should english slang be in the scrabble bible?

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/howaboutthat/11618704/Lolz-Scrabble-adds-shizzle-ridic-and-yeesh-to-its-approved-words-list.html

A history of English Language- notes

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=H3r9bOkYW9s&feature=em-share_video_user

Anglo Saxon-

Romans leave Britain, Anglo-Saxons flood in.

Anglo-Saxon vocab is much more useful, mainly words for simple, everyday things, like hours, women, loaf and wave.

Four days of the week (Tuesday, Wednesday, Thursday, and Friday) named after Anglo –Saxon gods.

Christians came, everybody was fond of them and they brought more latin words such as ‘bishop’ ‘font’ and ‘martyr’.

Vikings brought words like ransack, thrust, die, give and take.

The Norman conquest- (1066)

William the conqueror invaded England bringing new concepts such as the French language, the doomsday book. French was used for official words such as Judge (1290), Jury (1400), Evidence (1300) and Justice (1154).

Latin was still used in church but the common man used English. Words like cow, sheep and swine came from the English speaking farmers. Versions such as beef, mutton and pork came from the French speaking people.

The English absorbed around 10,000 new words from the Normans.

Shakespeare- (1564-1616)

Around 2000 new words and phrases were invented by William Shakespeare, words such as eyeball, puppy dog, alligator and the hob-nob. Also phrases like ‘flesh and blood’ ‘eat out of house and home’ ‘good riddance to the green eyed monster’. Showed the world that English was a rich, vibrant language with limitless expressive and emotional power.

The English of science- (1700)

Britain became full of Physicists. Royal society was formed. Worked first in Latin. Realised they all spoke English and could communicate easier and quicker using English. Science was discovering things faster than we could name them, such as ‘acid’ (1626) ‘gravity’ (1641) ‘electricity’ (1646) and ‘pendulum’ (1660).  Also words to describe the human body such as ‘cardiac’ (1601) ‘tonsil’ (1601) ‘ovary’ (1658) and ‘sternum’ (1667) also the words ‘penis’ (1693) and ‘vagina’ (1682).

English and Empire-

English was making its name with the world of science, the bible and Shakespeare so they decided to tour around the world and find new places, new resources, new land and people that would conform to their way of living (using the English language and following the queen). They landed on the Caribbean, discovering the BBQ, the Canoe, rum punch and the word cannibal.

India there was Yoga, bungalow and cummerbund. Africa there was words such as voodoo, and zombie. Australia there was words such as Nugget, boomerang and walkabout.

Age of the dictionary-

English was expanding in all directions, there came new men called lexicographers who wanted to standardise the spelling of the English language.

Dr Johnson- Dictionary of the English language took him nine years (1746-1755) to write it was 18”inches tall and contained 42,773 entries.

Words kept being invented so in 1857 the oxford English dictionary was started, took 70 years to be finished after the first editor resigned to be an arch bishop, the second died of TB and the third was so boring that half his volunteers quit and one of them ended up in an asylum. It eventually appeared in 1928 and has been revised ever since.

American English-

1607 the English landed in America, they needed new names for plants and animals so they borrowed words such as racoon, squash and moose from the Native Americans. The Dutch came and shared the American words coleslaw and cookies, later the Germans arrived selling pretzels from delicatessens and then the Italians arrived with their pizza, pasta and mafia. American words came back to English such as ‘’cool movies’’ and ‘’groovy jazz’’.

Internet English-

In 1972 the first email was sent, in 1991 the internet arrived. Before the internet English changed through people speaking it, but the internet brought typing back into fashion. Downloading started in 1980, firewalls in 1990 and toolbars in 1991. Conversations became shorter, people began using abbreviations allowing more time to blog and post on other networks. Abbreviations such as ‘btw’ ‘lol’ ‘rofl’ and ‘lmao’ started being used. Some changeds even passed into spoken English such as ‘FYI’ and ‘FAQ’ .

Global English-

Stole and borrowed words from over 350 languages and established itself as a global institution. Right now around 1.5bn people speak English, of these around a quarter are native speakers a quarter speak it as there second language and half are able to ask very simple questions/say simple phrases. 

Some theories for CLA

Innateness theory (Chomsky, 1965)

Noam Chomsky argued against Skinner's theory. He reasoned that children have an innate ability to acquire language through what he called a ‘language acquisition device' (LAD).

Chomsky claimed that all languages have a different surface structure - French and English sound different from each other through their differing intonations and stresses. However, he felt that all languages share the same deep grammar structure, or linguistic universals - subject–verb-object. His theory suggests we are pre-programmed with this deep structure. Chomsky's theory explains how children can understand sentences they've never heard before.

Critics such as Bard and Sachs (1977) argue that children don't learn to speak automatically. They need to communicate and interact with others – innateness alone is not enough.

Before acquiring cognitive ability, children are unable to contrast sizes and cannot use comparative language. Piaget showed that, looking at a range of sticks of differing sizes, they use words such as ‘short' or ‘long' but not the comparative terms ‘shorter' or ‘longer'.

Skinner claimed that children learn language by copying or imitating those around them.

Chomsky maintained that, whilst all languages have a different ‘surface' structure, they all contain the same deep grammar structure. His theory suggests we are pre-programmed with this deep structure as a kind of language acquisition device. Click your answer to see the options you chose.

The ‘cut-off’ age

As well as theories on how children acquire language, there are theories about when. Eric Lennenberg’s (1967) theory suggests that there is a critical period in a child’s life during which they are able to acquire language. Lenneberg’s theory claims that language acquisition is linked to maturation. He proposes that the human brain is designed to acquire language at a certain time. Lenneberg suggested that there is a cut off age around 12 or 13 years and that once this period has passed language leaning slowed down or in effect was no longer possible.

The Science

The brain begins to grow at around 18 months old. It has acquired grammar and phonology by about four years of age and it is widely accepted that an ability to acquire language probably extends this learning period up to the middle of the second decade. After this point, it is said that there is a decline in the neural plasticity of this area of the brain, severely impairing language acquisition ability.

Assessing Lennebergs Theory:

Genie’s story-

Unfortunately, there have been occasions to test Lenneberg’s theory . Studies highlight that the plight of ‘Genie’, a 13 year old American girl raised in appallingly deprived circumstances. Locked away from the world, deprived of language and forbidden to speak, she was denied human interaction. When she was discovered she did not have language as we know it- just ‘grunting’ sounds/ Despite many varied learning programmes, Genie never spoke in a fluent manner. It appears that Genie was rescued too late to acquire language within the critical period.

Victor’s Story-

Victor, often referred to as feral child was discovered at 12 years of age. Initially, he was mute and again despite extensive treatment and a loving carer he never learned to speak properly.

Criticisms-

Some ask the questions: Were Genie and Victor intellectually damaged from birth and incapable of learning how to speak? Others ask: Were the speech therapists and specialists’ methods inadequate in helping Genie and Victor? Would they have fared better in the care of others?

Has it been accepted?

It has been widely accepted that there is some truth in Lenneberg’s theory, the immense language leaning ability, which accompanies us through out early years, does seem to be shut down by some kind of genetic programming around the time of puberty. Genie and Victor’s cases would have also supported a theory by another well-known psychologist- Vygotsky. Vygotsky (1978), argued that a child is only able to acquire language when he is interacting with people in his environment and, in particular in co-operations with his peers. Obviously, neither Genie nor Victor had the opportunity to do this. 

Model answer for CLA

At three years plus Sam is using more complex language and ideas in the story on the tape. It is full of information and he is using longer and longer utterances. He is able to use verbs but the tense is still problematic (‘I drawed’ instead of ‘I drew’) where the endings are irregular. The overused rule at this stage is that children ten to assume that all past tenses end in –ed. Adjectives are used (pretty, red) and he uses conjunctions to allow additional information into the story but they are limited as shows by the repeated use of ‘and’ and ‘and then’. There is still some difficulty with irregular pluralisation (mens).

CLA quick summary

Summary

The first three stages children tend to go through in acquiring language are:

·         Crying, (a child’s only form of communications in the early weeks of life.)

·         Cooing (through which a child gains control of their vocal chords.)

·         Babbling (where reduplicated monosyllables (mama dada) often sounds like a child is calling a parent.

Further Stages that children tend to go through are:

• One word stages: first words usually reflect a child’s environment and they are often holophrastic in meaning.
•     Two-word stage: demonstrates a child’s first sentences and contains a primitive grammar.
•  Telegraphic stage: sees utterances made up of words that tell us the main message but leave small unimportant bits out.

Theories:

• Theories of child language acquisition (Skinner):  Imitations and reinforcement theory- Skinner though that children learn by imitations language. When this is successful they are rewarded by praise and are motivated to do it again. Largely discredited now.
• Theories of child language acquisition (Chomsky): Innateness theory- all children are born with the capacity to learn underlying grammatical rules which govern their language. This is called the LAD device.
• Theories of child language acquisition (Piaget): This theory emphasizes the importance of a child’s intellectual development regarding its learning of language.
• Critical period (Lenneberg): Critical period hypothesis- This theory suggests that there is a critical time in a child’s life, during which time they are capable of acquiring language. However, this time is limited- evidence suggests that the cut off age is around 13 years old. 

Stages of CLA

Year one:

The first year sees babies working on speech sounds. By the time they are six months old they are making the characteristic burbling sounds we associate with ‘baby talk'. The first year can be roughly divided up into the stages: crying, cooing and babbling. Click the stages in the timeline to find out more.

Crying:

The first sound a human baby makes is to cry. Often known as vegetative noises, this is the only way it can express pain, pleasure or hunger. It is an instinctive noise and is therefore not considered a language.

Cooing:

A baby's brain development is in front of its body development and it therefore has to exercise the 100 different pairs of muscles it takes to produce speech sound. Cooing (or gurgling) is a sound development that occurs at around six to eight weeks old. Babies experiment with ‘coo', ‘goo' and ‘ga' and gradually gain more and more control over their speech organs (or vocal cords).

Babbling:

Babbling begins at six to nine months old. It is not learned or copied but pre-programmed. The work-out of the vocal cords means babies repeat syllables over and over. Combinations of vowels and consonants, such as ‘ma', ‘pa', ‘da', are produced and repeated and therefore ‘mama' and ‘dada', known as reduplicated monosyllables, often sound like adult language, and proud parents believe it is baby's first word.

Year two:

The second year of development sees an increase in the ability to manipulate speech sounds and more of a shaping of sound into familiar pronunciations. The second year can be roughly divided up into the stages ‘one-word', ‘two-word' and ‘telegraphic'. Click the stages in the timeline to find out more.

One-word:

At this stage, children begin to concentrate on building phonemes into words, beginning largely with nouns, that reflect their needs and interests. Often words for objects a child encounters everyday are the first. Basically, they build a personal vocabulary to deal with their world. Single words convey more than one meaning - “milk!” may mean “I want some milk.” or “I've spilt some milk.” Words used in this way are called holophrases. They substitute a complex grammar.

Two-word:

This stage, during which the major speech pattern is of two-word utterances, happens around 18-24 months old. This is particularly significant because here young children are demonstrating an understanding of the rules that govern how we communicate meaningfully. An example of a two-word utterance might be “Daddy ball!” which could mean a variety of things including “Daddy get the ball”, “That's Daddy's ball” and “Daddy throw the ball”.

Telegraphic:

A few months after the two-word stage (age varying from child to child) comes what is known as telegraphic stage. Children begin to utter increasingly complex multi-word sentences and grammatical words and endings are also present. This speech is considered to be ‘telegraphic' or like a ‘telegram' in that it includes all the important function words, leaves out ‘little' words like conjunctions, auxiliary verbs and prepositions.

Year three:

By year three, children are effective language users: still needing to practice, still needing to develop additional lexis, but fundamentally with the building blocks for all future language use. At this stage they begin to crack the code of implied meaning: to understand that, sometimes, language contains messages which can seem to contradict their face value statements.

Year four:

Children are sophisticated language users by year four. They understand that language carries a multiplicity of meanings, that it can be manipulated and that different audiences require different language use including variations in lexis and intonation. In other words, by year four, their use of language is purposeful.

Year five:

A critical factor in year five is that it is the age that most children start school. So here we see a shift from spoken language as the complete focus to written language: learning to read. This shift towards literacy sees children beginning to make links between print and meaning.

http://www.ted.com/talks/jamila_lyiscott_3_ways_to_speak_english

Theories

Chomsky’s LAD-

First proposed by Noam Chomsky in the 1960s, the LAD concept is an instinctive mental capacity which enables an infant to acquire and produce language. This theory asserts that humans are born with the instinct or "innate facility" for acquiring language.

Deb Roy-

Professor Deb Roy of Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) is recording his son's development to shed light on how babies acquire language. The Human Speechome Project, as it is known, uses cameras and microphones installed in the scientist's home. The project will eventually gather 400,000 hours of material. There is still a considerable amount of debate about how infants acquire language. Although listening to the cooing of parents is thought to play an important part, most scientists believe it cannot be solely responsible for the rapid progress seen in most children. Instead, language-specific genes and environmental factors have both been put forward as additional factors that help children to learn to speak. Until now, the environmental influences on development have been very difficult to test because scientists have been unable to observe a baby for long enough in its home environment. The Speechome Project will change that by generating and analysing vast tracts of recorded material. For example, to understand how Professor Roy's son learnt his first words, the scientists will be able to mine their records to see who used those words around the child, where they were and what the child was doing at the time. Frank Moss, director of MIT's Media Lab, believes the project has close parallels to the Human Genome Project. "Just as the Human Genome Project illuminates the innate genetic code that shapes us, the Speechome Project is an important first step toward creating a map of how the environment shapes human development and learning," he said.

How ‘gaga’ became ‘water’

http://www.wired.com/2011/03/deb-roy-at-ted/

http://specterofreason.blogspot.co.uk/2013/10/ted-talks-deb-roys-birth-of-word.html

Skinners operant conditioning-

Behaviour which is reinforced tends to be repeated (i.e. strengthened); behaviour which is not reinforced tends to die out-or be extinguished (i.e. weakened). B.F. Skinner (1938) coined the term operant conditioning; it means roughly changing of behaviour by the use of reinforcement which is given after the desired response. Skinner identified three types of responses or operant that can follow behaviour.

• Neutral operants: responses from the environment that neither increase nor decrease the probability of a behaviour being repeated.

• Reinforcers: Responses from the environment that increase the probability of a behaviour being repeated. Reinforcers can be either positive or negative.

• Punishers: Responses from the environment that decrease the likelihood of a behaviour being repeated. Punishment weakens behaviour.

Michael Halliday-

Halliday functions of child language:

·         Representational - "I've got something to show you" - language showing how they feel, declarative

·         Regulatory - "Do as I tell you" - requesting/asking for things

·         Instrumental - "I want"- expressing needs/wants

·         Interactional - "Me and you" - speaking to other, establishing personal contact

·         Imaginative - "Let's pretend" - imaginative language, used with play, to create imaginary world. Crystal talks of 'phonological' function as playing with sound.

·         Personal - "Here I come"- child expresses their feelings/expressing personal preferences

·         Heuristic - "Tell me why"- uses language to explore environment/ seeking information

Most commonly used in children's language is instrumental and regulatory, which are learnt, along with interactional and personal, at a young age. Representational is used by 6-8+ year olds.

http://www.thestudentroom.co.uk/wiki/Revision:Language_Change_and_Language_Acquisition

Jean Berko ‘Wug test’-

The Wug theory: Berko drew a picture of an imaginary creature and called it a 'wug'. She asked children what more than one wug would be called. 3/4 of them said 'wugs', applying a rule to a word they could never have heard before. It was designed as a way to investigate the acquisition of the plural and other inflectional morphemes in English-speaking children.

Piaget-

Interactionalism: Linked linguistic development with an understanding of the concepts surrounding the words' meanings, meaning that speech development is linked to the development of the brain (cognitive capacity). The stages were: sensorimotor, pre-operational, concrete operational, formal operational. He also talked about egocentricism in children and the idea of games such as peekaboo demonstrating the idea of object permanence.

David Crystal-

Addition to negatives: once pragmatic competence is achieved, youngsters learn to copy parents' use of words like 'maybe' when they really mean 'no'.

Lenneburg-

Critical Period: Furthered Chomsky's nativist argument by saying that there was a 'critical period' during which children should pick up language. He argued that is they did not evolve language skills by the age of five, full grammatical fluency is never achieved. He tested on feral children. One example to look at is Genie. (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Genie_%28feral_child%29)

Bruner-

Bruner created and argued for the Language Acquisition Support System (LASS). Bruner states through LASS that parents often use books and images to develop their child’s naming abilities and their ability to get involved in conversation.

·         Gaining attention- drawing the babies attention to a picture

·         Query- asking the baby to identify the picture

·         Label- telling the baby what the object is

·         Feedback- responding to the babies utterances

This is also called SCAFFOLDING, where the child is supported in their learning of language by carers and once they have learnt it, the support is taken away.

http://quizlet.com/22954520/english-language-a2-theories-flash-cards/

TED talks

Anne Curzan- What makes a word real?

One could argue that slang words like ‘hangry,’ ‘defriend’ and ‘adorkable’ fill crucial meaning gaps in the English language, even if they don't appear in the dictionary. After all, who actually decides which words make it into those pages? Language historian Anne Curzan gives a charming look at the humans behind dictionaries, and the choices they make.

https://www.ted.com/talks/anne_curzan_what_makes_a_word_real

John Mcwhorter- Is texting killing the English Language? (language change)

Does texting mean the death of good writing skills? John McWhorter posits that there’s much more to texting — linguistically, culturally — than it seems, and it’s all good news.

https://www.ted.com/talks/john_mcwhorter_txtng_is_killing_language_jk

Deb Roy- The birth of a word (CLA)

Debroys speechome project with his son. How the word 'gaga' develops into 'water' over a three year period.

https://www.ted.com/talks/deb_roy_the_birth_of_a_word

Bristol University Grammar Exercises

http://www.bristol.ac.uk/arts/exercises/grammar/grammar_tutorial/index.htm

Notes 22.09.14

Children struggle with  

·         Auxiliary verbs

·         Grammar tenses

·         Indefinite/ definite article

Adults unconsciously converge towards the child’s language. (Debroy)

Parents talk to their children as if they understand.

18 months- 50 odd words are known (context dependent)

·         Mainly nouns

·         Some words but pronounced differently ‘’see-saw.’’ ‘’see-saw?’’

Sexism? Girls are encouraged ‘’clever girl’’, boys are expected to be clever.

Lots of onomatopoeia ‘’moo moo’’ ‘’baa baa’’

Two and a half years- slight conversation

Nursery rhymes are popular, they allow children to talk for 30 seconds or longer in one go.

Adults set the agenda for the conversation by asking questions.

3 years old

·         possessive pronouns are learnt

3/4/5 years

·         start to understand tense

·         compound syntax (two main clauses joined by and/but/or)

5 years

·         More aware of external influences

100,000 words as an adult

Young children go off on side sequence.

Transcript Analysis- January 2013, Question 1

Context: Text A is a transcript of Ruby (3 years 4 months) with her Auntie Lou. Ruby has just 

arrived at her aunt’s house and they are in the kitchen. Thelma, Fergal and Simba 

are cats.

Referring in detail to the transcript and to relevant ideas from language study, analyse 

the language used by children and their caregivers. (48 marks)

Text for Question 1

Key: (.) indicates a normal pause.

Numbers within brackets indicate length of pause in seconds.

Words between vertical lines are spoken simultaneously.

:: indicates elongated sounds.

Words in capitals indicate an increase in volume.

Other contextual information is in italics in square brackets.

CLA Notes

It has become apparent that all human beings are born with a Gene called FOXP2 which enables them to have the genetic ability to form words and allow them to speak.

This became knowledge to many English Language experts through the investigation into the KE Family of which 15 of the 30 members where born with an inherited gene on chromosome 7 from their Grandmother. This was due to Chromosome being slightly broken meaning that they had a speech and language disorder which portrayed them to speak as if they were deaf. This disorder is called Development Verbal Dyspraxia.

The fact that we are born with the ability to speak within our genes supports Chomsky’s LAD ‘language acquisition device) theory. This is the idea that it is an instinctive mental capacity which allows young children to acquire and produce language. It also extends on the idea that the gene FOXP2 needs to be stimulated to become an ability and that language only becomes apparent once the infant is spoken to by another person. This is supported by the case of Genie who was kept away from society from a very young age for a long period of time and was unable to produce and acquire language once she had been discovered.

AQA English Language

http://www.aqa.org.uk/subjects/english/as-and-a-level/english-language-b-2705

Deficit

Jesperson (1922):

Jesperson thought that men’s language is the standard vocabulary and that female language is inefficient in comparison to the male ‘norm’. He believed that women had a less extensive vocabulary than men, have less complex sentence structures, and speak with less prior though, often leaving their sentences unfinished.

Robin Lakoff 1975):

Lakoff considered the male language as dominant but not ‘’better than’’ women’s language. She also proposes that women's speech can be distinguished from that of men in a number of ways, including:

Hedges: Phrases like "sort of", "kind of", "it seems like"

Empty adjectives: "divine", "adorable", "gorgeous"

Super-polite forms: "Would you mind..." "...if it’s not too much to ask" "Is it o.k if...?"

Apologize more: "I'm sorry, but I think that..."

Speak less frequently

Avoid coarse language or expletives

Tag questions: "You don't mind eating this, do you?".

Hyper-correct grammar and pronunciation: Use of prestige grammar and clear articulation

Indirect requests: "Wow, I'm so thirsty." – really asking for a drink

Speak in italics: Use tone to emphasis certain words, e.g., "so", "very", "quite"

Lakoff also developed the "Politeness Principle", in which she thought up three maxims that are usually followed in interaction. These are: Don't impose, give the receiver options, and make the receiver feel good. She said that these are paramount in good interaction. By not following these maxims, a speaker is said to be 'flouting the maxims'.

She suggests that women are disadvantaged relative to men by a basically inferior, less forceful ‘’women’s language’’ which they learn through socialization. She highlights various female forms and styles showing weakness, uncertainty and unimportance. She also implies that women who use ‘’women’s language’’ are ‘’systematically denied access to power’’ as the typical ‘’neutral’’ language (men’s language) is seen as superior.

https://archive.org/details/afa5370.0001.001.umich.edu

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Otto_Jespersen

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Robin_Lakoff

formal language within texts A and D

Both text A and D use formal language, each to fill the purpose to inform and educate their audience. Text A is used to inform people about one of the UK’s leading financial services companies, by using formal language throughout the piece it shows status from the producer of the advert.  Things that are included such as facts and figures ‘’over 4.5 million people rely on Legal and General for like assurance…’’ make the text seem reliable and encourage the target audience to look into it more as it is not just sentences that are ‘empty’ and don’t have any solid meaning and proof behind them. By using the word ‘rely’ it makes the audience feel as if they need it and have to investigate into it further as if has connotations of the service being a necessity.  Text D also uses formal language in the form of an extract of a Bill from the Higher Education during 2004. This uses language that will appeal to an older audience and inform them of the provision about research in the Arts and Humanities. If they were to use informal language and register then the person writing the text would most definitely not be taken as seriously as they intend to be. Text D also uses names proper nouns of a high status ‘’be it enacted by the Queen’s most Excellent Majesty, by and with the advice and consent of the Lords Spiritual and Temporal…’’ By using the high status names such as ‘The Queen’ it gives it connotations that it has to be obeyed, or done without question or doubt from the person reading it.

self evaluation

After looking through and highlighting various points in my half term assessment I have come to the conclusion that I need to identify and related to the APF and context more. To do this I am going to identify the audience, purpose and form early on and when making points throughout the essay I will mention them and how they help to prove these ideas.

I also need to create a well thought through plan before I start writing. I need to think more about the structure of the piece and how each individual point can link to the next making the essay more interesting to write.

Another point that I need to work on is my terminology and how I write my sentences. Using terms such as ‘adverb’ and ‘personal pronouns’ to describe quotes that I am using. By using this is will improve my sentence structure and how well the essay comes across to the reader throughout.

Samsung F300 advert

The advert featuring Beyonce uses many techniques including Synthetic Personalisation in the way that it adresses the audience as a whole, as individuals. The advert uses things such as ''your personality.'' This is a way in which the writer can use language to make the reader feel as if the text is aimed specifically at them where as a matter of fact they are actually aiming it at a large number of people. This attracts people to be more inclined to buy the product as they are convinced through the language used that this is the right thing for them as it makes it more personal. By using the first person pronoun 'your' the writer is essentially portraying that they know the person and what they want from the product.

The advert also uses the picture to tie into the language. This is due to the fact that they have used words like ''Dual'' which means two and therefore the picture features Beyonce twice and gives the connection between the written language. Also many people like to be known as being complex and having 'two sides' to their personality, this is a good motivational scheme as they think that well know celebrities such as Beyonce can relate and also feel the same.

It has also been used as an advertising scheme too promote Beyonce's album as they have a picture of it in the bottom left hand corner with the caption ''Beyonce B'day Deluxe Album in stores now.'' This gives it the sense of a younger target audience which would be the type of people that would buy Beyonce's new album and the type that would maybe buy the phone. It also ties in with the fact that the phone is being advertised as a music player and Beyonce is well known for her part within the music industry.

My mini technology investigation

I have noticed from analysing my research that many over 40 year olds use abreviations in their texts. Aswell as this i saw that they use puncuation more frequently than the younger generation. Texts such as ''Ok. Will find out how much n let u know k. Xx' show that they are more interested in the convience of shortening their words than how the text is portrayed by the reader. By using shortened words is gives the text a more informal feel. This is due to the fact that by using lengthened words is shows that time and care has been taken when thinking about what and how to write it. The more frequent use of punctuation in the text by older generations may be to do with the fact that when they were growing up there was a less dominant use of texting and instant messaging therefore they were accustomed to writing in with length letters which involveed puntuation so they use it more in texts.

Another thing that i noticed in the texts is that the reasoning behind using abbreviations is to make social networking quicker and simpler. It gives people ease when writing things that do not need to be spelt properly and in full length. It also became clear that this is the way people think, as they beleive that this is a social cocept of how you text, what texting means and also how other people do it so it becomes more apparent for them to follow the same 'trends'.

My Invesitgation:

How often people over the age of 40 use abreviations in their language when talking to their children.

In the guradian article ''2b or not 2b'' David Crystal argues that texting is ''pillaging our punctuation; savaging our sentances; raping our vocabulary.''

i will be testing this hypothesis by carrying out an investigation on how older people type when they write texts to their family members.