These are presented as-is, without any guarantee of correctness. They are not endorsed by any company, person, place or thing.
TEXT 1:
1. What role does inference play in creating coherence in this text? Identify three examples.
Inference is required to understand the concept of ‘share house’ (2, 20) in an Australian context – that there are flatmates and the facilities are shared between them. This sets the context and domain of the text immediately, and demonstrates coherent marker of topic. Inference is also required in understanding the abbreviation ‘VB’ (11) – a Victorian-based beer – combined with the metaphor of “you’re two VBs away from relocating their bedroom to the kerb” (11) as this is clearly a reference to alcoholic beverages lowering inhibitions, where people may do things they regret. Another example where inference is required for coherence is in the reference to ‘Assorted Creams’ (21), a brand of biscuit; tea and shared cookies are actions of rapport and social harmony, but this would be lost without that understanding. Finally, inference is required to understand the concept of “Big Brother” (22), a reference to Channel 10’s reality show whereby ‘housemates’ congregate nightly to share grievances.
2. How does the use of adjectives and adjectival phrases support the purpose of this text in lines 1-27? Provide examples.
Adjectives and adjectival phrases are used frequently to promote the negative connotations related to sharing a household; “slammed” doors, “sarcastic” notes (line 5), “squabbling” parties (13), “passive-aggressive” and “cunning” (14) and even the compounded adjectival “passive-increasingly-aggressive” gestures (23-24) to name but a few. This supports the purpose of the text – a rapport-seeking vitriol presented in electronic diary format. Further, adjectives are used almost as an antithesis in places to what shared houses are really like – no “proper” conversations (2), where things are “right” and “rational” (13-14), just “interesting” methods (

that are “symbolic” and “usually delayed”, coupled with “death” stares (18) and “underlying” tensions (19).
3. If the Italian language is defined by rolling Rs and swinging arms and Austrayan known for the added ‘o’, tenantese might be the language of silence, death stares and underlying tensions. (lines 17-19)
a. Name and provide examples of two subsystems referred to in the sentence above.
Morphology: the morpheme “o” that is attached at the end of words, normally to create a diminutive or vocative.
Morphology: the morpheme –ese added to the noun ‘tenant’ through creative word formation, thus creating the new lexeme with meaning “language of tenants”
Phonetics and Phonology: ‘rolling Rs’ as a descriptor of the phoneme /r/, not representative in non-rhotic Australian accents.
Phonetics and Phonology: paralinguistic features described via “swinging arms” of the Italian speaker – body language as a suprasegmental aspect of the Italian ethnolect.
b. What is the sentence structure (lines 17-19)? Why is this used?
The sentence structure is compound-complex [the Study Design does not list this, so ‘complex’ should also be accepted]. This is used as an end-focus technique in order to build suspense as to the ‘punch line’ – a humorous technique that stereotypes ‘house sharing’ as a horrible experience, likened to uncomfortable silences and death.
c. What effect is created by the use of listing? Provide an example.
The listing creates an inference that the number of unpleasant aspects of sharing a house is in fact innumerable, and that the list could continue indefinitely. Thus, the ‘language of silence, death stares and underlying tensions’ are but a few of the descriptors of “tenantese”
4. The author uses front-focus, end-focus and passive to organise the information between lines 13 and 19 in this text. Discuss the use of two of these three discourse features found in this paragraph.
Front-focus is used in line 13, with “In a workplace or a family”, acting as a scene-setter to place the “squabbling parties”. Front-focus and passive are combined “Passive-aggressive and cunning enough to be completely denied” (lines 14-15), which provides focus on the type of action and the denial, rather than the actor itself (the deleted Subject). End-focus is used in lines 13-14, with “It’s right and rational but not the way of the sharer” – the “right and rational” introduced via the anaphoric referent ‘it’, referring to parties sitting down and chatting it out. The effect of this is to aid cohesion, substituting the unnecessary theme (the given information) with a more succinct replacement.
5. Using linguistic evidence, explain how social rapport is established between the participants in the blog. (lines 29-44)
Rapport is created through all responses shown agreeing with the blog posted, generally through use of inference with “similar stories” told about horror housemates. The post by ‘heyhay’, in particular, provides the anecdote of the whiteboard, but does so using the inclusive ‘we’ pronoun, as well as inclusive ‘you’ (instead of ‘I’). The effect here is to allow a reader to place oneself “in their shoes” and imagine the act. Similarly, ‘scared’ provides an example of a “right and rational” attempt to converse with a house mate, with a rueful wish that reinforces their “frustration”. They link back to the original post with the shared experience of heading to the “local” (38) as a coping mechanism, which parallels Joel’s alcohol reference on line 11. Finally, ‘nixon’ posts in response to the “post-it” note reference in Joel’s blog (15) with their own anecdote about living with women; use of ‘fussy’ and ‘pedantic’ echo the negative adjectives used in the original post. All participants in the blog – Joel, heyhay, scared and Nixon – have similar stories to share, and thus their very sharing indicates a high level of social rapport.
TEXT 2:
6. Explain the functions of M’s utterances between lines 6 and 20.
M is acting as a middle-man to O and A’s difficulty in choosing something to each for dinner. As a mother, she sees that the conversation between father and daughter could potentially lead nowhere (or to an argument), so she attempts to focus the topic back on choices, providing a listing of what is available. Thus, her utterances are to create social harmony.
7. Identify a declarative utterance and an interrogative utterance between lines 21 and 55. Discuss the discourse function of each.
Declarative utterances: 22, 24, 25, 26, 29, 37, 39, 45, 47-48, 54
22: second half of an adjacency pair (“What do you think?”-21), acts as agreement.
24: second half of an adjacency pair (“Then why do you ask?”-23), acts as an explanation.
25: an expansion on the explanation seen in 24.
26: a backchannel, marker of agreement
29: acts as an opener to the daughter (A) complaining about work and how mundane life is and how much she doesn’t want to cook when she gets home from work – she is seeking a commiseration that she does not receive.
37: O is also providing a comparison ‘complaint’, in response to A’s complaint in 29 – which is responded to by A with an indignant tone (47-48), in particular with “^That’s not cooking, ^that’s reheating” (48).
39: completing the utterance begun in 37.
45: acts as an accusation to O, as well as a response to their statements in 37 and 39.
47-48: another accusation, with double emphasis on ‘that’ to show indignation.
54: acts as response to 51 – although 51 is not interrogative, it is the opener to an adjacency pair “seek”, and thus A responds with an alternative food product that they “might like”.
Interrogative utterances: 21, 23, 38, 44
21: information seek, prompts for agreement
23: clarifier
38: clarifier
44: accusation – rhetorical, as shown by the immediate completion of the adjacency pair without giving O a chance to respond.
8. Identify two different nonfluency features and discuss the function of each in this transcript.
Repetition: 6 (‘and’), 42 (‘what’), 62 (‘remember’)
6: ‘and’ acts as a filler to allow thinking time, but also signals that she has not completed her turn – this is ignored by O, however.
42: an attempt to take the floor – which is successful only when A couples it with increased loudness in 44.
Fillers: 13 (‘er’) acts as a pause to allow for a repair – a change of the utterance to an offer rather than a question.
False-starts: 19 (“a-a-any, anything”) – thinking time, 27 (the oth- all the oth-) – self-repair, but O is not allowed to continue the utterance, as his attempt to take the floor fails and he cedes to A.
9. Identify three different prosodic features in the transcript and discuss the functions of each.
Loud voice: taking the floor (44), emphatic stress (52), indication of frustration (63)
Soft voice: placating via offering of choice, and to break the silence (18), placating by offering choice, and to break the silence (57), almost as an aside to self, a complaint that does not necessarily require a response (69), response to an almost-rhetorical question (70)
Stress: 6: emphatic, highlights degree of hunger; 8: emphatic, highlights known information; 11: highlights a potential option for dinner; 13: highlights a potential option for dinner; 15: highlights a potential option for dinner (twice, different fish); 18: highlights an option (^avocado), but signals growing frustration (^like); (ugh, etc…)
Pitch: 4: questioning intonation, provides option for dinner (HRT); 9: falling intonation, finality of declarative, negates all given options; 15: falling intonation, signals the end of listing (two options only for fish); 24: rising intonation, signal for backchannel as well as a signal that it was an explanation/answer to the adjacency pair initiator – the interrogative in 23; etc…
10. How does turn-taking in this conversation reflect the relationship between O and A?
The father-daughter relationship is close, signalled by the frequent overlap and floor-taking by both parties. This signals that they are acting within an intimate register, as no offense is taken. The constant “battle” for the floor typifies a father-daughter relationship; the daughter, A, acts in a typical “teen” fashion, with sighs (21), argumentative utterances (23, 44, 47, 58, 68), with the typical mutterings of a “put-on” person who sees life selfishly. The father moves between providing reasonable options for dinner (4), placating a difficult daughter (10, 13, 19, 56), leading to the frustrated “giving up” of the parent who has had enough (60-64, 66, 70).
ESSAY TOPICS:
11. Euphemism promotes social harmony and strengthens the social fabric of our society. Discuss.
- Promotes diplomacy – a harmonious intent to avoid conflict (stimulus a). For example, avoiding use of ‘boat people’ to refer to those “seeking asylum via oceanic means” – to remove connotations related to the scandal of Howard days [external stimulus]. “Stolen Generation” promoting solidarity between “white Australia” and Indigenous Australians [external stimulus].
- Useful and kind members of society will use euphemism to soften taboo topics and offensive terms (stimulus b). Thus we have “sexual dysfunctions” rather than “impotence” [external stimulus].
- Euphemism can be used for humorous (and harmless) means – particularly for entertainment (stimulus b), such as the use of euphemism as innuendo [external stimulus – Australian tendency to use euphemism for sexual topics/terms]
- Euphemisms are common and everyday, especially used to support social fabric – without it we’d “threaten” or “knock people down”. We use them without thinking (stimulus c). Use of “period of negative growth” for “recession” to avoid social discord – reduces likelihood of panic [external stimulus]. This backfired with the euphemistic misnomer ‘swine flu’, with the pork industry losing millions as panic resulted in massive drops in pork consumption [external stimulus].
- Euphemism can make unpleasant things seem much more pleasant, and much less shameful – such as getting fired being referred to as an “exit strategy” – this makes the “firing” less confronting for the employer, and allows the employee to save face to “justify” being “let go” (stimulus d). Consider also the tendency in finance to couch downturns in the stock market as “aggressive downturns” (aggressiveness being a positive trait in the business world) [external stimulus].
- Argue against – it hides, it confuses, it disguises the truth [ref: PC Language practice essay question] [external stimulus]
12. Language play is one of the most important dimensions of language. Discuss.
- Without language play, we lose the depth and quality hidden in writing, particularly literary works (stimulus a). Consider Shakespeare without his raunchy hidden meanings in Hamlet (homophone “hours/whores” at the time, which has been phonologically lost in Modern English; pun with ‘cockatrice’, which is a mythical bird-saviour, but was also slang for ‘loose woman’ at the time) (stimulus d)
- Headline-ese – wordplay abounds, often for pun effect (stimulus a)
- Neologisms allow for creative word formations – adding humour to society (stimulus b) – analogous (often false) morphological deconstruction of neologisms provide extra depth to word play
- Language play allows terms of endearment to be created that are specific to a person – uniquely identifying a loved-one in a way that excludes all others but the participants (stimulus c).
13. The question to ask is: ‘Why not use Standard English all the time?’
- Standard English should be used, in particular with communication via technology, as otherwise we come across as being ignorant. We judge people when they do not use Standard Englishes (we ‘cringe’). The argument that “it’s only email” is irrelevant as email becomes one of the standard methods of communicating professional in the globalised world – thus, we should be prescriptive in our use of language on the net. (stimulus a)
- Non-standard English, such as Netspeak and TXTese add depth to language that did not exist prior, through the creation of symbols and icons that represent paralinguistic features of speech – something that was lacking in written text (stimulus b)
- You are not taken seriously when you use incorrect language. Kevin Rudd was ridiculed for ‘fair shake of the sauce bottle’ not just because the language used was non-standard, but also because it indicated he was out of touch with current-day Australians [external stimulus]. Princess Mary, when she was Mary Donaldson, felt obliged to take elocution classes before it was made public that she was dating Prince Frederick of Denmark, which gives weight to “if you want the world to listen, you have to speak properly” [external stimulus]. We are fascinated by Ladette to Lady due to their blatant non-standard speech, because we see the change to the person when change occurs in their speech and lexis [external stimulus]. Thus, Standard English should be used in public situations, to “sound convincing, authoritative and persuasive”, in particular with your “job and your company” in mind (stimulus c).
- Non-standard English is a marker of groups – consider ethnolects [external stimulus]. It can also promote social harmony through use of informal lexis choices where formal ones would be considered impersonal and/or inappropriate. Non-standard English can also be used to exclude, however, in particular with people where English is not an L1.
- Standard English is superior – the prestige status in Australia is quite high – however, non-standard use also has prestige status. Consider Kevin Rudd’s use of “robust language” with “sh*tstorm” and his off-the-record “get f*cked”, and how it was positively received by the public, as it humanised him and gave him an “aussie bloke” persona (stimulus d, combined with external stimulus)