How Dare You Talk to Me Like That!

How dare you talk to me like that!

Adapting your speech

You wouldn’t speak to your mum the way you speak to your mates! Not unless you wanted to get into trouble.

You naturally adapt your talk for different listeners without even thinking about it. For this assignment, you will explore how you do that.

Identify who the speaker is likely to be addressing in the following examples:

Speech act / Who might be talking? To whom?
Eh, what ya doin’ later?
I won’t be long, back for tea / A teenager to a parent
Outta my way, you little monster
Where’s your homework?
This is class!
It’s lovely, darling
Off you go
Hand in your books please
Excuse me, can you tell me the way to …
Who’s my little soldier then?

Compare notes with a partner and discuss your reasons for the choices you made.

List the clues that led you to make your intelligent guesses.

Clues:

Check your clues off against this list of suggestions:

P The way people address others, e.g. ‘you little monster’ would only be used by someone older than the person addressed, though it could be used ironically and affectionately. ‘Darling’ and ‘my little soldier’ would tend to be used by a parent or carer to a young child. This is called ‘mode of address’.

P Expressions like ‘off you go’ tend to be used by teachers as a typical lesson closure.

P Friends use slang with each other, e.g. ‘this is class!’ to mean ‘this is great!’.

P Informal language such as contracting words or running words together, e.g. ‘wanna’ and ‘innit’, tend to be used in informal situations, like friends talking to friends.

P ‘Excuse me’ is very polite and would be used to strangers or in formal situations.

P The words ‘homework’ and ‘books’ give away the context of school and teacher-talk.

P ‘Off you go’ and ‘hand in your books’ are imperatives (commands), so are likely to be used by someone in charge, in this case a teacher.

P Words like ‘lovely’ are more likely to be used by female speakers.

You now have some ideas of what to look for when you collect your data.

To collect your data, you can choose to:

· record it (for example on your phone)

· record it and make notes from the recording

· jot down examples when you hear them to make some working notes

Here is an example of the sort of task you may need to tackle later:

How spoken language is adapted to different listeners

You will explore how people adapt their language in different situations and when talking to different people. For example:

· talking to older or younger listeners

· talking to people in authority

· talking to peers and family

· talking to strangers.

You will need to give examples from your data to back up your points. You may need to discuss your own use of language in different situations, or that of other people (whose permission you must be sure to ask). It is easier to study the speech of someone you know well, so that you can observe them talking in different situations. You may have to set up some situations.

You are speech detectives! Happy hunting.