My youngest daughter taught me a new concept today. She asked me to print an essay she had written and like any nosey parent I read it only asking for permission later! Here is a short extract.
...... I will be talking about what affects my idiolect - the different ways in which I speak to people in different situations. One of the main things I found affects what I say and how I say it is who I am talking to. For example, with my friends I would talk casually and on the same level as them, using more slang words like “yer” and “cos”, as well as lot of likes in my sentences, the same might be true when I am having a causal conversation with an adult I am confident and familiar with, like with my mum, I would probably use several of the same words that I would with my friends, for example I would use “yer” but maybe not use “like” as often. On the other hand if I am with an adult that I have not met before or I have to be respectful to whether I want to be or not, I would not use any slang at all and would have a more formal tone to the conversation. I do this because it is the way I have been brought up, unless an adult invites you to talk to them equally and on the same level, you always talk to them with respect, often putting personal thoughts and opinions aside. In doing so I think it makes the adults think that I agree with what they are saying, which pleases them but irritates me.
I looked up the definition on wikepedia and it said.. In linguistics, an idiolect is a variety of language that is unique to a person, as manifested by the patterns of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that the person uses. As I thought about it I began to realise that our idiolect my must be an important feature of our lifewide learning. In the different spaces which we occupy we interact with different people and talk to them in different ways. Using my daughter as an example the way shoe talks to her friends at school or on skype or texting is very different to the way she talks to her parents and teachers, and is certainly different to the way she talks to other adult when they visit us. Each life space creates different situations and spoken language is an essential feature of the situations in those life spaces.
Perhaps as adults we have less variation in our idiolect..but there again the language / jargon we use in work situations, or the way we speak to different people in the work environment depending on the relationships we have and their organisational role, bosses versus colleagues for example are likely to be different to the way we talk to our wives, brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren, friends....
So I'm very grateful to my daughter for drawing my attention to something I havent really thought about before in the context of lifewide learning.
...... I will be talking about what affects my idiolect - the different ways in which I speak to people in different situations. One of the main things I found affects what I say and how I say it is who I am talking to. For example, with my friends I would talk casually and on the same level as them, using more slang words like “yer” and “cos”, as well as lot of likes in my sentences, the same might be true when I am having a causal conversation with an adult I am confident and familiar with, like with my mum, I would probably use several of the same words that I would with my friends, for example I would use “yer” but maybe not use “like” as often. On the other hand if I am with an adult that I have not met before or I have to be respectful to whether I want to be or not, I would not use any slang at all and would have a more formal tone to the conversation. I do this because it is the way I have been brought up, unless an adult invites you to talk to them equally and on the same level, you always talk to them with respect, often putting personal thoughts and opinions aside. In doing so I think it makes the adults think that I agree with what they are saying, which pleases them but irritates me.
I looked up the definition on wikepedia and it said.. In linguistics, an idiolect is a variety of language that is unique to a person, as manifested by the patterns of vocabulary, grammar, and pronunciation that the person uses. As I thought about it I began to realise that our idiolect my must be an important feature of our lifewide learning. In the different spaces which we occupy we interact with different people and talk to them in different ways. Using my daughter as an example the way shoe talks to her friends at school or on skype or texting is very different to the way she talks to her parents and teachers, and is certainly different to the way she talks to other adult when they visit us. Each life space creates different situations and spoken language is an essential feature of the situations in those life spaces.
Perhaps as adults we have less variation in our idiolect..but there again the language / jargon we use in work situations, or the way we speak to different people in the work environment depending on the relationships we have and their organisational role, bosses versus colleagues for example are likely to be different to the way we talk to our wives, brothers and sisters, children, grandchildren, friends....
So I'm very grateful to my daughter for drawing my attention to something I havent really thought about before in the context of lifewide learning.
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