Ladettes and slags, manwhores and boyfriends – gender, culture and language

Ladettes and slags, manwhores and boyfriends – gender, culture and language

Beth Kemp – How language has changed in culture and society.

Language reflects trends in society. Many social concerns and trends have an impact on society like Language about different Genders. Words like Bachelor and Spinster, both meaning the same thing have very different connotations. Bachelor connotes sexy and Spinster connotes being unwanted and grotesque. Spinster is a low frequency lexis which is rarely used in modern times.

In modern times, Bachelorette has been added to create a female representation of a bachelor. 

Oliver Twist - Charles Dickins Extract

What an excellent example of the power of dress, young Oliver Twist was! Wrapped in the blanket which had hitherto formed his only covering, he might have been the child of a nobleman or a beggar; it would have been hard for the haughtiest stranger to have assigned him his proper station in society. But now that he was enveloped in the old calico robes which had grown yellow in the same service, he was badged and ticketed, and fell into his place at once- a parish child- the orphan of a workhouse- the humble, half-starved drudge- to be cuffed and buffeted through the world- despised by all, and pitied by none.

"Open the door, will yer?" cried the voice which belonged to the legs which had kicked at the door.

"I will, directly, sir," replied Oliver: undoing the chain, and turning the key.

"I suppose yer the new boy, ain't yer?" said the voice through the keyhole.

"Yes, sir," replied Oliver.

"How old are yer?" inquired the voice.

"Ten, sir," replied Oliver.

"Then I'll whop yer when I get in," said the voice; "you just see if I don't, that's all, my work'us brat!" and having made this obliging promise, the voice began to whistle.

Oliver had been too often subjected to the process to which the very expressive monosyllable just recorded bears reference, to entertain the smallest doubt that the owner of the voice, whoever he might be, would redeem his pledge, most honourably. He drew back the bolts with a trembling hand, and opened the door.

For a second or two, Oliver glanced up the street, and down the street, and over the way: impressed with the belief that the unknown, who had addressed him through the keyhole, had walked a few paces off, to warm himself; for nobody did he see but a big charity-boy, sitting on a post in front of the house, eating a slice of bread and butter: which he cut into wedges, the size of his mouth, with a clasp knife, and then consumed with great dexterity.

              - Low Frequency Lexis

              - Old Words/phrases

              - Passive sentences

Use more commas and colons instead of full stops. 

Wicked

WICKED

Meanings: 

- Having a wick; -- used chiefly in composition; as, a two-wicked lamp.
- Evil in principle or practice; deviating from morality; contrary to the moral or divine law; addicted to vice or sin; sinful; immoral; profligate; -- said of persons and things; as, a wicked king; a wicked woman; a wicked deed; wicked designs.
- Cursed; baneful; hurtful; bad; pernicious; dangerous.
- Ludicrously or sportively mischievous; disposed to mischief; roguish

- Slang used as an adjective to describe something that’s good and cool – ‘hey that car is wicked’

History:

1225-1275 From the Middle English word ‘Wikked’ meaning bad. Old English word ‘Wicca’ meaning Wizard or Witch.

Use:

Old Book Uses – Used in the bible ‘The righteous shall never be removed: but the wicked shall not inhabit the earth’

New Book Uses- Modern children’s books like ‘Totally Wicked’

Wicked – Musical started in 2003. Reprise to The Wizard of Oz. About the Wicked Witch of the West. 

Data Analysis

In my investigation, I found that the younger tweeters were a lot less formal and used a lot less proper English language, compared to the older people who used full sentences and correct grammar.

The 17/18 year olds use little grammar, using overall 69, (11 per person) capital letters between them in the data I collected. And even so most of these capital letters were used to emphasize speech by writing a whole sentence in capital. They use very little full stops at the end of their tweets and use almost no commas. They make a lot of spelling mistake either on purpose for comedic effect, or because they don’t take the time read the tweets and edit them to the correct language. They use a lot of slang and made up words such as ‘Haha’ and ‘lmao’. They also use a considerable amount of curse words or bad words in their tweets, usually to emphasize anger and emotion. Overall 90 (15 per person) slang/swear words were used in all of the data collected from the young tweeters.

The younger tweeters tended to tweet more about themselves and used it to spread the thoughts and feeling that they had. They talk about typical young themes like College, Friends and Drinking and all the things that are happening to them or their friends. The focus of the tweet is usually comic and the teenagers try to impress each other with humor  They also make a lot of complaint tweets to rant about bad things happening to them during the day. They use it for communication between friends so they can talk to people and then get others input if they wanted. They use a lot less links and hashtags and write more pure tweets of just a small written sentence. The tweets are usually much shorter and made up of just little comments from the tweeter.

The older tweets, aged between 50 and 60, are a lot more grammatical and use a lot better language than the younger tweeters. Most of them use full stops after the end of every sentence and use the correct grammar throughout their tweets. They use capital letters where needed, using 381(63 per person) between them. They make less spelling and grammatical mistakes as they would probably take the time to write the tweet and to check it for any faults. They use a very formal structure, as if they are writing a full, correct sentence. They use less slang and only use it very occasionally, using only little words like ‘Aw’. They use little expletives or bad words and when they do they are only mild like words such as ‘Heck’ and ‘Christ’, to make them seem more proper and adult. The tweets are usually based around news events and things happening around the world and are written more like little statements not as much about how they’re feeling and what thoughts they have, unlike the younger tweeters. They use more links to images and use hashtags more frequently than the youngsters  The tweets themselves are also a lot longer and are like full sentences rather than little thoughts. They are also a lot less comedic and more to the point of their tweet and use twitter to just tell people what they are doing, rather than how they are feeling. 

Data

Sample of my data collected:
(2 Tweets from each person)

Twitter Users Aged 17-18:

Hello, I'm a salesman sorta giant I sell molly and mary and other various items

Wearing the duck jumper today So what Duck you

SUGGESTIVE ORIENTAL MUSIC

my dick so bomb it blows itself

Laura from mtv news mm u sexy irish girl mm

Just want to get on home and watch the finale of breaking bad

morning being spent listening to bloc party whilst buying random shit

I shouldn't drink HAHAHAHAHAA

Mondays are so fucking long

what do i watch on netflix :( :(

I need to stop taking my phone in the shower with me ffs

I cannot wait for the girls holiday next year☺

Twitter Users Aged In 50's:

I am about to make a mushroom risotto. I can barely keep up with the pace of life round here. #DrinkHeavilyFor20MinutesOrUntilClattered

One million of you can do your bit for society by keeping Rory Barker in this room. Youtube/Badteeth and click the #manoncouch live stream.

I have come to Norway to listen to Fleetwood Mac. A great band. Not to watch a marriage guidance evening.

Manfred Mann. Blinded by the Light. What on earth is that all about?

Just arrived in Denver. No sign of the other girls.

Congrats Andy. Had a bet

THE opening scenes of "Filth" are hilarious - then it all gets very dark...such a good film

Ok I've made it in time to record Downton but as I'm up at 4am I feel I should go to bed and watch it tomorrow What you think??

Just watched QI XL and am now full of new useless but fascinating facts

Love the news snip about fightin oompa loompas.prosecuter reminded them they were supposed to keep peace..aw..never too old to believe

Trying again today...... Flying to Wellesbourne I hope for cake and tea and sunshine? X #comeonsunshine

Dress for pride of Britain being designed by @ccastigliano. Wowsers x

Methodology

For my investigation, I collected twelve different peoples tweets, six of them being teenagers and six of them being adults. I collected them all over a similar period to make so it was a fair comparison. I chose six teenagers aged 17 and 18 and six adults in their 50's, both with similar social and ethnic backgrounds and from similar locations so their wouldn't be any dialect differences.

 I chose these ages as I feel a 17 year old will show the best representation of the young generation. I think if I were to use people aged in their 20's, they would still be more formal as they are a lot more mature and grown up to a teenager and would be more similar to the older generation in their tweets. Similarly I think if I used younger teenagers, they may either not be on social network sites yet, or would be a lot more immature and possibly tweet more like a child. I used adults in their 50's to analyse because its the kind of age they are very mature and if I used people younger, maybe in their 30's or 40's they may try to tweet like they're younger and act a bit younger. I think the age gap is big enough to get very different results so I will get very different reults to compare.

I collected the 20 different tweets from each person to get a representation of the kind of tweets they produce and the language they use so I could compare them for my investigation. I took every fifth tweet from their profile, because if I took the first 20, it could be unfair as it might be an unrealistic representation of their overall tweets. Also the first 20 tweets could be about the same or a similar subject matter and not explain what they talk about or how they talk at other times or most of the time.

It is a reliable data collection as it gives a similar and fair representations of each of the people as I used quite a large set of data per person. I also used a good number of different people to make my investigation more reliable as I am then able to compare more data and find more similarities to analyse.

Introduction

I have decided to look at the tweets (from popular social networking site Twitter) of 12 different Twitter users, 6 young teenagers and 6 middle aged adults, and compare how different ages use language differently on the internet, specifically on Twitter. I will use 6 similar teenagers, all of the same age, social background and all from a similar area so there won't be any dialect differences. I will do the same with the adults, and keep them all a similar age and background so I use different people but still have some variables the same to get better results.

I will look at the different language features and punctuation each of my chosen people use and the topics of the tweets they compose and I will compare the differences between the two different age groups. I will look at politeness theorys and apply aspects of language and technology to my study to back up my results and explain my findings.

What I think I will find, is that the younger teenage generation will be more relaxed with the language and punctuation and not be as literate in their tweets.I think they will use Twitter as more of a social website to talk to friends and tell friends about their random thoughts and daily whereabouts. I think the older generation will use better language and punctuation in their tweets and be a lot more formal with them. I think the subject matter of the tweets will also be more formal and possibly be more about the current affairs or social issues other than random thoughts and opinions. I think they will use it less socialy, like to talk to friends and other people, as most of the people they may talk to would not use social networking sites and would use a phone or email to contact one another.