Ruby's English Lang Blog

Evaluate the idea that a person's language is completely determined by the social groups they belong in A person's language can be determined by the particular social groups they belong to. This can include gender, ethnicity, age and social class. William Labov studied the population of Martha's Vineyard and found that the fisherman in the 'up-island' were a desirable kind of social group as they had old-fashioned values. This then affected their language as they spoke non-standard language and had different pronunciations of diphthongs. This was a change from standard pronunciation as the fisherman were from rural areas and had inhabitants that grew up at the time this language was at its peak. It's also worth noting that young men would use this type of pronunciation to identify themselves as native speakers and reject the way of speaking from the mainland. This then shows that language is determined by our social groups as young men actively decided to us...

Labov's New York Department Store (1968) Found that individual speech patterns were part of a highly systematic structure of social and stylistic stratification in the Lower East Side of New York of City. He investigated the difference in the /r/ sound in different words, this can be measured very easily. Three stores in Manhattan, Saks (high class), Macy's (middle class) and Klein (low class) all pronounced /r/ slightly differently. The higher class they were the more frequently they pronounced the /r/.   Labov's Martha's Vineyard (1963) On Martha's Vineyard a small group of fishermen began to exaggerate a tendency already existing in their speech. They did this seemingly subconsciously, in order to establish themselves as an independent social group with superior status to the despised summer visitors. A number of other islanders regarded this group as one which epitomised old virtues and desirable values, and subconsciously imitated the way its members talked...

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=IIYyL0y5QY4 Juxtaposition between stereotyped teenage slang and language you'd expect from the time period. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cW59mTP1uJI Carner used glottal stops and had an accent that was obviously London British https://sounds.bl.uk/accents-and-dialects Audio bank with multiple different sounds. There is early spoken recordings, children's games and songs and dialects https://www.dialectsarchive.com/england Another audio bank, however these are regional to the Uk https://sounds.bl.uk/Accents-and-dialects/Evolving-English-VoiceBank/021M-C1442X05256X-0101V0 Mr Tickle read in a Hampshire accent

Does social media really influence norms? Use feminism, youtubers, sexuality and gender definitions Social media doesn't keep people confided in boxes, the boxes no longer exist Use list of norms and people who've gone against them https://sailemagazine.com/2017/09/how-new-media-is-sculpting-our-social-norms/ OR Billie Ellish bury a friend Why is sadness becoming people's branding? Why that's problematic The girl who committed suicide and had self harm pictures https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2019/feb/07/instagram-bans-graphic-self-harm-images-after-molly-russells-death STYLE MODEL https://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2019/feb/07/pupils-etonians-inequality-damian-hinds

https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m00027n6

How many Jews can you fit into a limousine? About 50 in the ashtray. This is a joke that many people consider offensive. And that's true; it's not exactly a crowd pleaser. But you might have seen this and laughed. And ,somehow, that is okay as well. The real question here is, where is the line between comedy and offence? Is there even a line at all? "Many people see comedy...as merely funny, but there's more there than just a laugh. Beneath the humor lies a rich layer of social commentary" Says Roger Cohen and Ryan Richards from Humanity in Action. Perhaps if we were to take our joke from before we can see the influence that society has had on comedy. ROUGH PLAN Start with joke, introduce point and "analyse" MAYBE find offensive joke for each point "This isn't the only example" move onto BOM. Find and include thing about people walking out Cross joke, the end of Monty Python (I think) always look on the bright side of ...