Language Research

English Research Task

I read the article on Accents and Dialect. It brought me to the realisation that people will often judge and be judged depending on their accent and choice of dialect. Furthermore, people from different geographical, native locations will often despise each other, as they will believe that their own group or culture is the centre of everything - that their accent is the 'norm'. I have also learned that the simple feature of your accent, can determine a person's entire opinion of you, ranging from personality to even attractiveness.

Communication – Back Channelling - When we hear someone telling a story or narrating an event, it is not uncommon to hear listeners responding with mhm, uh-huh, wow, oh, and the like. At face value, these words or short phrases may not seem to contribute to the conversation. Researchers Jackson Tolin and Jean E. Fox Tree argue that these backchannels, as they are called, actually do influence the narrative. In their data, the authors distinguished between generic backchannels and specific backchannels. Backchannels typically display comprehension and reception. Their research showed that participants actually perceive the backchannels to be important in determining their choice of what comes next. The backchannels therefore have a role in shaping the story telling. When you use a specific backchannel such as wow, you actually invite an elaboration, thereby steering the story, allowing the storyteller to add emphasis and elaboration. Accordingly, the type of backchannel gives a sense of predictability about what kind of information would follow it. This might make it easier for people to follow a particular conversation.

Pair ordering – A researcher found that the order of the words in the pairs perpetuated images about the social roles of women and men that now seem outdated. Men came first in general, especially in pairs referring to professions (doctors and nurses) and the nobility. The conventional ordering in sons and daughters reflects, she claims, previous traditions of sons being more important than daughters. The ordering in word pairs related to marriage reflects traditional gender discourses: men dominate during marriage (husband and wife) but women come first when they are not yet married (bride and bridegroom), no longer married (widow and widower) or when raising children (mum and dad).

The power of language – Adam Croom, a linguist, studied the use of ‘slurs’ and power within language. He used the concept of ‘face’, which is the desire for respect from other speakers within your linguistic community.  ‘Face’ is a type of social currency as, just like money, you can get more things done with the more positive ‘face’ or respect you have.  Offending people threatens their ‘face’ and complimenting people adds to their ‘face’, with slurring terms often used in this bargaining process.  In fact, the use of racial slurs can be extremely destructive to the actual character of their targets and speakers who use them are contributing to a history of derogation that harms their social identities. It is quite common to find that the victims of slurs have actually turned their meanings on their head a started to use these ‘offensive’ slurs positively, for example the black person’s adoption of the word ‘nigger’, which is often found in modern hip-hop and black people are often comfortable to refer to each other as ‘nigger’.

Non-Verbal Communication – Some researchers set out to investigate the use of facial expressions, like smiling, during conversations. They recorded several conversations between two subjects. The first observation highlights how a speaker is able to ‘make light’ of the topic that is being discussed or has previously been discussed.  One example the researchers used to illustrate this is an interaction between two female speakers discussing the possibility that a boy that one of girls is interested in may have lied about his age.  The discussion in the initial stages of description is quite delicate.  However, there is then a silence in which the speaker, who has shown an interest in the boy, smiles. She follows this with a comment relating to how, after you reach a certain age, you are more likely to lie about your age. In this exchange, the smile represents the turning point between a serious or frank tone of discussion to a lighter, more humorous tone, where the girls make light of the boy’s potential dishonesty. The other point of note in this exchange, as well as all the others identified by the researchers, is that the recipient of the smile always joins in and smiles back. The researchers found that there is a range between initial pauses before smiles and the taking on of a new humorous tone. These two extremes have implications for the relationship between the speakers as well as the speakers’ relationship to the content of the interaction.  For example, an immediately reciprocated smile may indicate that the recipient of the smile trusts that the speaker is going to establish a more humorous stance or say something with which they are likely to agree.  On the other hand, a delayed return of a smile may show that the recipient is unsure of the speaker’s intentions, or is waiting to be ‘let in on the joke’ if a story is being introduced with which they are not familiar. In conclusion, the researchers suggest that turn-opening smiles are unlike those facial expressions which are labelled ‘emotional contagions’.  These are, for example, smiles which are copied or mimicked automatically.  Instead, they perform an important role in the organisation of conversation and emotional projection across subsequent discourse.