Essay feedback

- Examples Examples Examples

- You need to explore complexities

- Edit

- Use metalanguage-

- Be engaged and passionate in your argument

- Quote and evidence

- Shorten your syntax- Don’t use prescribed responses

- Explain the ‘how’ don’t make sweeping statements about language or people do

intro- strong

The debate over the advantages and disadvantages of the two major English dialects, Standard English and Non-standard English, is ongoing and upholds many valid arguments. Yet, both Standard and Non-standard English are acceptable forms of communication which are equally important and should be the preferred option in certain contexts, even though linguistic discrimination is an occurrence due to the perception of Standard English as the superior dialect. Standard English benefits children in education, allowing them increased prospects later in life in terms of career and communication, whilst still contributing to the culture and identity of society. Whereas, Non-standard English allows for economy and innovation in our expression of thoughts and contributes largely to the social solidarity and in-group membership required for effective communication in everyday life. However, pedantry from prescriptivists who adhere to Standard English has made these two dialects unequal, though they both are identical in communicative value.

STRONG PARAGRAPH ON THE BENEDITS OF STANDARD ENGLISH:

If there ever is a ‘right’ time to use Standard English, it is in the public and professional spheres; situations which require clarity, intelligibility and economy of language. Because of the international reach of the English language, Standard English is widely seen as the ‘Norm of communication’ and is used most often in radio and television broadcasts, public addresses, advertisements, and printed publications. In this way, it can be seen that Standard English is becoming more acceptable and widely understood in today’s society. The reason it is used in most public settings is for its accuracy and economy in the delivery of language, so as not to cause confusion amongst the wide spectrum of people from different cultures and ethnicities. A common example is the nightly television news broadcast, which is bound by strict time constraints and is required to accurately deliver many events. In this extract from a news broadcast: “Five men were arrested in pre-dawns raids on Saturday morning. It’s also alleged the men were linked to a centre known to recruit for Islamic State” elements of Standard English, such as the use of complex sentences and passive voice, aid the maximum amount of information to be delivered in a limited amount of time. Standard English is also used for its precision in professional domains such as medicine, politics and law. Professions such as these often require complete accuracy and fastidiousness in discourse, which is aided by the many facets of jargon that exist throughout such occupations. For example, during a medical procedure saying “heart” instead of “left aorta” could lead to devastating consequences. It is because of these situations that Standard English is mistakenly seen to be the ‘correct’ way to communicate. Contrary to the prescriptivist attitude, that Standard English is the only way to communicate, it is only required for a select few specific applications in the public and professional areas. Thousands of other circumstances however do not require, and can often be hindered by the use of standard language.

Complex take on Standard English-DiscriminationThe use of a ‘standard’ in English is a discriminating factor in one’s apparent level of education. Several countries, especially the UK, have focused on the devising of an acceptable national curriculum for English at the primary and secondary level. Therefore, classrooms are built around the dominant dialect, Standard English, and students are often told that their language use is incorrect for not speaking or writing in the Standard. Although operating passively (a lack of support rather than active opposition ), schools are one of the places where both racial and linguistic discrimination are present. This is because schools are governed by rules and policies that are rigid and do not take into account linguistic forms that deviate from the norm. As a result, children are often discouraged from speaking their native dialect in the classroom, and are further disadvantaged if they originate from a poor background or one of a different culture, as they are expected to meet the standard and be able to communicate ‘right’, or risk being left behind in today’s world of strict requirements. One such requirement is the prerequisite of a score of at least 25 (minimum) in VCE English ¾ for an individual to be able to enter most courses at university. This ranking excludes approximately the bottom 40% of all students in the state of Victoria from having the future they desire. If more emphasis is based on an individual’s actions (what they do), rather than their words (how they say something ), then everyone would be on an even playing field upon which they can enter society and we would live in a fairer world, as English is a complex and evolving linguistic system, and empowering one form over another is not just or ‘right ’.

Language used to deceive

REVISIONFormal language – General characteristics:

- Speakers use formal language to clarify, manipulate or obfuscate particularly in public language.

Doublespeak

In some cases, language is used to propagate a specific position or to force through particular changes, to influence mass attitude and sometimes to mislead them.

Coded language is called doublespeak. Advertising and political propaganda utilise this.

There is a sense that if something is taboo it is acceptable to use a euphemism. However the over use of purposely misleading language adds another dimension to this.

Examples

International conflict:

The soviet union and united states during the cold war.

Rescue operation not ‘invasion’

‘Socialist peace wall’ (Berlin wall)

Another example is to make statements in favour of a strategic or political position. For example

Problems ‘not yet overcome’ meaning ‘unresolved/existing problems’

Political terms.

Some political terms such as ‘peace’ and ‘democracy’ function in a similar way to doublespeak or euphemism. They are employed to alleviate the perceived effects of government policy.

In Australia the use of the ‘family’ card is used a lot as well as ‘fair’ ‘egalitarian’ – this all aims to appeal to what?

Weasel wordsIn his book ‘Weasel words’ Don Watson delegates Weasel words as similar to having the meaning sucked out as weasels suck their eggs) The term had been around before this:

A weasel word (also, anonymous authority) is an informal term for words and phrases aimed at creating an impression that a specific and/or meaningful statement has been made, when only a vague or ambiguous claim has been communicated, enabling the specific meaning to be denied if the statement is challenged

GO TO THE FOLLOWING WEBSITE:

http://www.weaselwords.com.au/home/

WHAT is this website for?

Can you find examples of ‘weasel words’- write these in your book

(have at least 4 of these)

Re-write one in ‘plain English’

George Orwell

Jargon:

‘Expressions made to make lies sound truthful and murder respectful and give an appearance of solidity to pure wind’

George Orwell

“In our time, political speech and writing are largely the defence of the indefensible. Things like the continuance of British rule in India, the Russian purges and deportations, the dropping of the atom bombs on Japan, can indeed be defended, but only by arguments which are too brutal for most people to face, and which do not square with the professed aims of political parties. Thus political language has to consist largely of euphemism, question-begging and sheer cloudy vagueness. Defenceless villages are bombarded from the air, the inhabitants driven out into the countryside, the cattle machine-gunned, the huts set on fire with incendiary bullets: this is called pacification. Millions of peasants are robbed of their farms and sent trudging along the roads with no more than they can carry: this is called transfer of population or rectification of frontiers. People are imprisoned for years without trial, or shot in the back of the neck or sent to die of scurvy in Arctic lumber camps: this is called elimination of unreliable elements. Such phraseology is needed if one wants to name things without calling up mental pictures of them.

George Orwell

“The great enemy of clear language is insincerity. When there is a gap between one's real and one's declared aims, one turns as it were instinctively to long words and exhausted idioms, like a cuttlefish spurting out ink”

Orwellian thought

It is very much the Orwellian thought regarding political language (euphemism, doublespeak, weasel words) that dominate public discourse. There is a concern that language does have the ability to manipulate. Although this is not as easy as 1984 suggests, loaded language can work to influence memory and perception.

“Friendly fire”

The above term works at minimising feelings of responsibility. Playing down the slaughter of human beings and creating a psychological distance between the perpetrators and their actions.

What does obscufuscation mean?

• Obfuscation is the obscuring of intended meaning in communication, making the message confusing, wilfully, ambiguous, or harder to understand. It may be intentional or unintentional (although the former is usually connoted) and may result from wordiness, weasel words or from use of jargon.

Doublespeak

Doublespeak is not a term with which everyone is familiar, although many people use this device in every day language.

Doublespeak, often called "double talk," is the distortion, changing or switching of words to make an unpleasant, tricky or otherwise negative situation not sound as awful. For example, many times people say that someone has "passed on" as opposed to saying that the individual has died. Instead of focusing on the negative aspect that the person has left this world, the speaker places emphasis on the fact that the person has gone on into the next one.

Examples of Doublespeak

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=sjwqwa21jeU

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Wj9_S4jnNqY

Purposes of Doublespeak

To Sound More Polite

In the case of phrases such as "using the facilities" and "curvy," the speaker is trying to not sound lewd or obnoxious. By using these other words, the speaker does not sound as offensive, even if the true meaning is still really known by the listeners.

To Be Politically Correct

This reason for using doublespeak tends to go hand-in-hand with being more polite. For example, words and phrases such as "curvy" and "using the facilities" are more often used in more private situations; however, phrases such as "senior citizens" may be used in more public situations as the socially-accepted, politically correct way of identifying this group of older people.

Hiding Negativity

Often, doublespeak is used to make negative situations sound better, particularly when it comes to death. People say phrases such as "going to the Lord" and "crossed over to the other side" instead of died to remind themselves that the deceased individual is still living somewhere.

Business Purposes

Doublespeak is often used in business purposes, and it is often a blend of hiding negativity and being politically correct. Higher ups in companies want to be diplomatic as possible, so they can make situations such as money loss and firing employees not sound as terrible as they really are.

Doublespeak/Euphemism

Doublespeak is NOT the same as a euphemism!Doublespeak camouflages, MISLEADS, DISTORTS, deceives, inflates, circumvents, and obfuscates in a mostly purposeful way.

Doublespeak is language with an intent to avoid, shift, or deny responsibility, language which is at VARIANCE with its REAL or purported meaning.

ex. ‘the Patriot Act’ which in ‘plainspeak’ would be called a ‘Loss of Privacy Act’.or typically ‘Clean Water’ or ‘Clean Air’ bills that actually remove restrictions on polluters.

Utilising this in an essay:A lot of this has to do with ‘social harmony’ is language contributing to or lessening this? In short both:

Euphemism and dysphemism manipulate the semantics of government lens in order to respectively eliminate and perpetuate prejudice. The government plays a vital role in reducing societal prejudice introducing euphemistic lexemes to replace derogatory terms. Fromkin (1999) states that ‘words and language are not intrinsically good or bad but reflect the individual or societal attitudes.” As a result, lexemes which gain negative or derogatory connotations must be continually replaced by neutrally connoted terms, a process linguist Stephen Pinker refers to as the ‘euphemistic treadmill’. Recent introductions by the Australian government to combat prejudice by replacing derogatory terms include ‘children of other cultures’, a noun phrase which employs ‘people first language’, where in the subject is post, rather than pre-modified, to avoid the negative connotation associated with the more common noun phrase, ‘immigrant children’ and adjective ‘non-disabled’ to describe those who are ‘normal’ in the presence of disabled people. In addition, a guide for employers released by the Immigration Department in August 2013 introduced the acronym CALD, ‘Culturally and Linguistically Diverse’ to avoid the offense associated with the word ethnic. In contrast, dysphemistic language serves to perpetuate prejudice, thereby threatening social harmony where government interests are served. This is particularly evident in the language of asylum seeker policy. In addition to the recent change in the name of the Department for Immigration and Citizenship to the Department for Immigration and Border Security, lexemes used to refer to asylum seekers, including, ‘boat people’, ‘illegal immigrants’, ‘queue jumpers’ and even the dehumanising initialism ‘IMAs’ for ‘Irregular Maritime Arrivals’ employ dysphemistic semantics to portray asylum seekers as outsiders and criminals. Whilst euphemism aids social cohesion by eliminating prejudice, dysphemism threatens social cohesion by perpetuating prejudice.

Encouraging social harmony:http://junkee.com/the-herald-sun-has-dismissed-4000-indigenous-rights-protestors-as-a-selfish-rabble/54833