Initial thoughts on language male/female gender roles

In society the majority of high paid jobs such as Politics are normally stereotypically seen as a male role. Politics is based on the use of carefully planned language, in order for people to agree with their decision making. Women are not seen as powerful in society, but the roles of powerful women has increased rapidly from many years ago. Men and women are not seen as equal in society and there are stereotypical activities which lead to these judgements. For example women are seen as stay at home mothers who clean after the house and children, whereas the father of the family goes to work and brings money for the family. Men are also seen as stereotypically use curse words more as they are surrounded by other males in areas such as pubs. They are also seen as more capable of being aggressive and cursing to sound intimidating.

http://www.let.leidenuniv.nl/hsl_shl/van%20Baalen.htm interesting article on linguistic features of the differences between the language between the gender roles. For example explains it explains how the feature of hedging and how indicate that speakers are not committed to what they say. It also contains facts on the total number of women and men that use 'hedging'.

Analysis of Influential Power

http://allaboutbeautyblog.files.wordpress.com/2011/05/220790_10150243067627177_142092567176_9056676_3799383_o.jpg

 

This is an example of influential magazine advert which advertises Loreal’s anti-aging and whitening day cream. This advert is aimed at mature women and the slogan “you’re worth it” shows it is clearly recognisable and women who are well known of the brand will be interested in the product. There are many persuasive features which encourage the target audience towards this product, which I will be discussing in more detail.

There are many examples of hard sell reasons for having the product which are very eye-catching to the target audience, which would be mature women that want to prevent aging. Uses of declarative sentences such as “visibly smoothens out wrinkles” “fights dullness”, show how useful this product is and shows why the customer needs it. The discourse structure of the explanation of the product shows how beneficial this product can be towards the correct target audience. Since it is in a magazine many women will read it and the fifteen signs of aging are clearly displayed with large graphology features such as large, glowing font which draws the reader’s attention. The discourse structure suggests the fifteen problems many women will suffer from such as “frown lines” and the power in this product suggest a solution for these problems, and suggests how vital it is for this product.

The use of specific lexis of the fifteen signs of aging which show negative lexical fields of aging such as “dryness” “laugh lines”, and these are effective as this advert is trying to appeal to the target audience and trying to find common problems their target customers may suffer from. These words work effectively with the discourse structure as previously mentioned, as these words are placed above the solution, therefore the power in this text shows how desirable this product is as the purpose is to stop the signs of aging.

This links to Norman Fairclough’s theory from his book Language and Power which explains the ability of text producers which would be the authors of this magazine advert, and how they can address audience as if they know them. This is called synthetic personalisation and this means that the authors can create an artificial relationship to make the individual that they have never met, seem like they know them. This is shown through the use of common problems, and this shows they are trying to show they also care about the target customers. 

The graphology is effective as it very eye-catching and the readers will be attracted to the image of the woman with perfect, ideal skin named ‘Araya A. Hargett’. Since this image takes up half the page it is very eye-catching. This skin is envious of many of the customers and this shows how this woman saying that the product ‘works as I do’ is very powerful as it is persuading the matured women who read the advert, to buy the product to look like her. This is very powerful as this is a visual feature which is effective at persuading the reader as they have a clear image of how this product may make their skin look like.

 

Overall, the discourse structure paired with the lexical choice of words and the graphology of how the image and words are placed are very effective. This instrumental advert persuades the target audience of older (mature) women to buy the product and having the 15 problems and then the solution below from the consequence of this cream is very effective.

Article on the language of Twitter - notes/analysis

Article on the language of Twitter - notes/analysis

http://thenextweb.com/twitter/2012/09/15/a-list-twitters-language/#!r0WA8

The large image of the bird at the top of the article connotates the theme of birds within twitter as being a site that posts “tweets” which are short and snappy, like a bird chirping. The bird is representing the theme of Twitter. This article was posted on 15 Sep '12, since it is now 2014 this article will be slightly out of date, therefore any information may not be relevant and there may be different features within Twitter which are not explained.  

This article discusses the pain of users as they try to struggle to fit an intelligent tweet in the 140 character limit. This point links to the use of twitter as the purpose for phatic communication. Small talk can normally be interpersonal and users can then agree with the comments by clicking “favourite” or “retweet” to their twitter. Users can also follow each other and this normally happens with fans following celebrities, or people with common interests following each other. This is not discussed within the article but this is the purpose of the short 140 character limit so users can quickly read and agree with comments people post.

This article has a lot of acronyms definitions which describe what they mean. I disagree with the “Savvy acronyms”  or “super-sophisticated savvy acronyms” as I have a twitter account myself I have never seen some of these acronyms such as” ICYMI” which means in case you missed it or acronyms such as “OH” which means overheard.

However, I agree with the “Beginners lingo” as there are features of twitter such as the hash tag which is represented as the symbol # and also retweet which is the acronym RT and also direct message is used as DM. These shortened down names or acronyms of the features of twitter are very useful and popular within users. They can be helpful as most people will understand what they mean and they are common features so many people will use them in a tweet such as, “ I will send you my postcode on DM ”. This is helpful for users to get there point across within the limit of 140 characters.

This article on Twitter language does not include any purposes of the language such as to share news and how people use language to form social network groups and aim tweets at a certain audience. They also have not posted anything about how the features of twitter such as hash tag are useful. For example the has hash tag can be used to filter tweets for specific words such as “One Direction” so that twitter users can find current trends and also people who tweet about similar interests.

Technology Blog

The Guardian
Technology Blog
Jemma Stewart
{pic of me here}  

               IS TWITTER TAKING OVER OUR LIVES?

"21% Of The Global Internet Population Now Use Twitter Actively"- (source from http://digitalmarketingshow.co.uk/industry-news/21-of-the-global-internet-population-now-use-twitter-actively ) 

 The latest statistics show that Twitter has been a very important part of the global growing population’s lives. The impressive, staggering statics show a massive increase as Twitter is being used frequently by millions over the world.

 

 Facebook who?  The impressive figures show that companys such as Facebook, which was once popular are now being left behind. Figures from Prdaily.com 2012, There are over 500 million registered profiles. This is an incredible figure than anyone would be impressed by. Jack Dorse, creater of Twitter must be very chuffed with himself and the recent figures. How amazing is it that you can follow every single tweet about your celebrity on a daily basis to find out what they are doing at every breathing moment. Many of these celebrities people such as Stephen Fry, Bill Gates, Tim O'Reilly and many more.

Travel Writing to entertain

My Egyptian Holiday
17th August 2012. 

Walking through the Egyptian desert in the blistering heat. Supposedly having a relaxing holiday but no, instead I have been dragged by my parents away from the pool to visit some pyramids, typical.

If the sun ray hitting my back like piercing daggers in the 40 degree heat wasn’t bad enough I am exhausted and fed up and want to go back to the plush hotel. To make things worse I have exasperate Egyptian men in my face trying to crowd me like hungry birds, attempting to sell their junk jewellery. 

To top things off did I mention Egyptian men keep hassling me? For example just earlier some man appeared out of the blue querying my Mother to see if he could buy me for camels. Terrified, I stepped back and hoped he was joking. My Mother then joked about giving me away for free. I felt a rush of panic and nervously laughed. The man then approached me and went to pick me up but I didn’t find this very entertaining, more awkward.

 Swiftly moving on I keep getting asked if I want to purchase a camel ride. I mean seriously… yes I would love the get on to this dribbling, dirty camel that is spitting everywhere, and not even know where it would take me, NOT. I would much rather be led out by the pool on a sunbed, watching the pool water glisten, whilst getting served refreshing drinks. Maybe to Egyptian adventures are not for me.

Egypt Persuasive Travel Writing

Geoffrey's Monologue

The Vicar's Life
Geoffrey is the Vicar of the local church. He spends his free time reciting the bible and practicing chess. It’s Sunday morning and Geoffrey is lying in bed.

I have been blessed waking up to my winsome wife Susan. Christ is that the time 8:58? Why I am late for the Sermon, God will not be happy with me, hopefully he can forgive my sin of having a lie in. Susan is very quiet today, bless her. As a matter of fact, Susan has been quite, well.. very detached from me recently, I will try consoling her later.

My sermon is much rehearsed, I’ve been preparing my speech about marriage and the old birds and the bees speech. I ruffle my hair and head to the church. Surrounded by the local families, I smile cheerfully, “Not too late am I?” I apologise and swiftly unlock the church doors.