Tuesday, 20 October 2015

Language & Power Transcript . . .

1)  What do you notice about the use of proper nouns and/ or pronouns in referring to people and events concerned?

In this text I have noticed that Barrister uses pronouns very often when talking to Mr Neil, ''the rear of your car (.) now (.) did anything happen to you (.) as a result of driving your car'' This shows that the Barrister is intent on making it clear that everything said was because of Mr Neil's actions. The use of personal pronouns emphasises the sense of 'finger pointing' at Mr Neil and his current situation in court. The micro pauses ''(.)'' shows that the Barrister is thinking about what he will ask Mr Neil and it also suggests that he could be trying not to slip up and loose his temper with the way Mr Neil isn't taking the questions in the court room very seriously show by the when he is ''[laughing quietly]''.

2) Which parts of the dialogue seem prepared or part of courtroom conventions and which seem spontaneous?

The Barrister uses both spontaneous and court room talk, an example of the spontaneous is, ''you put two and two together Mr Neil and made five'' This shows his frustration with Mr Neil's response to being criticised about his actions. An example of courtroom conventions is, ''that didn't cross your mind at all?'' This is an example of double questioning which shows that he wants to be sure of Mr Neil's response being the truth. 

3) Who seems to have the most power in the dialogue and why?

Although the Barrister is in a position of power and seems as if he would come across as the most powerful speaker in the text it seems that Mr Neil is in fact the one in power in this conversation. I can infer this from the text when the conversation over laps with Mr Neil talking over the Barrister ''or not?'' from the Barrister and '' I don't'' from Mr Neil as he answers the question before the Barrister is finished asking it. This suggests that Mr Neil is not afraid of the Barrister and dares to talk over him in a formal setting such as in the court, the fact that it is in court makes it all the more powerful as it is the Barristers job which would put him in a place of power over the interviewee (Mr Neil). Another reason that Mr Neil seems to have the most power in this text is the amount of micro pauses the Barrister uses throughout, ''(.)''. This frequent use of the micro pause shows that the Barrister id 'treading carefully' with his speech as he is supposed to act in a formal and respectful manner at his place of work in the court. The use of micro pauses could however also suggest that he is nervous around Mr Neil and feels uncomfortable in the current situation.

4) What else seems puzzling/ interesting/ unusual and why?

Something unusual in this text is the emphasised words shown by the underlined text, ''shopped you to the police'' This shows when the Barrister is putting emotion in to what he is saying and it also suggests that he is frustrated with Mr Neil's denial of knowing anything about the incident. This seems to be used most when the Barrister is talking spontaneously and expressing his emotions rather than using courtroom conventions and formal monotone speech. 

Thursday, 8 October 2015

Comments on controversial issues blog post. . .

The controversial Issue I had chosen was Climate change.

The person voicing their opinion in blog post 1 was a sixteen year old female who was extremely interested in the natural world, for this person's voice I used some of my own views on the topic chosen as well as adding some facts I had found from a website and some I already knew of. (Website linked in bibliography)

To make this post more realistic I used facts and statistics such as ''The 2010 Anderegg study found that 97-98% of publishers that are active in the field of climate research agree that human activity is primarily responsible for climate change.'' This makes the character seem knowledgeable and helps to portray their personality as a person who likes to validate their opinion with evidence. At the end of her post she lists a number of ways people can help to stop climate change ''There is so much you can do to save this world we live in, from small tasks such as recycling and...'' This was used to show how enthusiastic she is to make a change and better the world by reducing the damage humans cause on a daily basis. This person comes across as someone who is interested in science and how the earth works, this is shown by how much evidence she uses and how she speaks with conviction ''As the most self aware and knowledgeable organisms on this planet we must act now if we are ever going to save our precious planet.''. When describing the amount of evidence there is to support her point she says ''Humans have caused climate change and there is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to say so.'' The adjective ''overwhelming'' is very strong here as not only does it describe the amount of reasons we have caused pollution and what it has done to our earth, but i feel that it also describes the amount of pollution in the atmosphere as if it is choking our planet of any naturally produced gasses which help to keep the ecosystem going as we pump unnatural fossil fuels into it by burning oil and coal at an ''overwhelming'' rate.

The target audience of this post is people who are unsure about the causes of climate change and those who wish to find out what they can help to stop it. The audience could also be people who disagree with humans being blamed for climate change as the writer could be trying to convince them otherwise. The reader could find this post by looking up the title of the blog post or typing into Google (other search engines available) a sentence or words that are  in this blog post, the viewer may already follow the blog so could also find it by looking in their reading list on Blogger.

The person voicing their opinion in blog post 2 was a twenty year old male who was built upon the stereotype set by older people on the way young people speak and behave, he uses slang when speaking and it's rather than it is.

The reason he is writing about this topic is expressed in his first sentence ''I'm fed up of climate change being blamed on us for no reason.'' This suggests to the audience that he has seen/heard a lot of accusations that humans are responsible for the current state of the earth and that he does not agree with what has been said. This person uses several techniques in their post such as rhetorical questions, ''so why be bothered?'' This makes this person seem like a social individual however it could also come across as if they have a fairly care free approach to life. Another reason he uses rhetorical questions often within this post could be because he feels as if the points he is making are extremely obvious and that everybody should know the fact he is stating is blatantly true. To improve the sense of personality to fit the stereotype I have used some slang words such as ''fink'' and ''don't'' this conveys their idiolect in a casual light, fitting them to this stereotype created by the older generation. Considering blog post 2 is about how this person disagrees with how humans are being 'blamed' for climate change he knows a lot of facts about it, this suggests that this person wanted to prove himself with facts and statistics such as ''the temperature of the earth has been within the -/+5 °f range of the past 3,000 ish years'' meaning he may feel like people would not take him seriously if he could not prove any points he made with scientific evidence. 

The target audience of this post is anyone who is unsure of the causes of climate change or someone who believes that climate change is happening because of the human race. The audience could find this blog post by typing in the title of the post into Google (other search engines are available) or by typing in words or sentences which are in the blog post into the search engine, alternatively if the reader follows the blog by person 2 it will be reachable via the reading list on blogger. Blog 2 is also a lot shorter than blog 1 this may be due to the fact that they are not as enthusiastic as person 1 is about this topic.

View the original post here
Edited 13/10/15

Friday, 2 October 2015

Opinionated blog posts on Climate Change. . .

The 'controversial issue' chosen was climate change
Blogger 1 is a 16 year old female who is a wildlife enthusiast.
Blogger 2 is a 20 year old male who's voice is a stereotype of how 'the youth of today' are viewed by older people.

Blog 1-


Causes of Climate change:

Humans have caused climate change and there is an overwhelming amount of scientific evidence to say so. The 2010 Anderegg study found that 97-98% of publishers that are active in the field of climate research agree that human activity is primarily responsible for climate change. Also a survey that was carried out by German scientists Bray and Von Storch found that 83.5% of climate scientists believe human activity is causing ''most of recent'' global climate change. 
Rising levels of gases produced by humans has created the greenhouse effect which is warming the earth. As sunlight hits the earth, some of the warm this absorbed into the atmosphere such as CO2 Methane and Nitrous Oxide. These gases trap heat and cause the planet to warm through a process called the greenhouse effect. Since 1751 around 337 billion metric tons of CO2 have been released into the atmosphere from the burning of fossil fuels.
The rise in atmospheric CO2 over the last century was clearly caused by human activity, as it has occurred at an extremely fast rate much faster than natural climate changes could produce. Over the past 650,000 years, atmospheric CO2 levels did not rise above 300 ppm until the mid 20th century. Levels of CO2 in the atmosphere have risen from about 317 ppm in 1958 to 400 ppm in 2013.
As the most self aware and knowledgeable organisms on this planet we must act now if we are ever going to save our precious planet. There is so much you can do to save this world we live in, from small tasks such as recycling and using a bus rather than driving or even walking or cycling if possible, turning off lights and switches when they are not being used, trim your waste by making a compost and using brown food bins to larger parts we can play by reducing our carbon footprint by flying less, switching to energy efficient cars using electric power rather than fuel, getting involved with local projects to raise awareness and speaking to local representatives about changes we can make in the community. Lots of people plus frequent small actions equals a big change and this could make a fantastic difference to our planet in a major way.

Blog 2-


Why climate change is made  up:

I'm fed up of climate change being blamed on us for no reason. 
The rise in the temperature of the earth has been within the -/+5 °f range of the past 3,000 ish years meaning it's not a crazy change, so why be bothered? Plus big levels of carbon dioxide don't mean warming, shown by the earth's climate around 450 million years ago which was a time of glaciation not warming with carbon levels 5 times higher than now. Global cooling and warming is caused by change in the heat of the sun, not by people. Sea levels have been slowly getting higher for thousands of years and this rise has nothing to do with humans. I fink 'global warming' is a lie to get people to stop driving and littering so much.


Bibliography -