'Horizon' documentary notes:

Horizon is a documentary that investigates how we learn to speak.
It says that language is part of what defines and distinguishes us as humans as we are the opnly ones who can speak.
Children learn to speak a complex language and a sophisticated skill with minimal effort without being explicitly taught which suggests its a natural process ingrained in humans. However how we learn to speak is still a mystery to the experts.
Deb Roy is a cognitive scientist who said that in order to examine how a child learns to speak they must be observed 24/7 while they were developing speech. To do this he turned his own home into an experiment to observe his own son, which is the first experiment of this type. He called it The Speech Home Project and watched how his son's speech developed until he was 3 years old. He discovered there was many stages of learning to talk, including the early 3 stages, which are the one word stage, the two word stage and then further complex language stage, where the children would start to say sentences including more than two words.
The way the children are interacted with and spoken to when learning to speak affects how they learn, for example, when given a positive reaction to something that the child has said they're then more likely to say it again. Adults often simplify their speech when talking to children/each other when the child is around. This includes elongated pauses between words to simplify the lexis and syntax. this is an example of convergence where the adults make the language appropriate for the children. Once the child then begins to speak more and more complexly, the parents speech mirrors that and then becomes more complex as a result.
Children listen to the tone and intonation of the voice to gauge the mood of the speech, not the lexis. Their phonological awareness outstrips their lexical awareness as they are first learning to speak.
By the child is 5 they will have learn approximately 5000 words. Of these, most of them are nouns and they will be beginning to learn to use more determiners, such as 'that's'. After the age of 5, its estimated that they will be learning around 3000 new words a year and will use 15000 words a day as an adult.
An animals voice box is higher which gives them a shorter vocal track, compared to humans lower voice box and longer vocal track. This was thought to be the reason why humans could speak, but animals couldn't. However animals can lower their voice box when the make sounds, meaning their vocal track can be elongated, giving them enough room to form the more complex sounds needed to speak so the theory was proved incorrect and so it was estimated that the main reason humans can speak and animals can't must be something in the brain.
New born babies respond to their mother voice in a way that they don't to other voices, this is due to the fact they began to learn language and sounds by hearing the mothers voice while still in the womb. All of this points towards an innate ability to develop language and that humans are born with the tools needed to speak within our brain.
Noam Chomsky is often called the godfather of linguistics who stated that the basis of our ability to speak is innate and to be able to stimulate the part of our brain which allows us to speak we must be exposed to language from a young age and throughout the 'critical acquisitional period'. His theory was called the L.A.D theory, that we are born with language, but to be able to learn and speak it properly we must be surrounded by language from and early age.
The forbidden experiment would be one way of figuring out if we are born with the ability to speak, however it is forbidden due to ethical issues because it would involve taking a child out of their natural habitat and isolating them, forcing them to grow up in silence and observing if they would develop language on their own.
Gene Fox-P-2 was found in a specific family who gave the the impression that they were deaf due to unclear speech inherited from the grandmother. The scientists found that the thing that affected their speech was found on chromosome 7, but they didn't know where or which gene of chromosome 7. They the discovered that part of chromosome 7 was broken off, which was why their speech was affected. This supported Chomsky's L.A.D theory and the reason we can speak is nature, not nurture. However behaviorists say that it must be stimulated in the critical acquisitional period so humans to be able to develop speech to a proper communicative level. All animals have this gene but the slight difference in the human version of the gene must be responsible for why humans can speak instead of just making noises.
Scientists think that language developed about 50,000 years ago, when art and technology boomed abruptly and they think that language was developed subconsciously over a process of time.

Coursework

The Maine - 8123 Tour, Orlando, FL

Orlando FL, July 16^th 2013

Arizonian quintet pioneer new live experience

The 8123 tour kicked off on June 4^th 2013 with a free show in The Maine’s hometown of Tempe, Arizona. This coincided with the release of their newest album Forever Halloween which has since received very positive reviews from several established magazines, many applauding The Maine on their risk taking a step in a new direction.

Over a month later and the tour arrived at the Beacham Theatre in Orlando, Florida and was nearing its last few shows. Hours before doors opened, fans were queuing round the corner of the venue, despite the torrential rain plummeting from the sky. When the doors opened it appeared to take an age before the queue actually started moving forward, however it was discovered this is because the merch table is just in front of the front doors!

  Brighten, the first band on the bill, opened the night. Their sickly sweet acoustic style received a lukewarm welcome from a crowd clearly waiting for someone else. The set list was short, playing only 5 songs, two of which were from the most recent album, Peace and Quiet. This Century, also hailing from Arizona, were next and livened up the crowd a bit with faster paced songs such as ‘Hopeful Romantic’ and ‘Sound of Fire’, while still managing to incorporate slower songs, like ‘To Love and Back’,  into their short set list. They were clearly a crowd favourite and people were moving as soon as the first bar sounds. They ended their time on a high, with lead Joel Kanitz leaving the stage with the biggest smile imaginable and promising the crowd they’ll be back to Orlando shortly, they made way for the last of the opening acts A Rocket To The Moon.

Fans knew that this would be the last time that A Rocket To The Moon would perform in Orlando, as their decision to split had been announced just weeks before the 8123 tour began in June.  This only added to the already built up anticipation. In spite of that, the performance left much of the crowd dissatisfied as only the hits such as ‘Dakota’ received any form of enthusiasm. As their set drew to an end probably the most popular of the quartet’s discography, ‘Like We Used To’ finally evoked the reaction many had awaited, the crowd sang the choruses above frontman Nick Santino as he laughed clearly in amazement. Despite their energetic ending Rocket’s last visit to Orlando was thoroughly forgettable.

The room erupted with piercing screams when the lights finally went out again. Filing onto stage were headliners, The Maine. As soon as the first guitar riffs of opener Love and Drugs kicked in the crowd jolted into action. Lead vocalist, John O’Callaghan, duly called a hello to the raging crowd as even the beginning lyrics were yelled back at the band over the carefully rehearsed melodies. Dressed in a cut off t-shirt that read the statement ‘I met god, she’s black.’ and ripped jeans, he looked every inch the part. One thing that’s interesting about watching The Maine perform live is that they often try to integrate every musical part of their songs into the live set, and this is evident even in the first song as O’Callaghan spent most the interval parts of the song bent over a keyboard in concentration while somehow still managing to hold the crowd’s attention. The intensity of the performance given by The Maine exceeded the worth of the ticket price immensely. With their catchy riffs and easily memorable lyrics they produce a truly stunning live performance. 

The hour and a half set was varied and visited each era of their discography with enthusiasm, which many bands avoid these days, especially on an album cycle tour. However, The Maine once again proved that taking a risk pays off. What was even more astounding was the exhilaration that even the older songs were greeted with, by the crowd and they band. This demonstrated how dedicated their fans really are which is hard to find recently among the sea of one hit wonders in the charts. Previous singles such as ‘Inside of You’ and ‘Into Your Arms’ offered soaring sing-a-longs while new songs such as ‘Kennedy Curse’ displayed the edgier side of the quintet. A highlight of the night was the immense atmosphere created by the enormous crowd sing-a-long for ‘Some Days’ – lead single off their 2011 release ‘Pioneer’.

In the latter half of the set they made a controversial decision to play their adaption of Cyndi Lauper’s iconic ‘Girls Just Wanna Have Fun’ that originally featured on ‘Punk Goes Pop Vol. 5’. This received by far the most mixed reaction from the crowd throughout the night. To bring morale back up after they played old hit ‘Count ‘Em One, Two, Three’ from their debut LP ‘Can’t Stop, Won’t Stop’. Unexpectedly O’Callaghan waded into the crowd and gave a speech before the song started, claiming that ‘[Count ‘Em One, Two, Three] is the closest [he’s] ever been to being in a punk band’ and that [he] wants the crowd to go crazy for the next 4 minutes!’ Which indeed they did.  So much so that by the time O’Callaghan was wrestled out from the crowd’s tight grips, his sleeveless shirt had been ripped to shreds.  

Just two songs remained after that and the closing song, ‘We’ll All Be…’, brought an emotional end to the night with lyrics referencing how the band started and all their friends (which is particularly apt seeing as members of the support acts and The Maine have known each other since high school and were involved in the forming of the band). Just to tug on the heart strings of the devoted fans a little more they brought out members of the support acts to sing the final gang vocals of ‘We all have been degraded, we all will be the greatest.’ A quote that appears to touch O’Callaghan so much, he had it tattooed on his chest.  The front man of each band that had played sang a line while the other members hung out on the stage and joined in on the last line. Never one for encores, the night ended sweetly and expressively for everyone involved, especially The Maine, who have used this tour as a landmark in their career. The Maine and their music have certainly matured to a place they have stated is ‘where [they’re] finally happy with the sound [they’re] producing.’

Linking features to Audience and Purpose

Feature of the Website	Example(s)	Link to Audience and/or Purpose
masthead (title)
hyperlinks	To other news stories.	Helps audience find more articles they might like based on the category/personal preference
hierarchy / organisation of links	Organisation of links, most important first.	Makes the audience aware of what is relevant in the news and what is most popular.
interactivity	Sliding arrows that change the news for each category, videos and audio clips.	Makes homepage more interesting to the reader, keeps the reader interacting and involved with the webpage which links to the purpose of a webpage.
banners	Categories banner. Weather banner Search.	Gives the audience a visual selection of choice and makes it easy for them to find what they are looking for quickly. This relates to the purpose of speed.
drop down menus	The ‘more’ tab	Gives the reader more selection of what the company of the website offers. It also gives the reader more control.
updates	The date and the weather forecast	Gives the reader confidence that the news is up-to-date and accurate.
representation / house style	All the text is the same font, and there is a specific colour scheme	Makes the website recognisable and easy to read.
colour	Simple use of colour, e.g. pinks, blues, reds and yellows.	Makes it easier to read and more eye catching.
ellipsis	Article headings and extra info.	Gives the reader the main information to tell them what the article is about.
sentence types	Declarative short sentences e.g. MPs condemn BBC pay-off 'cronyism'	Gives the reader information without being too long so that they’ll lose interest. It saves time for the reader and saves space on the homepage so more news can be fitted on.
minor sentences
typography	All the text is the same font.	Makes the website recognisable and easy to read
initialisms / acronyms
use of second person
mode	Written, audio clips, video clips.	Gives the audience a wide range of ways to catch up on the news. It engages them more and makes them more interested.
register	formal	Has to address a wide range of audiences and topics. Therefore has to be suitable for all audiences.

AQA English Language A Level

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-language-b-2705

How does the text on moon landing display aspects of power?

The title of ‘in the event of a moon disaster’ is instrumentally powerful because it shows that the text is instructions and the person giving the instructions is more powerful than the person reading them. The lexical field of the text displays aspects of power by using words that have connotations of death and sacrifice, such as ‘mourned’ and ‘sacrifice’,  which emphasises their defeat rather than their bravery. However the writer uses strong adjectives such as ‘heroes’ and ‘epic’ which gives the men themselves an appearance of power and bravery.

                The use of the Lord’s Prayer at the end of the text displays power as it is a finalisation of the speech as it relates to the finalisation of a funeral because it is often the last thing read out. The president gives himself power in the ending sentence as he gives instructions that they should ‘adopt the same procedure as burial at sea’ because he believes that they are dead and so should everyone else. The reference to the Lord’s Prayer gives the president more power with religious listeners as it signifies the importance of the Christian culture in America.

                Repetition is used throughout the text to give the men who died more power, for example, the repeated use of the abstract noun ‘sacrifice’ emphasises their power because they are seen as being brave enough to sacrifice themselves. The listeners are given influential power because the speech is essentially stating that they will mourn along with the rest of the families. The use of juxtaposing sentence starters ‘in ancient days’ and ‘in modern times’ is effectively comparing the men who sacrificed themselves, to God which gives them a higher status and increased power. 

                The overall power in the text lies with the president as he has instrumental political power over the listeners as he has a high status within the world and over others. However it is suggested near the ending of the text that the president doesn’t have as much power as implied beforehand as he himself is given instructions to ring ‘all the widows-to-be’.  NASA is also suggested to have more influential power than the president in this speech as they had more contact with the men that died. 

Sources:

http://farm2.static.flickr.com/1095/5147778073_7646512c13_o.jpg

http://farm5.static.flickr.com/4019/5148382090_37a0d022ec_o.jpg

The Apprentice Transcript:

This is a conversation between contestants and Lord Alan Sugar with 3 contestants, P, Lorraine and Kate, on The Apprentice TV show in the boardroom.  

P = P

L = Lorraine

K = Kate

LS = Lord Sugar

P: well I am arrogant I am a big head and it’s like I said to ya last week it needs slapping out of us and I think this week I improved incredibly (.) I was responsive to Lorraine (.) and effectively we lost the task (2) I was project manager of the last task (.) and no one wss bitching about me at the end of the day and we won

LS: (.) if I remember rightly that last task was a fools win wasn’t it (.) didn’t the other team just bomb out badly and // [inaudible]

L: // yeah

P: // yes //

P: // it was a tough //

LS: // you didn’t make any money //

P: // no it was a tough task Sir Alan but we won//

LS: // no you didn’t make any money

P: but we won

LS: you won by default you lost money and you won by default

P: yeah I couldn’t do any right (shakes head)

LS: (.) listen don’t get impatient with me p-Phillip y’know//

P: I’m not Sir Alan its just ya know ya cannot I cannot seem to say anything right ya criticise Lorraine I get it in the neck I win as project manager I get it in the neck I cannot do anything right

LS: (.) that’s all you’ve done today P is criticise Lorraine (.) if you could come out with something else constructive (.) um I might listen to you (.) that’s all you’ve done from  the minute you walked in this door today

P: because shes trouble Sir Alan (.) shes trouble (.) week after week after week you’ll get this again and again and again //

L: // trouble //

P: // my perfor- I think I've been one of the outstanding candidates over these past few weeks I’ve had //

LS: // well listen look look look (.) you know the (.) the body rocker thing //

P: // yeah //

LS: // I know this bleeding things gone to your head or what (.) okay ya done well there (.) yeah and the design of it (.) okay (.) but that’s it you know (.) one swallow don’t make a summer (2) you understand because since then you aint done that great from my [inaudible] //

P: // well I sold 3 of thems last week Sir Alan

Nick: tell us about pants man (5)

LS: Kate

K: yep

LS: what I cannot understand and cannot get my head around is how //

K: // yeah //

LS: // you can go from hero to zero (1) you’ve didn’t sell one thing this week

K: believe me theres no one more frustrated about the day // than I am

LS: // are you sure it wasn’t a case of wanting her to fall on her sword

P: // it’s a Lorraine thing //

K: // I'm abso – I’m absolutely positive I fully expected to be here today on the back of having no orders because that just isn’t acceptable (.) but I believe I've performed consistently throughout all of the tasks and that’s been the reason I've not been in the final 3 (.) in the boardroom

LS: (1) hmmm (3) Lorraine (.) slow burner in the thought process I've had reported back to me // from 

Blog post 1:

John Humphreys thinks that the OED has let him down by modernising. It’s done this by removing the hyphen from over 16000 words he describes that he finds it daft that we ‘don’t have time to reach for the hyphen key’ as its only one tiny key stroke. He feels that text speak is pointless and doesn't save time as ‘the recipient of the message has to spend ten minutes trying to translate it’. He thinks that the text speak of the new generation is ruining the English language and taking over and eventually people won’t know how to speak the English language properly without ‘grotesque abbreviations’. In summary he is saying that text speak, abbreviations and the lack of punctuation in text messages is destroying the language.

Blog post 2:

Like the first blog post from John Humphreys, John Sutherland also has a negative view on the world of texting. He describes texting as ‘snot talk’, it’s disposable. He recognises that texting is very much a European fad and that America is slower on picking up on the craze of SMS. He describes texting as ‘penmanship for illiterates’ and claims the reason it is so popular is that it hides mental laziness, quoting ‘wood-headed educationalists’.  In his eyes text language is ‘bleak, bald, sad shorthand’ implying that no emotion at all can be conveyed by the ridiculous abbreviations being made within text language. He likens the younger generation and texting to chimps with banana phones, creating a negative image for the reader to support his argument. In the conclusion he agrees with Roger Fischer, who wrote History of Writing’ in that writing is becoming ever more defined as more people are able to, and are, writing.

Blog post 3:

Unlike the first two blog posts, David Crystal has a much more positive outlook on the notion of texting. He believes that texting is good thing, it generates billions of money each year and that it could even improve literacy ability in young people. Instead of believing like the first two blog that it is a completely different language to the oxford English dictionary language, he believes that it simply adds a new dimension to it. He claims that the media have over exaggerated the way in which teenagers text and that we don’t actually use that many abbreviations, as previously though by other articles/media. Using facts he shows the reader that abbreviations and conventions typically linked to text speak were around long before mobile phones were, some common ones, like IOU, having been around since 1618. It’s just that since texting has been invented, they have become more widely used and known. A poem shown in the article demonstrates that not only young people use abbreviations, as it was written all in text speak, with the typical shortened words and Z’s added on the end of words instead of S’s, when in fact it was a women in her late 60’s that wrote and entered the poem into the competition. In conclusion he states that text speak is not deteriorating the English language or ruining it, but is simply a way in which it is evolving and diversifying.

What is your opinion on text speak? Has it had a negative effect on language? How do you text?

My opinion is that text speak is not ruining the English language but I don’t see much point in a lot of the abbreviations used. I don’t find that it saves time when typing as the younger generation are so used to typing on phones and keyboards, that their key strokes are fast anyway, so adding a few extra letters won’t make a lot of difference in the time it takes to type a message. As for punctuation I don’t feel that punctuation is needed at all times so long as the message is still decipherable easily. I have often found that more punctuation is used in texting, for example the over enthusiasm when pressing the exclamation mark button or the question mark.  Overall I think that texting is a good invention and it makes communicating with people a lot easier as it is cheap, quick and you can text people anywhere in the country, or another if you’re willing to spend the international rates! It’s easy to access and get hold of people and doesn't take up your whole attention so you can multitask, where as a phone call does. Many of the people who use abbreviations are able to use proper, grammatically correct English as well, as we are taught it in all lessons at school, it’s just that we choose not to some of the time when communicating over the internet. The way in which I text, I do not use a lot of abbreviations, but I can see why people do. I have noticed a lot of time that the older generation, such as parents use more a more shorthand language than me or my friends do. I think this is because they are not as used to texting as they didn't grow up with it so it they are not as quick at it, so the abbreviations do save them time. 

Sources:

http://www.theguardian.com/technology/2002/nov/11/mobilephones2

http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-483511/I-h8-txt-msgs-How-texting-wrecking-language.html

http://www.theguardian.com/books/2008/jul/05/saturdayreviewsfeatres.guardianreview

The Twitter Takeover

The fascination with twitter is growing by the day, with prdaily.com claiming there were 500 million registered users in 2012. But what exactly is Twitter and why is it taking over?

The Guardian newspaper describes Twitter as "a collection of microblogs where people post their minute-by-minute thoughts and actions". It was launched on the 15th of July 2006 and since has become an internet phenomenon.

Now among the top 10 social networking sites used around the world, Twitter has come a long way since its launch. It uses a form of media called microblogging and the status updates the users post are called 'tweets'. It was estimated that around 340 million tweets were sent per day in 2012, wow.

Despite the fact you post tweets which are basically the equivalent of a status update on Facebook, unlike Facebook, anyone anywhere in the world can read your tweets unless you specifically choose to 'protect' them and review who you allow to follow you and see them. Twitter users can often chose to follow whoever's tweets catch their interest, this creates a timeline of the tweets that the people you follow have sent.

However the main question people are asking is why is Twitter so popular today? The most obvious answer is it allows all sorts of people interact with each other, whether they are very similar or different to them. Twitter has developed so that people don't just post what their current actions are, unlike when it began, it is often used to keep up to date with worldwide news, share opinions on those subjects and interact with other users, who could be on the other side of the world.

Although there are many perks of having a twitter account, in 2009 TIME magazine claimed that Twitter "makes a terrible first impression" and gave off the general opinion that it was an unnecessary advance in the social networking circle. Necessary, it may not be. Popular? Incredibly so.




Bibliography:

Johnson, S (05/06/09) How Twitter Will Change The Way We Live article in TIME magazine.
www.time.com/time/magazine/article/0,9171,1902818,00.html [accessed 11/07/13]

Bevan, K (06/03/08) article for The Guardian Why are there no spam or trolls on Twitter?
www.theguardian.co.uk/technology/2008/mar/06/socialnetworking.spam [11/07/13]

Collier, S (16/07/12) 20 illuminating facts about Twitter: 2012 edition article on PR Daily
www.prdaily.com/main/articles/20_illuminating_facts_about_twitter_2012_edition_12138.aspx# [11/07/13]

Wikipedia Twitter page
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Twitter [20/10/13]