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Valleyspeak
A valley girl is a socioeconomic, linguistic, and youth subcultural stereotype and stock character originating during the 1980s: any materialistic upper-middle-class young woman, associated with unique vocal and California dialect features, from the Los Angeles commuter communities of the San Fernando Valley. In subsequent years, the term was broadly applied to any American woman who epitomized frivolity, ditziness, airheadedness, or who prioritizes superficial concerns such as personal appearance, physical attractiveness, and excessive materialism over intellectual or personal accomplishment. Valleyspeak Valleyspeak, or Valspeak, is a California English social dialect and accompanying vocal features, best associated with valley girls, though elements of it have spread to other demographics, including men called "Val dudes". This sociolect became an international fad for a certain period in the 1980s and 1990s, with a peak period from around 1981 to 1985. Valleyspeak is ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
High Rising Terminal
The high rising terminal (HRT), also known as rising inflection, upspeak, uptalk, or high rising intonation (HRI), is a feature of some variants of English where declarative sentences can end with a rising pitch similar to that typically found in yes–no questions. HRT has been claimed to be especially common among younger speakers and women, though its exact sociolinguistic implications are an ongoing subject of research. Intonational characteristics Empirically, one report proposes that HRT in American English and Australian English is marked by a high tone (high pitch or high fundamental frequency) beginning on the final accented syllable near the end of the statement (the terminal), and continuing to increase in frequency (up to 40%) to the end of the intonational phrase. New research suggests that the actual rise can occur one or more syllables after the last accented syllable of the phrase, and its range is much more variable than previously thought. Usage In the Unite ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
California Dialect
California English (or Californian English) is the collection of English dialects native to California, largely classified under Western American English. Most Californians speak with a General American accent; alternatively viewed, possibly due to unconscious linguistic prestige, California accents may themselves be serving as a baseline to define the accents that are perceived as "General American". In fact, several vowel features first reported in the 1980s in urban coastal California—including the California Vowel Shift—are becoming common among younger generations across the nation, according to 21st century research. History and overview As California became more diverse, English speakers from a wide variety of backgrounds began to pick up different linguistic elements from one another and also developed new ones; the result is both divergence and convergence within California English. Overall, linguists who studied English around World War II tended to find few ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Language Ideology
Language ideology (also known as linguistic ideology) is, within anthropology (especially linguistic anthropology), sociolinguistics, and cross-cultural studies, any set of beliefs about languages as they are used in their social worlds. Language ideologies are conceptualizations about languages, speakers, and discursive practices. Like other kinds of ideologies, language ideologies are influenced by political and moral interests, and they are shaped in a cultural setting. When recognized and explored, language ideologies expose how the speakers' linguistic beliefs are linked to the broader social and cultural systems to which they belong, illustrating how the systems beget such beliefs. By doing so, language ideologies link implicit and explicit assumptions about a language or language in general to their social experience as well as their political and economic interests. Applications and approaches Definitions Scholars have noted difficulty in attempting to delimit the scop ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Vocal Fry
The human voice consists of sound made by a human being using the vocal tract, including talking, singing, laughing, crying, screaming, shouting, humming or yelling. The human voice frequency is specifically a part of human sound production in which the vocal folds (vocal cords) are the primary sound source. (Other sound production mechanisms produced from the same general area of the body involve the production of unvoiced consonants, clicks, whistling and whispering.) Generally speaking, the mechanism for generating the human voice can be subdivided into three parts; the lungs, the vocal folds within the larynx (voice box), and the articulators. The lungs, the "pump" must produce adequate airflow and air pressure to vibrate vocal folds. The vocal folds (vocal cords) then vibrate to use airflow from the lungs to create audible pulses that form the laryngeal sound source. The muscles of the larynx adjust the length and tension of the vocal folds to 'fine-tune' pitch and to ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Quotative
A quotative (abbreviated ) is a grammatical device to mark quoted speech. When a quotation is used, the grammatical person and tense of the original utterance is maintained, rather than adjusting it as would be the case with reported speech. It can be equated with "spoken quotation marks." Dutch In Dutch, the preposition '' van'' can be used to introduce direct speech: :''Ik zei er van Japie sta stil'' (a line from a children's song). :I said, 'Japie , stand still.' Quotative ''van'' can be used in combination with a verb of speech, as in the above example, a noun designating something with message-carrying content, or a light verb, e.g. a copula (like for English quotative ''like''). In the specific colloquial combination ''zoiets hebben van'' (literally, "have something suchlike of"), the subsequent quoted speech conveys a (possibly unspoken) feeling: :''De ouders hadden zoiets van laten we het maar proberen, wie weet lukt het.'' :The parents were like, let's try it, who kn ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Colloquialism
Colloquialism (also called ''colloquial language'', ''colloquial speech'', ''everyday language'', or ''general parlance'') is the linguistic style used for casual and informal communication. It is the most common form of speech in conversation among persons in friendship, familial, intimate, and other informal contexts. Colloquialism is characterized by the usage of figurative language, contractions, filler words, interjections, and other informalities such as slang. In contrast to formal and professional communications, colloquial speech does not adhere to grammar and syntax rules and thus may be considered inappropriate and impolite in situations and settings where etiquette is expected or required. It has a rapidly changing lexicon and can also be distinguished by its usage of formulations with incomplete logical and syntactic ordering. Definition Colloquialism is distinct from formal speech or formal writing.colloquial. (n.d.) Dictionary.com Unabridged (v 1.1). Ret ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Filler (linguistics)
In linguistics, a filler, filled pause, hesitation marker or planner (sometimes called crutches) is a sound or word that participants in a conversation use to signal that they are pausing to think but are not finished speaking.Juan, Stephen (2010).Why do we say 'um', 'er', or 'ah' when we hesitate in speaking? These are not to be confused with placeholder names, such as ''thingamajig''. Fillers fall into the category of formulaic language, and different languages have different characteristic filler sounds. The term filler also has a separate use in the syntactic description of wh-movement constructions (see below). Usage Every conversation involves turn-taking, which means that whenever someone wants to speak and hears a pause, they do so. Pauses are commonly used to indicate that someone's turn has ended, which can create confusion when someone has not finished a thought but has paused to form a thought; in order to prevent this confusion, they will use a filler word such ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Discourse Marker
A discourse marker is a word or a phrase that plays a role in managing the flow and structure of discourse. Since their main function is at the level of discourse (sequences of utterances) rather than at the level of utterances or sentences, discourse markers are relatively syntax-independent and usually do not change the truth conditional meaning of the sentence. They can also indicate what a speaker is doing on a variety of different planes. Examples of discourse markers include the particles ''oh'', ''well'', ''now'', ''then'', ''you know'', and ''I mean'', and the discourse connectives ''so'', ''because'', ''and'', ''but'', and ''or''. The term ''discourse marker'' was popularized by Deborah Schiffrin in her 1987 book ''Discourse Markers''. Usage in English Common discourse markers used in the English language include ''you know'', ''actually'', ''basically'', ''like'', ''I mean'', ''okay'' and ''so''. Discourse markers come from varied word classes, such as adverbs (''well ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Like
In English, the word ''like'' has a very flexible range of uses, ranging from conventional to non-standard. It can be used as a noun, verb, adverb, adjective, preposition, particle, conjunction, hedge, filler, quotative, and semi-suffix. Uses Comparisons ''Like'' is one of the words in the English language that can introduce a simile (a stylistic device comparing two dissimilar ideas). It can be used as a preposition, as in "He runs ''like'' a cheetah"; it can also be used as a suffix, as in "She acts very child-''like''. It can also be used in non-simile comparisons such as, "She has a dog ''like'' ours". As a conjunction ''Like'' is often used in place of the subordinating conjunction ''as'', or ''as if''. Examples: * They look ''like'' they have been having fun. * They look ''as if'' they have been having fun. Many people became aware of the two options in 1954, when a famous ad campaign for Winston cigarettes introduced the slogan " Winston tastes good—like a ci ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
Pragmatics
In linguistics and the philosophy of language, pragmatics is the study of how Context (linguistics), context contributes to meaning. The field of study evaluates how human language is utilized in social interactions, as well as the relationship between the interpreter and the interpreted. Linguists who specialize in pragmatics are called pragmaticians. The field has been represented since 1986 by the International Pragmatics Association (IPrA). Pragmatics encompasses phenomena including implicature, speech acts, relevance theory, relevance and Conversation analysis, conversation,Mey, Jacob L. (1993) ''Pragmatics: An Introduction''. Oxford: Blackwell (2nd ed. 2001). as well as nonverbal communication. Theories of pragmatics go hand-in-hand with theories of semantics, which studies aspects of meaning, and syntax, which examines sentence structures, principles, and relationships. The ability to understand another speaker's intended meaning is called ''pragmatic competence''. In 1938 ... [...More Info...] [...Related Items...] OR: [Wikipedia] [Google] [Baidu] |
