VCE English Language Contemporary Sociolinguistic Examples Units 3&4 PDF

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A list of excellent, comprehensive English Language Contemporary language examples that can be used in student essays. Use these examples to demonstrate to examiners your proficiency and understanding of content by applying what you've learned in class to the world around you. Demonstrate your abili...

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ENGLISH LANGUAGE CONTEMPORARY SOCIOLINGUISTIC EXAMPLES 2018 

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Vegemite Ad – ‘Tastes like abbreviatin’ everythin’: Tastes like Australia’ o Shortenings are highly embedded in Australia culture through language use. Constructs identity through a ‘typically Australian’ construction to use. o Constructs Australian Identity through declarative, telling the audience what their identity is: perceived identities o Purpose/function: to advertise and gain sales David Koch – slavery joke ‘who said slavery is over – anyway, no.’ in reference to Usain Bolt o Cultural and historical context of oppression against African American people (taboo topic) o Picks up that he has done a bad job of negotiating social taboos, corrects himself and quickly moves on, yet refuses to apologise later o Defends himself by tweeting that he’s used the word ‘slavery’ to defend players who want to change jobs in sport – by saying that ‘there is no slavery anymore’ (digs himself a deeper hole because there is still slavery in the world – critics picked up on this) o Through his defence, protects his positive face needs by not admitting to be a racist o Using it to ‘free’ Usain Bolt from the pressure to stay in a particular sporting job, however realises the cultural offence of the term and repairs his speech o Inappropriate reference: context did not allow for this comparison due to the ethnicity of the player he was referring to and the cultural implications of the term Qantas suggesting to their staff that they use non-gendered language like ‘parents’ instead of ‘mum’ and ‘dad’ o Tony Abbott criticised the idea, stating that it was ‘political correctness that’s gone way over the top’ o Lucy Tatman (lecturer in gender studies at the University of Tasmania) supported it, saying, ‘it’s impossible to know and just leaving it open doesn’t hurt anyone’ o Inclusive language, builds rapport, negotiating social taboos Use of the verb ‘tamper’ by the ABC when discussing ‘needle tampering’ (strawberries) and ‘ball tampering’ (cricket) o Avoidance of calling the action ‘cheating’ in cricket scandal o Avoidance of calling the action a ‘crime’ in strawberry scandal o The way that language shapes perceptions of issues in order to effect the way people view what happens (reducing the severity of the action) o Makes the scandals seem ‘under control’ because what has happened is ‘not that bad’ o Euphemisms PM Scott Morrison’s comments on the strawberry needles situation naming the persecutors ‘coward’ and ‘grub’ o Using language with negative connotations to deter potential other offenders and denounce behaviour o SM asserting his power as putting down the offenders and ‘standing up for’ his country – negative language used for the betterment of others (positive outcome) o Situation gave all Australians an anonymous common enemy so it gave politicians and commenters free reign to be more dysphemistic PM Scott Morrison’s comments about asylum seekers 1

‘We are the most successful multicultural society in the world, and I have always defended that and advanced that as one of our greatest assets. We must never allow the politics of race or division or of setting Australians against each other to become part of our political culture.’ o Representative of a perception of what SM wants Australian identity to be like – appealing to stereotypes of egalitarianism, mateship etc. Not the reality in Australian culture. o ‘He started using language such as ‘illegal’ around people seeking asylum’ (Asylum Seeker Resource Centre worker) o Uses language to obfuscate – actions don’t line up with words PM Scott Morrison calling himself the nickname ‘ScoMo’ o Makes himself seem relatable and accessible to everyday Australians o Creates an ‘ordinary bloke’ persona (The Conversation) contributing to his identity o ‘These shortened names are designed to be playful and to appeal to a younger voter… the problem is that it makes our new PM seem approachable, relatable – cuddly even’ (John Hajek, The University of Melbourne’s Professor of Languages) o He feels that he is engaging with a kind of covert norm here, the nicknaming, but does not realise that it is the naming of him, by others, that generates the humour and the rapport. Once he starts self-addressing by this vocative it loses humour and undermines his credibility. There are now various commentary pieces requesting he stop! o Antiauthoritarianism, egalitarianism, projecting a perceived identity of equality, distorting his ‘true identity’ (asylum seeker policies etc.) News.com describing Scott Morrison’s attempts when skulling beer to become a ‘man of the people’ o Reminiscent of ‘ordinary bloke persona’ (The Conversation) o Anti-authoritarianism, mateship, egalitarianism & equality Bill Shorten’s twitter post o ‘Even on Father’s Day the weekly shopping needs to be done.’ – Using the casual phrase ‘weekly shopping’ contrasts to the obfuscating and elevated speech Shorten uses as a part of his work as a politician o This likens him to a ‘regular’ Australian instead of a privileged, high class politician in the construction of his identity. o References a national celebration day, drawing a comparison between his personal life and the life of many other Australians regardless of how they identify themselves (common ground) o Reduces social distance with voters, builds rapport, contributes to a sense of identity Coca-Cola ‘Kia Ora, Mate’ o Coca-Cola’s advertising campaign was misinformed due to the phrase ‘Kia Ora Mate’ meaning ‘hello death’ in Te reo Maori (language of Indigenous people of NZ) o Coca-Cola was attempting to appeal to the identity of a speaker of both New Zealand English and Te reo Maori by combining the two languages, but this backfired o Chief executive of the Maori Language Commission stated that ‘theres an increasing sense that te reo is good for identifying your business as committed to new zealand’, suggesting that Coca-Cola was trying to build solidarity and reduce social distance between themselves and their audience. o

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Function/Purpose of the text: humorous, but mainly to persuade audience to buy their product Scott Morrison’s tweet ‘QT was on fire today (fire emoji)’ – Made a video out of Question Time with a song attached containing expletives o SM attempting to build rapport and solidarity with a particular group of people who use initialisms and emojis frequently (teenagers) o Labelled ‘gold’ by some, and ‘embarrassing’ by others – demonstrating the way that language appeals to specific people depending on their perception of what the identity of a PM should be like o People labelling it as ‘gold’ – perceive the job of a PM to be ‘like the people’, or ‘fun’. People labelling it as ‘embarrassing’ perceive the job of a PM to be professional, serious and formal. o SM took the video down with an apology for the lyrics in the song labelling it ‘not OK’ - Overt norms and expectations of context The Guardian’s report on the Australian public requesting photos of the Queen, the author using ‘Liz’ and ‘her madge’ to refer to the Queen. o Compare to the French President (Emmanuel Macron) scolding a teen for referring to him as ‘Manu’ instead of his full name – taken very seriously, making worldwide news o The tendency for diminutives extends beyond casual conversations between friends to describing authority figures o Writer describes, ‘the Australian tradition of taking the piss’ (anti-authoritarianism, being laid back, not taking life too seriously) o Highlights the uniqueness of Australian identity encompassing antiauthoritarianism rather than respect and honour in leaders Fiona Patten ‘A politician who knows how to get shit done’ billboard o Collocation ‘getting it done’ is a rhyme to and subverted by ‘getting shit done’ o Lack of concern about expected conventions and civility o Defended herself against critics saying, ‘I don’t think it’s a problem, there are some words that are now in our very common lexicon.’ o Appeals to the average person for the purpose of building rapport and persuading that she is a relatable politician o Reduces herself to the position of the every-day Australian, embodying antiauthoritarianism and dissociating herself with the identity of tall poppy syndrome (TPS) that is typically connected with politicians o Capturing peoples attention for the purpose/function of advertising Fraser Annings ‘While all Muslims are not terrorists, all terrorists are Muslims.’ o Use of parallelism obfuscates the meaning of the sentence, resulting in the association of close words (ie. Muslims and terrorists) o Doublespeak, ambiguous, confusing the audience deliberately Lucy Zelic pronouncing names in the world cup correctly o Backlash against Zelic’s attempt to represent soccer players accurately as a result of her trying to be ‘better’ than the other commentators o Demonstrates the negativity Australian culture associates with anyone breaking the unspoken rule and ideal identity of ‘egalitarianism’ o Increasing social power unwantedly, overt/covert norms & prestige, TPS Detective Inspector Shane Pannell’s comments following a wave of arrests of young suspects o

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‘I wouldn’t call them a gang. No, they’re a collective group of individuals who know each other’ o Euphemistic language to avoid negative connotations (gangs = fear & crime) ‘Tender age shelters’ – prisons for children and toddlers (American border situation) o Euphemisms Expedia ad, ‘the greatest show in Perth’ o Rapport and selling stuff, with lightheartedness makes the audience more receptive, makes them look clever o Greatest showman, cultural reference o Subversion of the collocation, ‘greatest show on earth’ Woolworths ad, ‘get your woollies worth’ o Associated connotations of value of woolworths with savings o Subversion of the collocation, ‘get your money’s worth’ Carrie Bickmore comments on the language used around the cricket scandal (The Project) o Cricket Australia CEO’s comments: ‘We’re sorry about the way you feel’, rather than ‘We’re sorry we did this’ o Using language to obfuscate – making it seem like an apology but not taking responsibility for what happened o ‘Non-apology’ o Uses the words, ‘im sorry’ but follows with the conditional phrase, ‘that you feel that way’ o Saving face – if you apologise then it shows that you’ve done something wrong. o Public v private sphere, protect image of the organisiation and personal face but must be seen as doing the right thing, they might lose credibility – opens them up o ‘ride out the storm’ Daniel Andrews, ‘Say what you do and do what you say’ o Parallelism Tommy Little, ‘Un-Australian to rent out a swimming pool’ Bride and Prejudice: The forbidden weddings father o ‘She needs to loosen up a bit and develop a more Australian sense of humour’ o Australian values being laid back and relaxed – in this context, even more ‘carefree’ and ‘backboneless’ Republican dude on the Project o ‘What’s important in Australia is who you are and what your values are, and not where you come from.’ o Egalitarianism & mateship Danny Katz, The Age o ‘AI is getting Alarmingly Intelligent’ o Subversion of the initialism to highlight the inherent characteristics and identity of the product by including it in the name used to refer to it Superwog o accents with covert prestige gaining popularity within groups that dont particularly associate with this ethnolect but use it because its humorous o in group and out group – humour because they are in the group o used to the extreme so that it is funny rather than offensive o black face & wog face (when you have anglo-saxons playing ‘wogs’) o

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circles (laughing at the performance outer, relating to relatives they know, laughing at themselves) o outer cirlces acting that way – does a line get crossed? o Social power who is in control, used by him or used against him (super wog adds super adjective – makes him a hero) o Personal identity is different to their stage identity o Individual, group identities o Context connotations o Personal experience Tony Abbott ‘thank you for putting up with the invasion’ o Cultural context of invading someone’s home vs invading Australia o If Abbott was using it in the context of invading someones home then he is attempting to take the power out of the loaded connotations of the word within an Australian context o Due to the context, it doesn’t really matter what Abbott meant, the way that it would have been interpreted is negatively because of the significance of the word within the cultural context o Face needs, appropriateness, politeness Capitalisation of ‘Aboriginal’ and ‘Indigenous’ o This is a deliberate change, reflecting changing attitudes by showing respect to first nations people Accent video by Project Nightfall o Discusses the diversity and importance of accents used to assert identity and remain harmonious, ‘My accent is my music’ o Talks about someone trying to change their accent in order to fit in with the ‘standard’ and ‘prescriptive’ views of language o Combats this with the need to remain individual and be happy with who you are, celebrating diversity o Change in attitudes towards language over time o

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