An introduction into the perplexing world of military lingo

 

The military, like any other profession, group or class has its own specialised vocabulary that is specific to itself. This field-specific lexis contains numerous acronyms and abbreviations intended for speeding up communication and improving coherency during times of urgency by reducing the number of syllables needed to be spoken. As well as acronyms and abbreviations, many aspects of the lingo are humorous, playing on the stereotype of a soldier.



Acronyms such as AWOL (absent without leave), FOB (forward operating base) and HEAT (high-explosive anti-tank) allow for common phrases to be spoken quickly; 'forward operating base' goes from seven syllables to just one when recalled as 'fob'. Reduction of syllables is a common trait in this lexical field.



When you think of a soldier, you wouldn't be wrong in conjuring up an image of a stalwart, unkempt man in muddy uniform. Although there are of course many women serving in the military in most countries around the world, the general stereotype still holds truth that males dominate the military world. Those in the military recognise these assumptions and, not only accept it, but embrace it: ^[1] from the military section of the Hollinsclough website, terms such as 'beer tokens' (money), 'canteen medals' (food stains) and 'slop jockey' (chef) demonstrate typically manly attributes, but far over-exaggerates them: the sole reason for money being obtained is for the purchase of beer, stains on clothing from food being 'medals'. One of these terms that really stands out is 'bible banger' which is used to refer to a chaplain or preacher. Religion can be perceived as a sophisticated concept requiring higher levels of thought, something which a soldier whose job is to kill opposing men and women might disregard. Humour like this acts only as a morale booster during desperate times.



Dr. Tomasz Pajzderski highlights in his paper on military lingo the importance of the NATO Phonetic Alphabet, not only utilised by militaries but also emergency services of various different countries; 'alpha' stands for 'a', 'bravo' for 'b', all the way to 'zulu' for 'z'. The purpose for this is to standardise what we say for when we are calling out individual letters or numbers. You may be aware of how Americans pronounce 'z' like 'zee', rhyming with 'bee', whereas British speakers tend to pronounce the letter as 'zed' rhyming with 'bed'. Problems can arise here: an American soldier communicating with his British counterpart may say 'zee' for 'z', but the British soldier may think he said 'bee' for 'b'. This can be exceptionally fatal in situations such as giving coordinates for a mortar strike, something which has become increasingly common since World War II. ^[2] Pajzderski writes:


"This way of representing acronyms or letters in general
really works as there is no doubt where to provide fire support when the request was for
example: Fire mission. Grid coordinates: Zero, Four, Foxtrot, X-ray, Two, Yankee,
Zero. Fire for effect. Out. As seen in this example the precision is sometimes a matter of
life or death as mistake here could be very costly."
 
As bizarre and sometimes amusing this language can be, it is the fundamental foundation of all militaries, from Azerbaijan to Zimbabwe. Anyone who calls their money 'beer tokens' can vouch for the fact that, without this lexical field, militaries would function inefficiently and life could be very different.



Sources:
[1] - http://www.hollinsclough.org.uk/military.htm
[2] - http://ifa.amu.edu.pl/~krynicki/teaching/seminars/bitexts/bas/finals/ba_tomasz_pajzderski.pdf​



By Joseph Rosario

Does language in the Media influence our lives?

Over the last 500 years, the influence of mass media has grown dramatically with the advance of technology. First there were books, then newspapers, magazines, photography, sound recordings, films, radio, television, the so-called New Media of the Internet, and now social media. Today, just about everyone depends on information and communication to keep their lives moving through daily activities like work, education, health care, entertainment, travelling and the other stuff with which we are involved.  It's now not unusual to wake up, check your phone for Twitter and Facebook notifications, look at the TV or newspaper for news, read emails and makes phone calls and make decisions based on the information that we gather from those mass media and interpersonal media sources.  

One of the biggest influential things in media texts is newspapers when it comes to voting. Newspapers hardly have to wait until an election for them to strike an opinion on how their readers vote. There has been something of a change over the last 20 years – going back to the fall of Margaret Thatcher – because almost all papers tend to proclaim their independence from political parties. The best line I've ever heard come out of the media is "You are what you read" because anything we seem to read be believe to be true I mean how can anything in this powerful industry be lying to influence our choices and way of life because of course we can trust them on what they decide to publish which leaves the question how exactly are they doing this? Repeated exposure over time to similar messages makes it easy for people to accept them as true, and more importantly, act as though it is  true, even when they 'know' the messages are false. Consider how often television ads are repeated. The companies behind the ads are only too willing to pay for such repetition. Because it works!

Another useful tactic whereby the media influence our decisions is that of commitment. When people commit to something, they tend to continue in this aspect because they want to appear consistent, not just to others, but also to themselves. If someone can get you to commit to something, especially if its public because then you need to consider that you committed to it yourself, you tend to build the justification as to why you should stay committed.

http://www.theguardian.com/media/2010/may/03/election-2010-newspapers-influence-over-voters

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hYM7SzJMKns

The Pragmatics of Online Gaming

Pewdiepie: Hey I’m jumping on you. What…

Cry: Whaa, you jerk!

Pewdiepie: There’s gonna be a lot of that Cry. Oh so if you duck you can’t die? That makes sense… What the hell am I doing?

Cry: What have you done?!

Pewdiepie: We’re gently patting each other’s back.

Cry: Wait, I can’t stop jumping on your back..

Pewdiepie: Don’t kill me please.

 

If you don’t watch gaming vlogs, you probably think I suffer from a serious mental dysfunction. In this blog I shall dive into the much unknown territory of sociolinguistics in gaming. (Trust me if there was anything to do with this on wikipedia, I would have copied and pasted it hours ago). There has been increasing attention on the educational power of video games in recent years (2006; Thorne,2008;Purushotma). I aim to investigate ‘World of Warcraft’ as a platform for second language socialization, specifically in the area of pragmatics. A study by Dionne Palmer a student at M.A. (University of California, Davis) 2007 explains how through ‘World of Warcraft’ he learned a 2^nd language (Spanish). ‘World of Warcraft’ gave him a platform where he could interact with Spanish gamers, whom initially helped him construct a basic understanding of their language.

My Swedish friend Dennis, never enjoyed studying English at school, nor did he speak it at home. Through MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-play games, The terms MMO or MMOG are umbrella terms that cover any type of massively multiplayer online game) his understanding of English grew, due to his enjoyment of playing games, he wanted to be able to communicate and understand other players. No doubt this type of engaging, inclusive experience could be achieved in a range of other contexts, but for Dennis it was realized through participation in a multiplayer online game. To further my point, Gee describes thirty six learning principles throughout his book; that are featured in video game. They include:

“Psychosocial Moratorium” Principle: Learners can take risks in a space where real-world consequences are lowered.

Multimodal Principle: Meaning and knowledge are built up through various modalities (images, texts, symbols, interactions, sound, etc.) not just words.

Video games are multimodal semiotic platforms that can apply language learning in context bound computer games. Pragmatic competence involves participation in a range of speech acts in a first language and interlanguage pragmatic competence involves the ability to do all those things in a second language.

In conclusion to this blog I will end with a quirky, hipster quote “In the world “out there,” there are no verbs, no speech events, and no adjacency pairs. There are particles of matter moving around in certain recurrent and yet not fully predictable patterns. We interpret such experiences as and through symbolic means, including linguistic expressions. That’s what it means to be human.” ― Duranti a Alessandro, Linguistic Anthropology.

If you are interested in learning more about the subject I have linked a gaming YouTube channel, where the youtuber Pewdiepie is playing a MMO with fellow gamers. 

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=2Ec8uY7x4mE

 

By Lauren Wilson 

 

Common mistakes foreign people make when attempting to learn English.

We all know, English is one of the hardest languages to learn. I explored the difficulties foreign people have when learning English. I've chosen four languages I think have the most  interesting differences to English.

Japanese.  Despite what some believe, Japanese is NOT related to Chinese. Japanese and English differ in the way that no element of the Japanese sentence regularly shows plurality and since the distinction between countable and uncountable is not recognised, number and countability prove difficult.  Many Japanese achieve good standards in written English except for articles and the number-countability problem.

·         For example: In Japan, industrial product is cheap. Because we have an economic growth. But vegetable is so expensive. Because we Japanese have a few lands.

 English consonant clusters prove difficult for Japanese speakers because they often tend to break them up by adding in short vowels.

 

Spanish as we all know, is renowned for romance! Spanish vocabulary refers to both the members of a male and female pair by using the plural of the male form. "Padres" which in English literally means fathers, can be used in Spanish to say parents. Spanish vocabulary has something called 'false friends' which are pairs of words that look similar in two languages (English and Spanish) however don't mean the same. This can prove difficult when speakers attempt English.

·         E.g. Discutir in Spanish is to argue.

As a native the word Discuss could lead you to think it would mean to argue due to it looking so similar.

·         Another example is the word Caravana which means traffic jam (Spanish),  as a speaker the word caravan (English) could easily lead you to think it meant traffic jam. False Friend!

 

Farsi is an Indo-European language which has been influenced by Arabic. The Farsi and English phonological systems differ in their range of sounds and in their stress. Farsi, in contrast to English has only eleven vowels and diphthongs to thirty two consonants. Farsi speakers therefore have trouble recognising and articulating the full range of English vowels and diphthongs. There are five consonant phonemes in English that don't have close equivalents in Farsi. The equivalent of the auxiliary 'to be' is sometimes added to nouns as a suffix instead of being used in its full form.

Farsi speakers often leave it out when attempting English for example:

·         She (a) teacher, instead of she is a teacher.

 

Finally the Malay/ Indonesian (M/I) language which belongs to the western Austronesian group of languages. M/I native speakers often have trouble with IT and THERE because the equivalent structure in M/I language uses the word ada meaning (got/has/is)

Errors like these are common:

·         Was an examination last week.

·          Is nice to play football.  

Active and Passive can prove difficult for M/I speakers because although old M/I literary writing uses passive forms more frequently than the modern language does, when speaking the passive form is usually avoided. Passives are also formed very differently in M/I. Speakers find English passives difficult for example:

·         The door is open by me.

Olivia Duff

References:

Swain and Smith Learner English 2001

Sociolinguistics and Gaming

P: Yoo hoo

C: Hey
A: Howdy
P: How is everybody on this fine eve?
A: Sleepy and lost all effort. Yourself?
P: Eh pretty much the same :D
C: Glad to hear everyone is ok :-)
P: Are you okay my good sir?
C: I'm not bad ^_^                          
P: Good to hear!

 

Pewds: Hey I'm jumping on you. What…
Cry: Whaa, you jerk! 
Pewds: There's gonna be a lot of that Cry. Oh so if you duck you can't die? That makes sense… What the hell am I doing? 
Cry: What have you done?!
Pewds: We're gently patting each other's back. 
Cry: Wait, I can't stop jumping on your back.. 
Pewds: Don't kill me please. 
(Bloody Trapland)

 

 

Is there a change in the pattern of interaction and conversation discourse when you compare a normal conversation with that of the two gamers, Cry and Pewdiepie? 

 

"Sociolinguistics is the descriptive study of the effect of any and all aspects of society, including cultural norms, expectations, and context, on the way language is used" - John J. Gumperz and Jenny Cook-Gumperz, "Studying language, culture, and society: Sociolinguistics or linguistic anthropology?". 
 
The sociolinguistic perspective concerning online gaming and MMORPGs (massively multiplayer online role-play games) looks at how the growth of the gamer community affects the development of language.

 

The sociolinguistics of online gaming may also be examined through five themes: Multilingualism, Language Change, Conversation Discourse, Stylistic Diffusion and Folk Linguistics. 

 

 Dionne Soares Palmer, Doctor of Philosophy in Linguistics, suggested that various languages have an impact on the overall game language. Her study was based around the idea of a native English speaker"learning Spanish through World of Warcraft".

 

The stylistic perspective examines "the ways in which the Internet and its associated technology is fostering new kinds of creativity through language."- David Crystal (2005)          
In this case we are interested in online gaming chats and although written, they are very similar to speech.  This also leads to the impact of written communication and the loss of punctuation marks and capitalisation.

Gamers also have their own unique vocabulary and specific lexis that (to an outsider such as myself) may be difficult to decipher or just make no sense at all. 

"The language of the Gamers, although written, is very similar to speech. To keep up with the speed of the conversation, the Gamers have developed words that allow them to convey meaning faster, such as their clips and acronyms." - Dana Driscoll, California University of Pennsylvania (http://www.kon.org/urc/driscoll.html). ​​

It would also be interesting to compare a spoken conversation between 2 'normal' males and a spoken conversation between 2 'gamer' males to see if there is any noticeable difference concerning turn taking and adjacency pairs. 

By Patrycja Piszczatowska 

Musicians Language

The majority of people like music… right? Be it of which ever genre. Our love for songs goes further than just the sound. We idolise its performer. This is not simply for the sake of music they make but also for the person they present themselves as. What is it about how they present themselves and how they talk that particularly makes fans and people think they are ever so cool?

Of course being that there are different genres, there is going to be a difference in perhaps how Katherine Jenkins, a famous opera singer and Eminem; a rapper, present themselves through the English language. However in turn there are similarities. There's a field specific lexicon that many though not all musicians will use when playing instruments in practise. A placement of fingers or a hitting of notes at the same time becomes a chord. This may be a word non-musicians will be familiar with. Examples such as chromatic scale and octave however may not be. More examples may be found here: http://images.pcmac.org/SiSFiles/Schools/KS/UdallSchoolDistrict/UdallMiddleHigh/Uploads/Forms/STUDYGUIDE.pdf.

The point is that what musicians have in common is the technical terms that give them the ability to play music; by knowing what the chord of C is on each instrument allows you to play that chord. A musician knowing these terms means they can follow them with the action and this field specific lexis goes beyond just being language it is also a skill which fans can admire.

Let's talk about slang. What makes music different from other hobbies and professions is that there is a definite slang for each genre. Take surfing, you either know the meanings of the slang terms or you don't. In music it is different you may be a musician but when placed in a room full of Jazz enthusiasts you may not have a clue about what is being said. Musicians do this to form an identity and make the solidarity of their group stronger. Many words today have been formed from certain genres of music's lexicon. Words such as bad, meaning good or bread, meaning money have originated in the jazz community. More examples can be found here: http://www.allaboutjazz.com/jazz-slang-by-aaj-staff.php#.U6inAvldV8E.

Many of these words have become extensively used in our language today which shows just how much of an impact music has on us.

I read an article on hip hop vocabulary http://rappers.mdaniels.com.s3-website-us-east-1.amazonaws.com/. Though used within songs, the researcher is looking at the vocabulary choices of the artists; finding that some of the rappers exceed Shakespeare's width of obscure language and exceed the vocabulary of even Moby Dick. In the data it was also found that the origin of the music affected the obscurity of the vocabulary with some places using far less obscure words than others. Though this is not natural speech so it cannot be taken literally, from this research it can be shown that rappers have vast lexicon that rivals or surpasses literary geniuses.

The language of musicians is a tricky subject, but identity seems to be a driving force within it. Musicians may have a talent but require uniqueness to succeed. If they were all the same no one would listen to them. This will by necessity reflect upon the way they present themselves outside their music through the language they use which will in turn relate to the vocabulary of their songs.

Tabby Turner

Language of nursing

By Emily Murray

 

Who would have thought the language of nursing would be so confusing and complicated! We all hear them speaking to each other and not understand a word they say because they are using all these different technical terms for things.

 

Nurses and other health care professions must use language understood easily by patients, they use a lot of phrasal verbs which is formed by words such as in, from, out, up to etc. phrasal verbs consist of two and maybe three parts but it's essential to consider the parts together, as the combination can make a whole different meaning. Some have several meanings. Have you ever been asked something and not understood properly? I defiantly have. Nurses have a different language when it comes to their job; words can mean different things to what they mean to us. For example 'come through something' means recovering from a serious illness, accident or survive. Where as to me that means coming through a tunnel or a hole etc.

 

Abbreviations are used daily in a nurses life, everything is shortened down for them, so they don't waste time writing down things about a patient. It can become confusing to some people as 'AAA' means 'abdominal aortic aneurysm' and if anyone saw that who wasn't a nurse would certainly not think of that being the abbreviation.

 

Nurses use a lot of interrogative words, which are the 5 W's, who, what, when, where and why. When I get asked questions I can feel much interrogated but every conversation you have with a nurse they will use at least one of these words to start their sentences; they do this because they need to find out everything about what is wrong with you and how it happened, etc. Language used by nurses is much clearer to them then they are to an ordinary person.

 

 

References:

Everyday English for international nurses

by Joy Parkinson & Chris Brooker

Their our many reasons behind homophone mistakes...

By Emily Carter

 

Do you know what the most common homophone mistake is? Well, according to the research I have made the most common homophone mistake is with the words 'their', 'there' and 'they're'. This is because they are very common words within English language.  As we all know they are pronounced the same yet spelt differently and have different definitions; which are the main reason they are always confused.

Let's go through this simply and hopefully solve some people's confusion. 'There' refers to a place. 'Their' shows possession or belonging. And finally 'They're' is simply a contraction of 'they are'. Simple enough? Surely it is.

 

But is this actually a mistake or just a preference as to which one you use? This depends on your approach, I guess. There are two different ways of approaching this matter. Firstly having a descriptive approach and secondly having a prescriptive approach.

 

A descriptive approach is believing that there are many different variations of homophones therefore it doesn't actually matter which way you spell it, and that it is just a preference. However, taking a prescriptive approach suggests that there is one single way which is considered correct. Therefore getting this spelling 'wrong' suggests that you are uneducated and are making an actual mistake. These are theories which were stated by David Crystal in his book The English Language, 1988.

 

Also it has been stated that irregular spellings of words are more likely to have mistakes made with them, however this is within all ages because it depends on the word not the age group which is spelling the words. For example, the world 'blue' is a regular spelling whereas 'blew', also pronounced the same is the irregular spelling of 'blue'. Whether you knew this already, or not, then they do not have the same definition. Spellings like these are confused on a daily basis and, well, it needs to stop!

 

It is thought that the uneducated are more likely to make homophone mistakes. However is this really true? In some cases yes as being taught the correct way to spell homophones would solve some problems with the mistakes that are made. However it could also be due to pure laziness or even dyslexia, along with many other unknown personal reasons. Laziness has been said to restrict the learning of many. Restricting because, well, if you don't want to learn then you won't! Dyslexia is a common issue which holds back many people from being able to spell to a high standard as well as delaying speech and other aspects of learning. This could be a very serious condition which restricts learning and something you cannot control yourself. As it is a condition which you are unable to control then why should those with dyslexia be seen as uneducated when making spelling and homophone mistakes? This doesn't seem fair to me.

Politicians and lies

 

Politicians. To quote Stephen Fry, "Like them or loathe them, you'd be mad not to loathe them." With the amount of sleaze going on in today's 'democratic' system, it's easy to see why the title of politician has practically become a dirty word. The question is; how do they get away with it all?

 

There is no one simple answer. The ability to blatantly deceive and lie can be attributed to a multitude of factors: Poor accountability, structural failures of the political system. Whatever the issue, it's obvious that politicians are about as good at their job as the England football team, and about as expensive to keep on the payroll, too! Manipulation of the English language, however, is perhaps one of the most prevalent ways in which politicians manage to consistently fail at their jobs and not get fired as one would if one were to fail any other profession as miserably as some politicians do theirs.

 

The problem is not just with British politicians. Corruption and conniving is practically a prerequisite of politics worldwide. Take President Nixon, for instance. When confronted on his crimes of the Watergate scandal, where he invaded the privacy of the Democrat party's offices, he eluded accountability by answering scathing yes-or-no questions with a torrent of vague drivel:

 

"You got caught up in something and it snowballed?
It snowballed, and it was my fault. I'm not blaming anybody else. I'm simply saying to you that as far as I'm concerned, I not only regret it. I indicated my own beliefs in this matter when I resigned. People didn't think it was enough to admit mistakes; fine. If they want me to get down and grovel on the floor; no, never. Because I don't believe I should. On the other hand there are some friends who say, "just face 'em down. There's a conspiracy to get you." There may have been. I don't know what the CIA had to do. Some of their shenanigans have yet to be told, according to a book I read recently. I don't know what was going on in some Republican, some Democratic circles as far as the so-called impeachment lobby was concerned. However, I don't go with the idea that there ... that what brought me down was a coup, a conspiracy etc. I brought myself down. I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing."

 

Nixon was asked a direct yes or no question, yet chose to answer with a lengthy rationalisation for his actions. This practice of blatantly flouting Grice's maxim of quantity achieves a number of things. It lets the politician in question take a scathing question and diffuse the criticality of it by waffling on until the question is forgotten, leaving people to try and make sense of the superfluous answer. They hide from accountability behind their long words and complex, pre-prepared responses. They try and make their mistakes or wrongdoings seem practically logical by portraying themselves as the experts by holding the floor and using negative politeness strategies.

 

But politicians aren't always like Nixon. They don't always own up to mistakes, but quibble over the pettiest details to try and change their mistakes from a searing indictment of failures by corrupt politicians to a victory of the system; a proof of the total success of government. Such instances are seen with the current coalition government, such as when Cameron hiked up tuition fees. Instead of apologising for breaking yet another coalition promise, he focused on why he broke it and on the hypothetical boons of raising tuition.

 

In this sense, politicians are like children in trouble. They break trust and lie in order to get their way, yet when they're asked to say sorry for being naughty, they try and justify their actions instead of apologising; an act of face-saving. This begs the question, why haven't Cameron and others of his ilk been put on the naughty step?

 

This same question is raised in the works of George Orwell. Not only in his fictional works such as 1984, where he calls political language 'Doublespeak'; A modified language designed to absolve and glorify government, but also his many research papers, such as "Politics and the English Language", in which he says "Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

 

There is no question. Politicians are often manipulative and untruthful, and they use the English language as a tool through which they deceive and excuse themselves of blame.

 

 

References:

Websites-

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/07/greatinterviews1

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-says-he-does-not-have-to-apologise-to-barack-obama-over-failure-to-secure-vote-on-syria-8791655.html

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-on-education

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1337020/Tuition-fees-vote-Coalition-Nick-Clegg-Lib-Dems-punished-increase.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language

Books-

1984, George Orwell

 

-By Josh Corbin​

"C-C-Combo-breaker!"

Speech Conventions in Video Games.

(May Contain Spoilers)

Hello, my friend. Stay awhile and listen." – Deckard Cain (Diablo)

If you were to ask what medium that the average person perceives video games them to fit into, they'd probably suggest that the world of gaming falls into a predominantly visual medium. And they would be right, to an extent. After all, they’re called video games, not audio games. Although, with innovations in the way that games are created and developed, thanks to the leaps and bounds allowed for within Moore's law, games are becoming more, and more realistic with every year that goes by. This leads to two things:

1: Higher fidelity games. (A wider, deeper, denser visual experience within the game, thanks to higher polygon ratios, more realistic character models and bigger, beautiful worlds.)

2: Interesting “player-character” communication (Commonly through the use of dialogue and in many cases, monologue.

As interesting as the first point may seem, we're only interested in latter, because I’m a strong believer the characters, the things they say, why and how they say it, and the stories that they tell are really the heart of any video game. The raw stuff that sticks with you for the rest of your life and really gets to your core. But let’s look at the method in which the characters do this!

"I am Andrew Ryan, and I'm here to ask you a question. Is a man not entitled to the sweat of his brow? 'No!' says the man in Washington, 'It belongs to the poor.' 'No!' says the man in the Vatican, 'It belongs to God.' 'No!' says the man in Moscow, 'It belongs to everyone.' I rejected those answers; instead, I chose something different. I chose the impossible. I chose Rapture.”- Andrew Ryan (Bioshock).

Circa 1996, the video game industry was graced with titles such as the first 3D Zelda, which housed deep and interesting characters who had a lot more to say than most of your typical, one line characters which you'd find in earlier titles, who’s main purpose was to progress the story, and would oft repeat the same phrase for days on end without budging until you finally proceeded onwards with the plot. Whereas these new and humanlike characters react to the world around them; their speech and script would change depending on what YOU did in the world, or how YOU have presented face towards them.

Another purpose of the dialogue in video games is to directly address the player, while still maintaining illusion of immersion placed over our heads from the start of the game, and in many circumstances to aid in the progression of the story. "Yes, Dovahkiin? How can I help you?"

Actually, some could argue that there is an increasing trend of filler characters and personalities in modern game titles whom solely serve as venders of small talk, "My cousin's out fighting dragons, and what do I get? Guard duty." – Guard (Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim)

This form of speech has its link to the real world. You know, those one dimensional people that we don't really know well enough to have a full conversation with, but we are just aware enough of their mere existence that we humor them with meaningless, scripted phrases "How are you?" "Nice day isn't it?" "What have you been up to this week?" "Did you hear about that dragon attacking that poor little village?” Scratch that last one unless you're big into dungeons and dragons.

“Alright guys, let’s Mosey” – Cloud (Final Fantasy VII) On the topic of illusion and characters attempting to perpetuate a stereotype through their dialogue and monologue, such as Uncle Deckard from Diablo successfully fulfilling the role of the wise old man who had a tendency to waffle about the past and his experiences “Ogden had a rule about minstrels that went back 20 years to when Baerna ran the inn. Baerna was a cruel inkeep but a fine cook. Not a soul in Westmarch would disagree.” Even with the correct context, his dialogue is still largely waffle and inconsistent due to the fact that his memory is fading and he is slowly becoming an unreliable narrator. But even this, adds to the trending theme of immersion, which you’d probably understand to be rather important by now.

Developers really love to push stereotypes and create characters true to real life, such as Old Man Deckard and Co, but another really effective tool of creating character through speech is the use of lexis. Examples of this can be found in characters that are solely made to fit into the role “Need a drink; you go to the Bee and Barb. Stay out of the Ragged Flagon, Stay out of the Ratway." Guard (ESV) who due to his knowledge of all of the local bars, it would create the impression that the character who uttered it would be a raging alcoholic.

But when all is said and done. When the dust has settled, it’s safe to say that the different conventions, such as chatter, lexical talk and direct address are all methods used by the developer to tell a story, bring a world to life and create a grand sense of immersion. Some games do it better than others, but video games are a young medium of entertainment, and with every year that goes by, the more interesting the games become and I hope to see this trend continue long into the future!

“Stay frosty”

Rio Daubney

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Scanned by iCritical.

Politicians and lies

Josh Corbin

 

Politicians. To quote Stephen Fry, “Like them or loathe them, you’d be mad not to loathe them.” With the amount of political sleaze going on in today’s ‘democratic’ system, it’s easy to see why the title of politician has practically become a dirty word. The question is; how on earth do they get away with it all?

There is, of course, no one simple answer. The ability to blatantly deceive and lie can be attributed to a multitude of factors: Poor accountability, structural failures of the political system. Whatever, it’s clearly obvious that politicians are about as good at their job as the England football team, and about as expensive to keep on the payroll, too! Manipulation of the English language, however, is perhaps one of the most prevalent ways in which politicians manage to consistently fail at their jobs and not get fired as one would if one were to fail any other profession as miserably as some politicians do theirs.

 

The problem is not just with British politicians. Corruption and conniving is practically a prerequisite of politics worldwide. Take President Nixon, for instance. When confronted on his crimes of the Watergate scandal, where he invaded the privacy of the Democrat’s offices, he eluded accountability by answering scathing yes-or-no questions with a torrent of vague drivel.  For instance:

“You got caught up in something and it snowballed?

It snowballed, and it was my fault. I'm not blaming anybody else. I'm simply saying to you that as far as I'm concerned, I not only regret it. I indicated my own beliefs in this matter when I resigned. People didn't think it was enough to admit mistakes; fine. If they want me to get down and grovel on the floor; no, never. Because I don't believe I should. On the other hand there are some friends who say, "just face 'em down. There's a conspiracy to get you." There may have been. I don't know what the CIA had to do. Some of their shenanigans have yet to be told, according to a book I read recently. I don't know what was going on in some Republican, some Democratic circles as far as the so-called impeachment lobby was concerned. However, I don't go with the idea that there ... that what brought me down was a coup, a conspiracy etc. I brought myself down. I gave them a sword, and they stuck it in and they twisted it with relish. And I guess if I had been in their position, I'd have done the same thing.”

 

Nixon was asked a direct yes or no question, yet chose to answer with a lengthy rationalisation for his actions. This practice of blatantly flouting Grice’s maxims, namely the maxim of quantity, achieves a number of things.

 

Firstly, it lets the politician in question take a scathing question and diffuse the criticality of it by waffling on until the question is forgotten, leaving people to try and make sense of the superfluous answer. They hide from accountability behind their long words and complex, pre-prepared responses. They try and make their mistakes or wrongdoings seem practically logical by portraying themselves as the experts by holding the floor and using negative politeness strategies.

 

But, of course, politicians aren’t always like Nixon. They don’t always own up to mistakes, but quibble over the pettiest of details to try and change their failures from a searing indictment of failures by corrupt politicians to a total success of the system; a proof of the total success of government. Such instances are seen with the current coalition government, such as when Cameron hiked up higher education tuition fees. Instead of apologising for breaking yet another coalition promise, he focused on why he broke it and on the hypothetical boons of raising tuition. In this sense, politicians are like children in trouble.

 

They break trust and lie in order to get their way, yet when they’re asked to say sorry for being naughty, they try and justify their actions instead of apologising; an act of face-saving. This begs the question, why haven’t Cameron and others of his ilk been put on the naughty step?

This selfsame question is raised in the works of George Orwell, not only in his fictional works such as 1984, where he calls political language ‘Doublespeak’; A modified language designed to absolve and glorify political acts, but also in one of his many research papers, "Politics and the English Language", in which he says "Political language — and with variations this is true of all political parties, from Conservatives to Anarchists — is designed to make lies sound truthful and murder respectable, and to give an appearance of solidity to pure wind."

There is no question. Politicians are often manipulative and untruthful, and they use the English language as a tool through which they deceive and excuse themselves of blame.

 

References:

Websites-

http://www.theguardian.com/theguardian/2007/sep/07/greatinterviews1

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/politics/david-cameron-says-he-does-not-have-to-apologise-to-barack-obama-over-failure-to-secure-vote-on-syria-8791655.html

https://www.gov.uk/government/speeches/pms-speech-on-education

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/debate/article-1337020/Tuition-fees-vote-Coalition-Nick-Clegg-Lib-Dems-punished-increase.html

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Politics_and_the_English_Language

Books-

1984, George Orwell

Seo é a blog post about code-switching

Mallorey Fennessy

I grew up in a multilingual household. We speak between us a total of five different languages (French, English, Irish Gaelic, Farsi (Persian), and German) and all of us speak at least two fluently. As you can guess we tend to switch around languages quite often. It’s not too uncommon to hear me yell something upstairs along the lines “Loic, Cá bhfuil tu? Get down here, J’suis dans le cuisine!” Now if you need a translation, I’m hardly surprised, because in that one sentence I simultaneously spoke Irish, English and French. I was asking my brother, Loic, Cá bhfuil tu? Or in English Where are you? Switched to English and then switched to French, by telling him I’m in the kitchen all in one sentence.

This linguistic phenomenon has been dubbed Code-Switching or Code-Mixing and was typically attributed to sub-standard language and was often said to have little consistency, however in the last fifty years it has been properly studied. Recent studies show various factors influence code switching such as social context, emotional charge, levels of language proficiency, and relationship with the recipient.

Social context is quite an obvious factor,  Gumperez (1964) and Hernándas-Chavez (1972) studied Mexican-American families and the situations they code-switched in households where all household members spoke both English and Spanish. They both found that when talking about topics outside the home, families spoke English, and personal affair were spoken in Spanish, often switching from one to the other.

Emotional charge also holds a factor as changing language halfway through a sentence can often occur for emphasis. This one is very prevalent between my mum and I, especially if we are joking about someone or something, as the utterance really stands out. Alternatively my mum will tell me off in English, and once she switches to French I really know I’ve got on her bad side.

I speak better in Gaelic than I do in English and my brother speaks better English than Gaelic, this often results in me speaking to him primarily in Irish with spurts of English vocabulary or phrases to get the point across to him, sometimes certain phrases are better to express certain ideas, those phrases often happen to in a different language but they pop up anyway.

In a grammatical sense, descriptive words and phrases often tend to the ones that get the switch. Toribo (1978) found that amongst Latino children in Arizona, that adjectives and especially colours were most code-switched. Function words also tended to be changed quite often with prepositions and determiners making a large percentage of the change.

While not too much is known about the mechanics of code-switching, táim ábalta (I’m able) to say that it is a very interesting phenomenon in today’s multi-cultural world where bilingualism is quite prevalent I think it is sábháilte a rá (safe to say) that it will be better understood and will no longer be perceived as the nonsensical phenomenon it once was.

 

 

 

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Scanned by iCritical.

Psilent Letters

Ateka Gomaa

It's kind of awkward when you're trying to look clever by using a long word only to get some other person to tell you that actually you missed the silent 'h' in 'silhouette' and you think 'well it's a silent letter, who cares about it anyway?'

The intentions of scholars who introduced many irregular spellings was to show the etymology of words. So they added some silent bs and gs to some words such as 'doubt' and 'reign' and everyone knew that these words were  borrowed from Latin, and their mission was complete. And nowadays when Latin has become an unknown language, that brilliant plan to clarify the etymology by confusing the orthography seems to have backfired and has resulted in many spelling mistakes and irritated people who don't see the point of a silent 'b' in debt because they don't speak Latin.

Then came a plan to simplify spelling. Silent letters were added to words that had the same sounds as words with them. For example 'gh' was added to words such as 'delight' because they rhymed with words such as 'night' which originally had a silent 'gh'.

Some irregular spellings were introduced to show the differences between homophones. It may look like other attempt to mess with the already chaotic (or should that be caotic) English spelling system, and in some ways it is and in others it's not.  It may be a lot easier to fully understand a text when you can distinguish between the homophones visually considering they would sound identical when spoken. Then again even if a word was misspelt most of the time you would probably be able to tell what was being said.

For example:

The knight rode through the night.

If this was written as:

The night road threw the knight,

 You would be reading about some nobleman being hurled about in the darkness, though if you had heard the sentence you would probably have understood the meaning.

Some words show etymology without even meaning to. Their orthography once reflected the phonetics. 'K' in words like or 'knee' and 'gh' such as in 'daughter' (pronounced similarly to ch in loch with a Scottish accent) were pronounced centuries ago. Yet over time these sounds became silent and the language became softer and resembled the way we speak now, however the spelling remained unchanged.

 Or after Britain was invaded by the French, changes to Old English appeared due to French influences. The 'qu' was introduced, replacing 'cw' (for example 'cwen' to 'queen') amongst other changes also introduced; thus showing us that these words were of English origin, influenced by French.

So it seems that silent letters didn't mean to cause all that confusion or embarrassment when you were corrected because you missed them out. Some of them were forced into our words without even needing to be there whilst others were once 'normal' letters too.

Find out more here

Londoners' language!

Difference between teenage and adult dialect and accent in London

People around the south east tend to believe teenagers are the reason for the image created of Londoners and of how they speak. But is this the case?

It is not surprising that teenagers' and adults' dialect and accent truly depends on the social group and location they are surrounded by. For example teenagers will tend to use the convergence style of speech when around their own age group and most likely use divergence when around different age groups. This because they what to fit in with their friends and show their difference from older people.

 

An author named Arthur Hughes believed that the accent and dialect choices between a working class adult and teenager differs due to social, urban and work surroundings. "The traditional working- class London accent informally termed 'cockney' is, of course, a southern accent."

 Teenagers that are based around London tend to have an accent but usually change their dialect more for example around their preferred social group.. A UK magazine called "pappZD!" recorded a conversation between two teenagers that lived in London. They tended to use the word "alright" pronounced as "/ɑɪt/." But when speaking to and older respectable figures, author Peter Trudgill realised a teenagers' commonly used /f/ than /θ/ change due their social surrounding this could also be due to making an good impression or fitting in with their peers.

 

Something I found whilst doing my research is that teenagers change not much their accent but their lexis on a social basis whilst adults that have lived in the area for years had a strong accent. After reading a book by Paul Foulkes and Gerard Docherty, teenagers' accents are not as strong as a working- class adult Londoner. "Younger accent is not as strong as that of the older male speaker."

 

Me being born in London myself I think this point is true. This is because not being sixteen years of age means I have not been in London for many years. Now living in Eastbourne, my Londoner accent is not as strong as it used to be and my accent now is affected by the local Sussex accent. At first, this was a case of convergence because I didn't want to stand out. But now it is not a conscious decision.

 

This shows teenagers' and adults' English have been heavily impacted by where and whom they live and can easily change over time.

 

Samson Odubade

Why do people misspell?

Why do people misspell? 

Jonathan Bond? 

Over the years, the English language has evolved to become the second most spoken language worldwide. This directly raises the question, why do people misspell? There have been many arguments over the years.

The main argument is that words in the English language are not spelt how they sound. For instance, with the word "information" many people would assume it is spelt "informashion" by the way it is pronounced. The fact that words often do not sound like they are spelt causes havoc for people that are new to the language, such as children and foreigners. Many critics argue that the English language is irregular because words are not spelt how they sound.  These critics use the "ghoti" argument which states 'ghoti' can be translated into 'fish'. The 'gh' in 'cough' is pronounced 'ph'. The 'o' in 'women' is pronounced 'I'. And the 'ti' in 'information' is pronounced 'sh', thus forming the word "phish".

Another common argument for misspelling is age. Lise Abrams, Meagan T. Farrell, & Sara J. Margolin from the Florida University found in some recent research (http://www.psych.ufl.edu/~abrams/Research/abrams_farrell_margolin_10.pdf) that middle-old age adults misspell more commonly than young adults. This could occur because old age adults sometimes acquire mental illnesses such as dementia. This research obviously discounts children because they have not yet required a firm grasp of the language.

Something that I found during my research on language on the internet is that people purposely misspell words. The main purpose, that I found, of misspelling was to achieve a humorous effect. Recently on the internet, and especially on video games, people have been using the phrase "get rekt". Many find this phrase humorous because the word 'wrecked' is shortened down to 'rekt' but is still pronounced the same way. The phrase "u wot m8?" has also become famous because of the way it is spelt. The fact that a number is used in a word, yet it is still pronounced the same, achieves a humorous effect and is also easier to type.

Related to the point above, another reason why people misspell is because of the internet. A government study in 2013 found that 83% of British households had access to the internet, which proves the internet takes up so much of our lives. Therefore, with the rising number of people purposely misspelling words, it makes it difficult for children using the internet to get a true understanding of spelling. 
One common assumption when looking at spelling is that if you are intelligent you should automatically be adept at spelling. However, this is not the case. Spelling is not related to intelligence. J. David Houser found that, in a recent study (http://www.jstor.org/stable/994410), many intelligent people could not spell as well as first assumed. Houser gave people 25 words each to spell, no homophones or deliberately misleading questions, and he found that intelligence does not affect spelling ability, at least not in this case.

In conclusion, there are many reasons for people misspelling words. Sometimes it is done on purpose for a comedic effect but sometimes there are deeper reasons to why people misspell words.

Ever wondered where your accent came from?

Sophie Reynish.

Accents. They're a weird thing. Both my parents are Welsh, my mums partner is Scottish and my dad's partner is Slovak so, I pretty much live around different accents each day and it gets me wondering WHY?  Why are there different accents? Where did they come from? Who had the first accent and where did he get it from?

A person's accent shows their regional and social groups. Although nowadays, its less common for people to live in one place their whole lives so this results in 'mixed' accents, a hybrid, and so it becomes harder to identify people in that way. Usually if a person moves somewhere where there is a different common accent, they adopt some norms of pronunciation used by the new community in order to be accepted and respected.

Received Pronunciation, also known as 'the Queen's English' or 'BBC English', can be an indicator of their educational background and it soon became an indicator of a good educational background and high position in society. RP is the only accent that is taught to foreigners and so it is widely used abroad. There are more foreign speakers of RP than mother-tongue users in Britain as only 3% of British people actually speak it even though most English dictionaries now give phonetics for RP pronunciation. RP speakers pronounce 'H' at the beginning of words such as 'hurt' and avoids it in words such as 'arm' and doesn't pronounce 'R' in 'car' and 'heart and uses the long 'a'. But cockney speakers do the opposite.

Accent identification is used very widely. For example, 'American' 'Australian' 'British' 'Irish' 'welsh' etc. but they are also be more specific to counties or cities – 'Yorkshire' 'Lancashire' 'Liverpool' 'New York'. Even with these general identifications, an accent can be influenced by its neighbouring areas. For example, the vowel system of Northern Irish closely resembles Scottish English, the South Wales accent is very much influenced by its neighbouring areas such as Bristol and the West-Country, Mid-Wales' accent has a strong comparison with that spoken in places like Shrewsbury and North Wales has a strong resemblance to Merseyside and also Liverpool (which has low prestige). For example, 'Foot' and 'Strut' and have the same vowel: /ʊ/ and /p, t, k/ are heavily aspirated (fricated).  But /t/ coming out like/s/ is not Scouse influenced: /dɔːtsər/ (daughter). However, this is not always the case, the Scouse accent has little in common with those used in the neighbouring regions of Cheshire and Lancashire.

In East Lancaster, 'Nurse'  and 'Square' are pronounced with /ɜː/ and areas that border Yorkshire are more likely for 'There' 'Where' and 'Swear' to be pronounced with / ɪə / so it rhymes with 'Here'.  The closer you move to Manchester, the less roticity there is.

There is also such a thing as 'Foreign Accent Syndrome'. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Foreign_accent_syndrome) This is where a person develops a foreign accent or sometimes a whole different language from places they have never been to or have only briefly visited. This is usually a result from a head trauma or a stroke of some sort. (http://www.youtube.com/results?search_query=foreign+accent+syndrome)

Scottish (Gaelic) descended from Old English. Speaking Scots and Standard Scottish English has become blurred: 'Wee' for 'little', 'does nae' for 'doesn't', rhyming 'house' with 'goose' and 'house' with 'heed'.

So it sucks that no one will ever know who had the first accent and where he got it from but this is the most useful information I could gather. If this interests you as well as me, a good book to read is David Crystal: The English Language. It has some really interesting stuff about pronunciation across the UK.

The Language Of Advertising

Michaela Pretorius

 

Everyone hears it, everyone sees it. Everyone's a victim. You can't escape it. It's on the train, in the car, on your TV, on the radio, on the bus shelter, on your clothing, on buildings. It is everywhere. It surrounds us with a tight grip around our necks, keeping us conscious enough to listen but not letting us breathe.

Advertising is a type of communication, used to persuade the audience to buy, or interact with their items. Most advertising is very loud and in your face as the companies want to stand out from the others. It is common that the most annoying adverts are the ones you remember the most. Such as the 'Go Compare' adverts with the large singing man. Advertisements are usually paid for by the sponsors such as Vauxhall are advertising themselves on the English Football teams' kit as it reaches a wide audience and strikes their target audience.  Advertisements feature in many different places such as newspapers, magazines, television commercials, radios, outdoor advertising, and the Internet.

There is always a frequent use of adjectives and adverbs, especially evaluative adjectives such as new, clean and improved.  Hyperbole is also used to exaggerate and make things seem more exciting than they are. This can also be seen in the tone used by the narrator of the advert, shouting and singing is more exciting them a monotone tone of voice. Neologisms are also used to give a novelty impact and have a fun play  on words which can be seen as humorous by the audience such as 'tangoed' or 'wonder fuel'. Humour can feature as both visual and verbal. Short sentences are also a feature as they are abrupt and impact on the reader, such as a bold heading or slogan printed across the product advertisement such as 'half price' or 'brand new'. Ambiguity is common also. This is what makes a phrase memorable and re-readable. Ambiguity may be syntactic (the grammatical structure) or semantic (the way it sounds such as puns for example).

Weasel words are used but not as commonly. These are words which have an underlying meaning without actually being direct. There is an open comparative: "Toms Football is Better" (which makes you question what it is better than). With the other type being the bogus superlative: "Toms Footballs are The Best" (which also makes you wonder what it is in comparison with). There is also the use of imperatives: "Buy Toms Football Now!" I believe that these words would mainly feature on advertisements targeted at children as children always want what someone else has. SO the use of the weasel words talk the child into wanting what is being advertised which is then pushed on to the parent as they want the best for their child.

Many advertisements make sure to avoid the negatives such as emphasising only the good side. For example Marmite is a brand that is known to either be loved or hated. But the advert only focuses on the loving side of the marmite.

Simple and Colloquial language is also used such as, "It ain't half good" to appeal to ordinary people, though it is in fact often complex and deliberately ambiguous. Along with the use of familiar language which is the use of second person pronouns to address an audience and suggest a friendly attitude.

Advertisements just seem simple and obvious to us as we see it everywhere but the most annoying thing is that it is not easy and a lot of time goes in to us being cornered into spending our money…

 

LINKS:

http://www.putlearningfirst.com/language/19advert/advert2.html

http://www.merriam-webster.com/dictionary/weasel%20word