listing is a form of syntactic patterning that aids cohesion, so you could add that in for extra metalanguage points. Similarly, you could also label your discussion of 'our' in line 2 as a strategy for promoting in-group membership just to make it extra clear to teachers.
P2
This is a much better topic sentence, making explicit reference to situational/cultural context and connecting it to the speech. It could be made a little clearer if you specified what you meant by 'contents' though- lexical choices ('traditional owners' discussion)? Syntax (sentence structures)? Spoken discourse (minimal non-fluency)?
Non fluency features are rare, and repetition of recalling (35,37) is only used when his speech has been drowned out by the noise of the audience.
A good point but this feels slightly abrupt immediately following the syntax discussion without an explicit link to the nature of the text. Perhaps just repeating your previous point about the scripted, non-spontaneous nature of text in relation to the minimal non-fluency would help.
P3
Various linguistic features are used to maintain coherence within the text.
Again, this topic sentence could be made a bit more specific by briefly indicating what type of linguistic features you are going to discuss. Even without detailed specification, you could say 'cohesive devices and logical ordering are used to maintain coherence within the text' for more precision, allowing teachers to instantly understand the topic/contents of the paragraph without even having to read further.
Otherwise, this is an excellent discussion. All I'd suggest otherwise is maybe to add some line numbers for reference when discussing logical ordering to give the argument some extra evidence and reinforcement. With the discussion of reference to
Life of Brian through the quote 'what did the Romans [...]', you could also tie that in with cultural context; the target audience being Australians who are likely aware of this piece of media and will therefore infer a connection and understand the reference (otherwise, it might have the potential to compromise coherence if the audience was mostly unaware of
Life of Brian).
P4
Several factors contribute to the text’s relatively formal register.
Once again, it might help to change the generic term 'several factors' to the specific features discussed in this paragraph- syntactic patterning/parallelism, jargonistic lexemes. Aside from the topic sentence, this a great discussion but could be added to with some more metalanguage eg. 'semantic field' instead of 'field' (helps to score some additional easy marks) and perhaps even a link to the taboo of death (gravitas of the situation). Although this paragraph is intended to center around the factors contributing to formality in this text, I think the whole AC could be made more cohesive and coherent (;)) by linking register to the social purpose on top of the function. Perhaps mention the demonstration of respect and promotion of social harmony as well.
Overall, this is looking like quite a strong AC with plenty of breadth and quite detailed analyses. In future, perhaps avoid generic phrases like 'several factors', 'various functions' etc. in your topic sentences, and specify a few subsystems or features so teachers know what's coming straight away. Additionally, you could also link back to overarching purpose and social purpose more often, as well as pay more attention to using metalinguistic terms. Also, take this advice with a grain of salt, as I'm also just a 3/4 student right now and so not everything will be totally reliable. All the best for your SAC! : )
Hey Ella, here are my tips (I mean, my tutor's tips that I copied xd). Hope you'll find it useful : )
Intro
Great intro. I can see that you’ve acknowledged the situational context (date, author, online mode), function, register, and social purpose pretty succinctly. Just to make things extra extra clear, I’d still recommend running through each and every element of CRAMPS (context, register, audience, mode, purpose, social purpose)- in this case, who is the target audience (be more specific than Victorians)? Anything deducible about the cultural context? Written or spoken (obvious but better to be specific) mode? That will help the assessors gain an understanding right away and also help you get a really clear mental picture of the text, which could make your writing easier. No harm sneaking in a little extra metalanguage either :)
P1
Metaphors are used to provide a clear image about the severity of COVID; they allow Merlino to create a determined tone that persuades Victorians to get vaccinated, for example: ‘stop this thing in its tracks’ and ‘vaccination is our only real ticket out of this pandemic’.
Good mentioning the use of metaphors- you could also throw in that ‘stop this thing in its tracks’ is an example of personification. To enhance this discussion, maybe relate metaphor use more to its broader social purpose and role in informing the audience- how exactly does ‘ticket out of this pandemic’ emphasise the severity of COVID-19? What suggests the tone of determination in these metaphors? How does this metaphor create a different effect to plain, objective language?
Syntactic patterning also aids Merlino’s rhetoric; parallelism paired with the conditional tense ‘if’ evident in ‘If we make the wrong choice now, if we wait too long, if we hesitate too much, this thing will get away from us’ creates emphasis that wrong decisions made by Victorians will have a terrible outcome. In doing so, Merlino sets an authoritative tone that will resonate with readers so they are more likely to abide by the lockdown restrictions.
This is a great discussion of syntax- I think it could be made stronger if you labelled ‘if we [...]’ as conditional clauses and emphasised how Merlino has placed these conditional clauses before the main clause. A great phrase to use for this analysis is ‘cause-effect relationship’ or ‘adjacency pair’- this could serve as a great link between the use of ‘if’ clauses and Merlino emphasising the terrible outcome of wrong decisions (Merlino also reminds the audience of their agency in somewhat determining the outcome- by doing the right thing and following restrictions).
Parallelism discussion is looking brilliant, as is the rest of this paragraph. You might include some direct links to register/accessibility (‘more infectious, ‘more quickly’), coherence/precision (hyponyms), and establishing expertise (pronouns). Otherwise, looking in great shape.
P2
The text has a mostly formal register that is consistent with its nature as a Statement from the Premier.
We get the general idea of the paragraph from this topic sentence but it would be more specific to move your mentions of professionalism and expertise to the first sentence. That way, assessors will immediately know that you’re discussing social purpose in this paragraph. For example, tweaking it to be ‘the mostly formal register of the text establishes the expertise and reinforces the authority of the Premier’ might be a bit clearer.
‘mutating’, ‘B1.617.1 variant’, ‘first ring’ ‘serial interval’ and ‘infectious’
That’s an absolutely phenomenal list of jargon examples- usually only around two to three are expected from what I know, but the more the better!
All of this analysis is quite insightful and has got great depth- but you could benefit further by being more specific, locking down your examples to your arguments. In your modal verbs discussion, specify which modal verbs you’re talking about and what purpose they fulfil- for example, ‘will’ indicating certainty/promise to action. Your discussion of simple declarative sentences could also be strengthened by talking about the use of agentless passive- placing the emphasis of the sentence only on the important information (not mentioning the agent, which is both inferrable and not the focus)
P3
Great topic sentence, I immediately get a sense of what the paragraph is about and your justification. I’m seeing some good precision in your arguments and evidence- you could use the phrase ‘reducing lexical density’ as well to add in some extra metalanguage. In the dashes discussion, perhaps tie their use back to dashes being a form of punctuation/formatting choice. These dashes also support coherence by visually separating the intensifying modifier ‘more than ever’ from the remainder of the sentence (acting much like pausing during speech) in order not to detract from the crux of information. With coordinating conjunctions, mention how the use of ‘and’ at the start of sentences in ‘And yet [...]’ ‘And in just [...]’ is non-standard (functions as a discourse marker/cohesive tie like in spoken language).
General
Overall, this is a really really good piece of writing. I know the advice I’m giving is obviously quite demanding, especially when you’ve got only 50 minutes (more of the ideal, perfect AC if you had all the time in the world). You’ve covered the function/social purpose and backed up your points extensively, and your discussions have both breadth and depth. A main few things to watch out for might be:
- Make sure to be absolutely specific and lock down all your examples- better to have fewer and be totally clear about how/why examples are relevant to your arguments
- You could expand your discussion on the audience a bit more- what features of the text are designed to specifically appeal to the target audience?
- Be sure to sprinkle in metalanguage whenever you can (you don’t necessarily need more but assessors love when you establish your Eng Lang expertise :D)
Hello arcsac, here are my thoughts after reading your essay. It's a really good piece of writing and I hope this might lend another perspective :)
Intro
While used by only one third of the Australian population, the Broad Australian accent is one that is internationally recognised. The elongation of vowel sounds, absence of a strong /r/ phoneme and the use of high rising terminal are some of the features that distinguish an Australian amongst a crowd.
This is certainly true; Broadness is the brand that covers these
most distinctively Australian phonological traits to international audiences. However, this topic sentence simply states a fact about the Broad accent that assessors already know. While you might want to mention/re-establish relevant facts, it does take more digging for examiners to find your actual contention.
This sentence would work well as a topic sentence:
While the accent is inarguably crucial to the Australian identity, the Australian vernacular comprising the linguistic innovation of its people and their tolerance to non-Standard forms of English represent a core part of the identity.
This sentence nicely summarises your points of discussion, although it could possibly do with a bit of abbreviation. A tip from my tutor: try to avoid language that could seem opinion-based, such as 'inarguably': simply 'crucial' often conveys enough emphasis for Eng Lang. Additionally, you could also label 'lingusitic innovation' and 'tolerance to non-Standard forms of English' as descriptivism, compacting this sentence considerably and elaborating later on (doesn't hurt to sneak in some extra metalanguage too!). Otherwise, this is a very ideal contention that gives plenty of room for different discussions; very solid. :)
Ultimately, cultural values are the most significant component of the Australian identity. Hate speech dismantles the pillars associated with egalitarianism and multiculturalism. While this discriminatory language persists in modern day society, the Australian identity will continue to be under threat.
Also an interesting point for discussion, but may need a little more contextualisation. Which cultural values, or (if you're speaking more broadly... see what I did there) what unique importance does culture hold in Australian identity? Why is it particularly significant to the Australian persona? Also, it might be a good idea not to use figurative language, such as 'pillars'- I once used this in exactly the same context and it's apparently not ideal for VCAA. Good specification of egalitarianism and multiculturalism though, this sets up good identity arguments.
It sounds like your connection of discriminatory language with Australian identity/cultural values falls more naturally under general social harmony and solidarity. Perhaps it would help to expand this point to social cohesion; it would likely make incorporating metalanguage easier and be more coherent to assessors. Otherwise, great introduction :)
P1
The Australian accent is the most outright and obvious characteristic of the Australian identity. As it is so well-defined, the accent has the ability to showcase national identity to outsiders.
Great opening! This establishes the accent discussion and connects it to the prompt perfectly. To reinforce, you could maybe even add that accents aren't a conscious language choice (and so Australians all take on some form of Australian accent, whether they are aware of it or not). Also that phonology is a basic component of all speech- spoken language and accent can't exist independently. These are only afterthoughts that might strengthen your argument but aren't at all necessary.
/noh/ like /nɜr/
Great example (I'll need to steal that!). You could also take the opportunity to sprinkle in some metalanguage by referring to this as vowel reduction to a schwa.
for grounds of mockery, a clear distinction must be made from the norm.
I think understand what you're saying: people who are mocked must have a distinctive trait that sets them apart from the average person, providing material for mockery? It might be good to be a little more specific and fully explain this point for assessors. Otherwise, the connection to your argument that this mockery indicates international awareness of Broad Australian phonology is easy to see.
The remainder of this paragraph is great- you've explained in full, referred to group identity (although it might be a bit risky to use a single piece of metalanguage as a linguist quote), and linked back to your contention. Just mention establishing solidarity, in-group membership, and defining the in-group/out-group through language to secure those metalanguage points. Otherwise, a solid first paragraph.
P2
face-threatening and discriminatory adjective “povo”, a shortening for ‘poverty stricken’, allowing him to linguistically demonstrate his Australian identity through his larrikinism.
Excellent! I'd just like to remind you to exploit the opportunity for metalanguage a little more: some more explanation of the relationship between larrikinism, poverty, and Australian identity would help to strengthen this example. What are the features of larrikinism and what social attitudes and prestige do they attach to dysphemism and taboo? A mention of profanity is also a less nuanced, more overt identifier of Australian English (might be good to just label expletives as 'profane' for easy marks). Also, you could perhaps mention that poverty is usually a social taboo (this demonstrates the openness around taboo in larrikin culture) but otherwise your next sentence seems to sum this argument up nicely!
The name of the sauce is a dysphemism, arguably incorporated to reduce its taboo in contemporary Australia.
This sentence is a little vague for two reasons: firstly, no explanation of how the sauce name is dysphemistic (although it may be obvious) secondly, the name 'arguably' being used to reduce the impact of taboo. It might be good to fully elaborate on how 'shit the bed' potentially dips into taboo- you could describe 'shit' as a profane, overt reference to defecation (a social taboo). Additionally, you could link the text's persuasive function (promoting the sauce) to the rise of descriptivism in Australia; the reference to taboo in the mainstream
alone doesn't necessarily mean widespread descriptivism (could be used just to attract attention, to shock, to disrupt social harmony). However, the use of profanity to encourage mainstream audiences to view a product positively and endorse it
does definitely mean descriptivism.
The adjectival phrase, “far queue” is a word play, alluding to “fuck you” in spoken discourse. Hill’s disguise of profanity adheres to the societal norms surrounding the situational context of the Parliament House, while simultaneously allowing him to more effectively communicate his anger and frustration. This usage enables Hill to express his national identity, demonstrating tall poppy syndrome and his laid-backness.
This is a really good discussion; the explanation of social purpose and context is great. It might however be beneficial to point out the phonological similarity between 'far queue' and 'fuck you' (more metalanguage too). Otherwise, really good :)
P3
However, the most significant threat to the Australian identity, which cannot be eliminated by the superficiality of an accent, is the use of hate speech. While the accent and our unique lexicon allow for international repute, while racist and sexist discourse persist, the Australian identity will continue to be compromised due to the neglection of the cultural values of egalitarianism and multiculturalism.
Interesting point but you may need to clarify some more. With the 'superficiality of an accent', a more solidly worded argument could describe how threats to social harmony posed by divisive/discriminatory language cannot be overcome by the establishing national identity and strengthening in-group membership with an Australian accent. However, your elaboration on how discrimination threatens Australian culture is really good and definitely makes it clear how there can be threats to Australian identity despite still using the accent.
‘Missy’ likens substandard performance with femininity, thereby imposing sexist connotations which regard women as less than in terms of their sporting capabilities. As explained by Elizabeth A. Johnson, “Whether unconsciously or not, sexist language undermines the human equality of women”. The vocative diminishes women’s achievement in sport and ultimately reinforces the traditional and conservative stereotype that AFL is a sport reserved for men.
Phenomenal writing! This is really good.
In July 2021, a fan from a rival team posted on Twitter, “Now there’s something for Blacky Ryder to be depressed about.” The negative connotations due to the historical and on-going racial abuse towards Indigenous Australians contextualise the vocative “Blacky Ryder” as extremely offensive. In this instance, the publisher, while presenting this post in an attempt to generate laughter, is aware of their harmful actions due to the blatant racism seen from the non-Standard vocative “Blacky”, directly insinuating that his skin colour characteristic of the joke.
The last sentence seems to have a bit of a typo- perhaps fix this one up. Both examples in this paragraph are pretty strong, but could be made even better by linking to positive face needs and social harmony (for those extra metalanguage points) :)
Overall
Really strong essay arcsac. Your range of examples is really good and all the arguments are logical and solid. The only thing I would recommend would be to explain any main contentions further, as well as to try incorporate some more metalanguage (especially to do with social purpose and anything that will let you mention the less commonly discussed subsystems eg. phonology). I know time is a huge factor in essay-writing, so considering time pressure, I think you've got both breadth and depth. Keep it up! :)