Group Task - Twitter Feed Text

The text that we looked at was from a Twitter feed. We discussed that the text could have shown both influential power and instrumental power. Influential power is shown as the person who’s Twitter feed it is has the power unfollow, block or report whoever they want if they do not agree with what someone has tweeted. The use of instrumental power is shown as Marcus Brigstocke is a famous comedian and actor, therefore they could be following him due to his popularity and famous status. This also means that the celebrity has the power to only let what they want their fans/followers to see over the social network.

We also discussed how Twitter users can be very opinionated when expressing their thoughts and feelings in a tweet. This can be seen as face threatening acts which is why we also spoke about how a lot of celebrities write that it is normally their own opinion.

Grouping

Texts A, B, D and F have the purpose to inform the reader. Text A is advertising their business in order to persuade through information due to the facts and statistics that are written such as, 'over 4.5 million people rely on Legal & General' and 'one of the UK's leading financial services companies'. The use of pragmatics in terms of how large the figure is and how much success it takes to be 'one of the UK's top 50 FTSE companies' which is persuading the target audience into signing up to them.

Targets for language and power assessment

Target: I need to use more terminology within the essay in order to get a higher grade.

Task: I need to revise terminology more so I am able to analyse the points I make more. To achieve this, I will  write the terminology that I struggle to remember down and first of all copy down the meanings with the terminology booklet out if I need it. This can be repeated until I feel like I am confident in knowing them. Once I think I can remember them, I will do it without the booklets help and see if I have successfully remembered the terminology.

5 Texts

President Franklin Roosevelt's speech, requesting declaration of war on Japan:
http://www.homeofheroes.com/presidents/speeches/fdr_wwii_declaration.html

Extract from TV show Educating Essex:
Teacher: Area of a circle is?
Class: Pi squared.
Student: What is pi? Where did it come from? Sir, who made up pi?
Teacher: I told you last lesson where it came from.
Student: I don't really pay attention.
Teacher: I will explain to you at break, don't worry. Yeah? Good. Right, you are going to do some practice questions on the sector.
Student: Fun fun fun.
Teacher: I'll wait Carrie, yeah?
Student: (Laughs)
Teacher: It's not funny
Student: James, James, James, James, James. I'm bored of it.
Teacher: Carrie, you're here to work. You're here to learn maths, yeah?
Student: I'm just really hyper.
Teacher: I don't care. Can you do some work?
Student: I am.
Teacher: It's taken you nearly 5 minutes to open a book. Come on! How questions of those 4 have you tried?
Student: The date.
Teacher: None.

Jennifer Lawrence Interview:
http://www.empireonline.com/interviews/interview.asp?IID=1799

Transcript from TV show Outnumbered:
http://www.online-literature.com/forums/entry.php?10225-Outnumbered-some-more

Article from The Guardian, Language and Power:
http://www.theguardian.com/media/2004/feb/05/broadcasting.britishidentityandsociety

Synthetic Personalisation - Advert

In the advert, it is written in bold what the phone being advertised will do for the customer. It says 'your music' and 'your life' at the very beginning before the customer begins to read further information. This shows how the advertiser is using synthetic personalisation to address the customer personally and create a relationship with them in order for them to feel more comfortable and maybe convince them to buy the product. It also makes the product seem more individual to the customer as it uses the word 'your'. Using 'your' may make the customer feel like they can make the product unique to fit their personality, etc.

Text Investigation Continued...

As I collected more data for my investigation, I had realised that the majority of the text samples that I have collected, do use some kind of 'text talk'. However, this does not just include abbreviations, but the use of 'u' in the place of 'you'. I have also noticed with the older age group of texters that rubuses are used very frequently, such as 'c u' (see you) which was quite commonly used throughout most of the texts I had collected but had not occurred in the younger age group of texts. As well as this, the over 40 texters have also shortened many of the words they have written such as 'txt' instead of 'text'. This may be because of the types of phones being used by the different age groups like I had mentioned in my earlier post, the younger age group may have more up to date phones while the older range group may have stuck with phones that they know and have an older model of phone. This could also be because of the issue of speed when texting.

Not all of the texts in the older age group data consisted of rebuses, abbreviations, etc. There were two out of the ten texts that had been written with a more standardised style of language so my hypothesis wasn't completely correct, however the majority of the texts that I had collected showed my hypothesis as true due to the fact that nine out of the ten texts from my data has shown that the younger texters under the age of 20 have used a standardised style of language in their text which does support my hypothesis much more. However, what I have also noticed from the under 20's texts, is that they have written in an exclamatory manner but most tend not to use commas in between sentences to make the sentences grammatically correct. This may be an issue of speed where the texter finds it quicker if they don't add certain punctuation.

Language and Technology - Text Talk

After reading the article '2b or not 2b', written by David Crystal, I have been interested in researching how often the use of abbreviations and rebuses are used in text messages today. Many people have said that the youth abbreviate in their texts and use 'text talk' and that since older people have started to text more, a more standardised style has appeared. However, what I have noticed is that older people abbreviate and use rebuses much more than any other teenager that I have ever texted.

Due to this, I have decided to carry out an experiment on whether or not teenagers are the main culprits of using 'text talk'. To do this, I am collecting quite a large amount of data of a group of people under the age of 20 and also a group of people over the age of 40. I will collect this data from ten people for each age group and ensure that they around the same age to create a more concise and reliable amount of data.

I have collected a small amount of sample data consisting of texts from someone who is 17 years of age and someone who is 49 years of age. From this, I have noticed that the younger texter has used much more of a standardised style of language with a small amount of abbreviations such as 'lmao' (laugh my ass off) and 'tbh' (to be honest). This standardised style of language used could be due to the type of phone that has been used, for example and iPhone has a keyboard on the screen to make it easier to type 'correctly' and also has autocorrect where any misspellings or grammatical errors are changed to what is correct. However, the abbreviations could have been used out of habit which could be due to a previous phone or that they had seen other people saying it.

The data I have collected from the older texter shows many rebuses rather than abbreviations, for example 'r' (are) and 'u' (you) are used quite frequently in the texts. The reason for this may be due to the type of phone as some of the older phones have the keys with four letters on them, so to save time and the effort of having to click on a button four times to type an s, it would make more sense to just type the one letter. As well as this, they may use this 'text talk' as they might think it makes them seem 'cooler' or 'down with the kids'. This may also be the reason for the abbreviation 'OMG' (oh my god) used in the data sample. This person might have used this as they had seen younger people talk this way, therefore making themselves seem younger if they talk in the same way.

From the data samples I have collected, it shows how the younger texter, even though had used a few abbreviations, it was not as much as the older texter who has also used many rebuses throughout the text messages as well as the abbreviation. Therefore, from the data sample it shows that older texters use much more 'text talk' which is completely opposite to what the article '2b or not 2b' had said. However, this data only shows one person from each age group so it is not reliable enough to make a full conclusion. This is why I am collecting a much larger data pool for my results to be reliable and a fair experiment.