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English Language essay submission and marking
thushan:
"Informal language has a variety of functions in Australian society. What do you see as some of the crucial roles of informal language in contemporary Australia?"
In Australian society, informal language is a very important language variety that serves a diversity of useful diverse and useful social roles. Colloquial Australian English exhibits various aspects of Australian culture, promoting national identity, while informal language can also promote group identities and enhance expression. Therefore, the variety of functions displayed by informal Australian English makes it an indispensable tool of communication.
Colloquial Australian English promotes national identity through its close adherence to Australian cultural values. Diminutives, for example, reduce social distance and exhibit the nationally recognised Australian value of being laid-back easygoing (use formal register please). This is seen in the difference between “I’m having a barbeque at my house this afternoon” and “I’m havin’ a barbie at my house this arvo” I'd like to see some IPA here to show off to the examinerin register and formality; the latter sounds distinctly friendlier and more relaxed, reduces social distance and creates covert prestige (how so? explain) amongst the speakers, common features of informal language in general. Likewise, affectionate nicknames like “Richo” for football player Matthew Richardson, “Warnie” for Shane Warne in the media and names like “Jonno”, “Gordo” and “Stevo” between friends also help to reduce social distance and exemplify the laid-back easygoing character of Australian culture. (Comment on the morphology here, with the use of -o as a suffix) Equally, Australian English has various lexical items that reflect Australian identity. Terms like “g’day” and “mate” have been ingrained in Australian as representing "mateship", a cornerstone of Australian culture to the point that outrage has erupted over the replacement of these with the American “hey” and “buddy”. This is also reflected by Richard Castle’s comment that “through its culturally ingrained connotations of egalitarianism and mutual respect, ‘mate’ suggests an openness, at least a relationship of equal”, explaining the intrinsic importance of this lexeme. Another feature is swearing. According to Kate Burridge, the “Great Australian adjective” ‘bloody’ has “now become an important indicator of "Australianness" and of cultural values” like “friendliness, informality, laid-backness and mateship”. Evidently, swearing in Australia is not as strongly taboo as in other countries, reflected by the positive reception of the TAC “bloody idiot” and “don’t be a dickhead” campaigns and the Toyota “bugger” ad campaign. Such positive public reception demonstrates that Australians have accepted swearing as characterising Australian culture, showing how Australian informal English reflects national identity.
Pretty solid paragraph.
Informal language can also promote group identities. Slang, as an ephemeral, informal variety of language, allows the younger generation to separate themselves from the old by outdating older slang terms like “ace”, “rad” and “blood” with “sick”, “boss” and “bro”, immediately allowing the younger generation to create their own identity. It can also allow individual groups to separate themselves from each other one another. There are a vast number of positive slang synonyms for “good”, like “amaze-balls”, “sick”, “rock” and “boss” and numerous negativeones for “bad”, like “cruddy”, “crap”, “bogus” and “skank”. A group can signal its identity by the common adoption of particular slang expressions for good and bad, which strengthens the cohesive ties within that group. This is also seen on a professional level. In Australian hospitals, hospital staff have been known to speak of “FLK” for “funny looking kid” (LOL! Did you get that from my essay?), “cactus” for “death”, “vegetable” for “comatose patients” and “crumbles” for the frail and elderly. Such irreverence for human life allows the staff to cope with the reality of their jobs, identifies dealing with these patients on a daily basis as routine and identifies shared experiences and jobs, which strengthens group identity, reduces social distance and improves the friendliness of the work environment. Very good! Thus, informal language is important for signalling group identity.
Furthermore, informal language has an additional function in enhancing expression. It allows people to communicate concepts and ideas much more concisely than in Standard English. This is done by the various creative word formation processes available to slang. Blends and compounding allow the resulting concoctions to possess semantic properties of the words used to create them. For instance, “bootylicious”, a combination of “booty” and “delicious” to suggest physical attractiveness; “vomatose” as a blend of comatose” and “vomit” to mean disgusting; “tree hugger” as a compound to describe environmentalists and “couch potato” as a compound to pejoratively describe a physically lazy person, all increase the expressive capability of the English language by creating new phrases with different semantic properties. Also, swearing can provide a large variety of meanings as well. The word “f***” can be used as an expletive of frustration; as a verb describing coitus; to describe ruining like “f up”; to describe indifference like in “f that shit”; in the form “f-ing” as an intensifier like “f-ing awesome” or as a dysphemistic insult like “f-ing idiot”’; the actual meaning of f*** depends on context. Clearly, informal language broadens the available linguistic resources to speakers, allowing more complex situations to be described concisely.
Informal language has many uses, from creating national identity to acting as the “masonic mortar to stick members together” according to Burridge and broadening the language’s expressive capability. Thus, its varied uses make informal language a ubiquitous and essential tool of communication to maintain social harmony.
Very solid essay. My only issues were that you could have phrased a few things better and that you could have really broken down exactly how informal language conveys identity. The idea that it is distinctive and specific to a particular group, meaning that the language variety is specific to that group, facilitates this in group-solidarity, should be explored too to push this essay to about a 14-15. Also, watch your register - sometimes you can come across as informal (LOL the irony); remember that this is a formal essay, and words like "mateship" should have quotation marks.
Good work. 13/15
lzxnl:
LOL nah I didn't copy it from your essay; I haven't even seen any of yours.
I copied those examples from the textbook :D
As I said...I'm pretty hopeless on informal language...can't come up with my own examples, so I have to poach them from somewhere. And now, evidently, I need more. From somewhere.
The main problem is, I really have no clue about how informal language really works to create in-group solidarity. I can only puppet examples I've seen and perhaps analyse them when told they create solidarity. I don't normally use informal language with friends for this purpose; I use informal language primarily because it's convenient, not to create identity.
Thanks for the feedback!
thushan:
--- Quote from: nliu1995 on October 10, 2013, 09:57:02 pm ---LOL nah I didn't copy it from your essay; I haven't even seen any of yours.
I copied those examples from the textbook :D
As I said...I'm pretty hopeless on informal language...can't come up with my own examples, so I have to poach them from somewhere. And now, evidently, I need more. From somewhere.
The main problem is, I really have no clue about how informal language really works to create in-group solidarity. I can only puppet examples I've seen and perhaps analyse them when told they create solidarity. I don't normally use informal language with friends for this purpose; I use informal language primarily because it's convenient, not to create identity.
--- End quote ---
These things aren't so much conscious often. Put it this way...how do you think they would react if you spoke in a highly formal register to them? They'd think you're a pompous prat, because theyd think you're trying to set yourself apart from everyone else, and showing some superiority by using a register that is associated with prestige.
lzxnl:
Actually...to me, it is quite conscious. I do pay attention to the register I use with different people, which is a sad reflection of my social life.
And to be honest, if I spoke in a highly formal register, my friends would see it as living up to stereotypes.
thushan:
--- Quote from: nliu1995 on October 10, 2013, 10:02:42 pm ---Actually...to me, it is quite conscious. I do pay attention to the register I use with different people, which is a sad reflection of my social life.
And to be honest, if I spoke in a highly formal register, my friends would see it as living up to stereotypes.
--- End quote ---
Haha. Now, or before you started doing Englang? :P
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