Major native dialects of English often get divided by linguists into three main categories which are British isles, North America and Australasia dialects. Dialects aren't only associated with a group but also places. within every English speaking country there will be their own version of standard English.


Miami English accent is an evolving regional accent and is spoken in south Florida. it is mainly spoken by Hispanic, younger locally-born south Floridians. Miami accent has existed since the second world war and is becoming more popular and is spoken by more people. It is a native dialect of English and isn't a learner English nor inter-language. It is similar to the standard American accent but has some changes from the mid-Atlantic accent.

language  change:
1000's -Anglo Saxons and William the conqueror
1100's - the beginning of middle English
1200's - medieval music
1300's - early cookery manuscript
1400's - Canterbury tales and western printing
1500's - the first bible printed in English
1600's - Shakespeare
1700's - revolution and William Blake
1800's - wordsworth and dickens
1900's - Wilfred Owen and Virginia Woolf
2000's - poetry by Mimi Khalvati and Moniza Alvi.


"Language also changes very subtly whenever speakers come into contact with each other. No two individuals speak identically. People from different geographical places clearly speak differently, but even within the same small community there are variations according to a speaker’s age, gender, ethnicity and social and educational background. Through our interactions with these different speakers, we encounter new words, expressions and pronunciations and integrate them into our own speech. Even if your family has lived in the same area for generations, you can probably identify a number of differences between the language you use and the way your grandparents speak. Every successive generation makes its own small contribution to language change and when sufficient time has elapsed the impact of these changes becomes more obvious."





Reasons for language change

• Individuals – Chaucer and Shakespeare
• Technology – Internet etc needing new lexis
• Society – Cultural changes and shifts in attitudes requiring new lexis E.g. Political Correctness
• Foreign Influence – E.g. America through film or trade
• Science – new inventions requiring new lexis
• Travel, trade and colonisation – require new lexis and shared lexis to barter and trade
• Globalisation – English becoming language of trade and business – new forms created (Spanglish)

Political Correctness

• Refrain from causing emotional harm
• Fit into society free of isolation
• However – gone to far - ‘vertically challenged’

Attitudes towards language change

• Prescriptivism – dictate how language should be used
• Want language to remain same and refrain from change
• Descriptivism – accept language change is inevitable and accept change
• David Crystal – 3^rd way – results in more creative and expressive form of language

Taboo

• Used for comedic effect
• Convergence or divergence – conform to more dialectical lexis to fit in or show separate from others
• Used as filler or to show pain and displeasure
• Negative views towards taboo
• Too much on TV
• However, shows reality to modern language in Britain

Lexical change – neologisms
Words from other languages
Borrowings –

• Loans taken from foreign languages 
• E.g. ‘Judge’ from French and ‘Opera’ from Latin

Words formed from existing words - 
Affixation –

• Adding affix (prefix or suffix) to an existing word - E.g. ‘Racism’ and ‘sexism’

Compounding –

• Two words are combined in their entirety to make a new word
• E.g. ‘Lap-top’ and ‘Happy-hour’

Blending –

• Two words parts are moulded together to form a new word, usually by adding the start of one word and the end of another
• E.g. ‘Smog’ – smoke and fog and ‘Motel’ – motor and hotel

Conversion –

• Changing of word class  - E.g. Noun to verb – ‘Text’ was noun now verb of ‘to text’

Words formed by shortening –
Shortening or abbreviation –

• Clipping part of a word
• E.g. Omnibus to ‘bus’ and Public house to ‘pub’

Acronym –

• Taking initial letters of words and making them into a combination of pronounceable as a new word
• E.g. NATO, NASA, AIDS, WAG

Initialism –

• Words abbreviated to initial letter - E.g. B.B.C, F.B.I, U.S.A.

Words from proper names –

• Derived from names or places synonymous with the product
• Denim – place in France
• Sandwich – after Earl of Sandwich

Semantic change
Broadening or generalisation –

• Meaning of a word broadens so as it retains old meaning but takes on new meanings as well
• E.g. ‘Mouse’ – was animal now computer equipment also

Narrowing or specialisation –

• Is the opposite of broadening
• Applies when word becomes more specific in its meaning, but again can retain the original meaning as well
• E.g. ‘Meat’ – meant all food now flesh of animals
• ‘Girl’ – middle ages meant all young people

Amelioration –

• Word has taken on a more pleasant or positive meaning than originally held
• E.g. ‘Wicked’ – still means evil now modern slang of good
• ‘Pretty’ – middle ages meant sly or cunning now beautiful

Pejoration –

• Opposite to amelioration
• words original meaning becomes less favourable
• E.g. ‘awful’ – originally 'worthy of awe' now 'exceedingly bad'

Metaphor –

• Words take on new meanings when begin to be used metaphorically
• E.g. ‘Cow’ – bitchy female and ‘Catty’ – female

Idioms –

• Formed from existing words but assume new meanings often as fixed frame forms
• Can only be properly interpreted by learning what the whole frame means
• E.g. ‘In the dog house’ and ‘Over the moon’

Euphemisms –

• Polite way of describing something unpleasant, embarrassing or socially undesirable
• More politically correct
• E.g. ‘Friendly fire’ and ‘Passed away’

Computer room lesson 9th/12th Dec - children's writing

Year 5: Naeman Abercrombie: Garden Birds (originally untitled)

The <reg>survey</reg> above was done in my back garden in the morning, after putting food out on the bird table and on the floor by the bird table. I <reg>watched</reg> for 45 minutes each time recording the number of each type in the period I watched so the same bird may be counted more than once. The chart shows starlings and house sparrows were the most frequent visitors as 178 out of 247 were these. A green wood pecker was the most <reg>unusual</reg> visitor during the <reg>survey</reg>, but I have had <sic>Heron gulls</sic>, pheasant and a sparrow hawk in the garden last winter.

Year 6: Naeman Abercrombie: Trains

Railway companies built their railways <sic>with in a haphazard way</sic>. Eventually, larger systems meant that different companies joined up. These large companies were London & North <reg>Western</reg> Railway, The Great Western and the South Western Railway company. The Great Western had an engineer called Isambard Kingdom Brunel designing its railway tracks.

All the railway companies wanted to be the best. Brunel thought that trains were safer and more comfortable if they used broad <reg>gauge</reg> rails. These rails were seven feet and a quarter inch apart and were wider than those used by the other companies. They used <reg>rails</reg> that were four feet eight and a half inches apart. Everyone wanted the trains to use the same gauge. Parliament had to sort out the problem. Parliament passed the Gauge Act which said that all tracks had to be four feet, eight and a half inches wide.

Analysis:

As you can see there is a clear improvement from the writing Naeman has written in year 5 from the writing they have done in year 6. In the first piece of text you can see that they are writing really long sentences and are mostly consisting of statements. In the second piece of writing you can see that their writing is more concise and their sentence control has improved. In the second piece of text the student makes fewer mistakes and a range of sentence starters. The level of punctuality on the other hand as stayed the same as there is no progression to the use of exclamatives, semi-colons or added information that been incorporated within brackets. In the first text there is emission of some of the punctuation however, in the first one, punctuation is used more frequently but the level of punctuation hasn’t changed.  Simple things like the title have been elided from the first text as the child hasn’t included a title for their first piece of text.

Research on children's reading development... Tuesday 22nd November 2016v

The Snowman by Raymond Briggs, Dear Zoo by Rod Campbell, The Very Hungry Caterpillar by Eric Carle and I Want My Potty! By Tony Ross are just few of the most popular books and children’s authors that write books designed for early years children aged 0-5 years old.

A Bear Called Paddington by Michael Bond, The BFG by Roald Dahl, The Queen's Nose by Dick King-Smith and Diary of a Wimpy Kid by Jeff Kinney are just few of the most popular children’s books from authors that write books designed for children of the ages 6-8 years old. (Infants)

Skellig by David Almond, Matilda by Roald Dahl and Quentin Blake, The Lion, the Witch and the Wardrobe by C S Lewis and Private Peaceful by Michael Morpurgo are just few of the most popular books what are written by these authors designed for children ages 9-11 years old. (Juniors)

Elements that make children’s books successful are that they contain powerful images to help them understand, a strong character that represents an emotion, a story line that is going to teach the children something and especially for the early years children, the books that have sensitivity sections where you can feel something in the book will help them to learn things through other senses rather just than through imagery and by hearing the story being told but actually by allowing them to sense something to enhance their learning.

My favourite early years books is ‘The very hungry caterpillar’ by Eric Carle, this is my favourite book because it involves a lot of repetition which helps younger people to learn but also there are lots of bright pictures in the book to help you go along with the storyline and some books are interactive which allows you to see the caterpillar eating the food on his journey.  My favourite book from when I was an infant was ‘A diary of a wimpy kid’ I liked this book because it had some elements of humour and was set out in a way which was fun to read. Also it wasn’t too long and descriptive which allowed me to be able to read it for myself.  My favourite book form when I was a junior was Mathilda because it uses a lot of descriptive language as well as few small images to help you to visualise the characters that Roald Dahl describes so thoroughly.

Children are taught to read in schools by first being taught how to distinguish the difference between a phoneme and a letter which will help them to put together a sound and be able to pronounce the different sounds within the words. We first teach them to break down words into smaller sound (phoneme awareness) this enables them to sound out the different sounds within the words before trying to say them one after another to put the word together. When children are in the process of leaning it is important that you help them by reading to them with much more expression. This will enable them to hear the different sounds within the words but also the different intonations to help them to understand the mood of the sentence (eg declarative or an interrogative) there are some steps that children follow when they learn to read and intemperate language…

  At about 18 months, children add new words to their vocabulary at the astounding rate of one every 2 hours.

By age 2, most children have 1 to 2,000 words and combine two words to form simple sentences such as: "Go out." "All gone."

Between 24 to 30 months, children speak in longer sentences.

From 30 to 36 months, children begin following the rules for expressing tense and number and use words such as some, would, and who.

Bibliography:

http://www.booktrust.org.uk/news-and-blogs/news/222/

http://thewritepractice.com/childrens-book/

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-do-children-learn-read

http://www.readingrockets.org/article/how-most-children-learn-read

Questions not yet completed:

What are the arguments for and against current approaches? Make sure you cover synthetic phonics and reading schemes.

What sorts of 'miscues' (virtuous errors based on misapplication of reading skills) do young readers make and how are caregivers encouraged to deal with them (again, numerous ways)?

Vygotsky's theory of the 'zone of proximal development' is displayed within the second utterance of the transcript. 'I sitting on the bike (.) it make noises' the confusion of tenses and the missing inflection on 'make' supports Vygotsky’s theory of the 'zone of proximal development as although Tom knows what he is trying to communicate, he is in confusion regarding his tenses and therefore is in aid of some scaffolding in order to allow him to understand his misuse of tenses and therefore develop his language to allow him to be more fluent as well as accurate.

Showing a certain level of understanding, but a lack of clarity within this declarative, Tom is also supporting the telegraphic stage in Piagets theory which suggests that a child cannot learn something until their brain is developed enough, which to some extent contradicts Vygotsky’s theory as he suggest that as long as you are corrected as and when you make mistakes then you can learn something. His theory says that when a child knows something but it is incorrect they are in the 'zone of proximal development' this is where they have a certain level of understanding and with help they can learn it properly. Piaget on the other hand, he believes that until the brain is developed enough the child doesn’t have the capacity to learn the correction of something until they are developed enough to understand.

Contradicting piagets theory is Bruner. Bruner believes that anyone can be taught anything if it is simplified right down to make it easier to understand. He also says that you need to revisit and build up what you already know to expand your knowledge. As well as burner, Jim's case study of the child with deaf parents contradicts piagets theory as although he had deaf parents and wasn’t exposed to any scaffolding or the ability to pick up language from his parents he was still able to learn how to talk without the same amount of interaction as other children. In the transcript you can see that Tom is supporting all of these theories as Vygotsky’s 'zone of proximal development' can apply as top needs that scaffolding from his parents in order to help him to learn the correct tenses but also, Piagets theory is also supported as if Tom's brain isn’t developed enough and he doesn’t have the capacity to understand the tenses fully yet then he won’t be able to until his brain develops more which it could be argued that his brain wont develop enough until he is helped by his parents with other mistakes he makes until her realises what's right from wrong. As much as piagets theory therefore contradicts Vygotsky’s, it could also interlink.

Later on in the transcript, Tom asks his mum 'is these drawing cartoon network cup of tea mum' By saying mum at the end of the utterance shows that he is looking for positive reinforcement as he is demonstrating that he almost knows that the picture on the mug isn’t cartoon network but because he is unsure of how to communicate this with his mother her associates the drawing with cartoon network in the hope that his mum will understand what he is asking her about. 'is these drawings' this incorrect use of language represents Chomsky’s theory as this utterance wouldn’t have been picked up from an adult and therefore must have been born with some sort of knowledge as they wouldn’t have been taught this type of grammar or sentence structure from their care givers.

English language investigation:
Piagets theory:
'according to Piaget, children don't talk about a subject until they are ready to understand it'


I don't want to make my investigation have any ethological factors and therefore i'm not going to force him to play with anything he wouldn't normally play with to make it reliable but also I want to try and encourage him to play with things he doesn't play with as much as other things to see how he reacts to talking about things he isn't to confident with talking about.


-record my brother talking to my mum when his playing with his toys
-write out a transcript of when he talks about what he is playing with
-get him to play with different things, some of which he wont know what it is and see what he has to say about it.
-see how my mum responds to what he says when he doesn't know what he's talking about.
-see weather he stops talking all together or weather he will ask questions to learn about the subject or just relate it to things he already knows about that are in a similar lexical field.

'The solution to (nearly) everything: working less' This is the headline for the article from the guardian. This is an effective title as according to Grice's maxims, the level of quantitate information if powerful as it doesn't give away too much or too little about the article as it hooks the readers attention however it doesn't give away too much that they no longer need to read the article.


'Excessive work and pressure are status symbols. But overtime is deadly. If we worked less we’d make fewer errors, address inequality and have a better life' This is the strapline taken form the guardian article, this is also a gripping strapline as it summarises the article well however it doesn't tell the story. This strapline is interesting to the targeted target audience and therefore makes it successful as is persuades people to read the article.


'What does working less solve? I’d rather turn the question around. Is there anything that working less does not solve?’' This is the caption displayed below a picture of people working in an office. This is using effective imagery. ( in the exam if you are asked to write an article then use square brackets on an online news paper articles to represent information that wouldn't be read e.g. images or hyperlinks.) This is also a good use of paraphrasing as it is a way of communicating without using written text but by communicating through different ways.


Facts and quotes:
-In 2000, countries such as the UK and the US were already five times as wealthy as in 1930.
-The western standard of living would multiply to at least four times that of 1930 within a century. By his calculations, in 2030 we’d be working just 15 hours a week.
-In return, they could put in not 40 hours a week for all those years, but perhaps just 20-30.
-(a recent poll found that as many as 37% of British workers think they have a “bullshit job”).

This is a good thing to include (added information which is going to aid your description and explaining of your subject or some wider research that is going to benefit the readers understanding.) without this you wouldn't interest the readers as much nor would they understand what you're trying to communicate as fully as they may do with added information and facts.


Discourse markers:
In fact
Yet
Take climate change.
or, better yet
Overtime is deadly.
Obviously,
Furthermore,
Multiple/ a variety in discourse markers makes a piece of text effective as it allows the reader to know when a new idea is going to be addressed but also it allows the text to flow more as well as be more concise and coherent which limits waffling and losing the interest of the reader.


Short sentences:
Leisure.
Take climate change.
Overtime is deadly.


short sentences are effective as they add sentence structure and sentence variety which alters the length of reading time for the reader and makes it flow more concisely.