Identifying Language Creativity in Everyday English Conversation - Essay Example

English Language - Identifying language creativity in everyday English conversation Introduction -The transcription The MP3 extract relays an informal chat among three women friend. It is possible to tell that the three are close friends from the level of interactivity that the all have, they sound comfortable with each other’s presence as the main narrator continues to give an account of a very personal experience. The others laugh all through the interesting narration while attempting to put in a comment of two. The location is hard to determine but one can possibly argue on the two giggling women paying a visit to the narrator who therefore offers to recount her experience to her dear friends. The women are discussing the inadequacies they witness in men, this therefore amounts to the main theme of the entire discussion. The narrator presents a meal to a man possibly a very close man in her life, she does not reveal her relationship to the man as she begins top tell her story to her friends. Instead of eating the meal from the plate with which the food is presented, the man opts for a pare plate which he apparently fishes out of nowhere. He further continues to eat with his fingers instead of using the readily available spoon. The narrator therefore fails to understand the man who coincidentally chooses not to talk to the woman especially on his mood (Labov, 1966). The series of negative and unexpected answers does not simply end with the meal. The narrator apparently told the man that she was preparing to clean the kitchen floor; she said this with the hope that the man could offer her a hand. Unfortunately, the man does not help with he floor and continues to stand by the door and watch the woman struggle with the entire kitchen floor. The woman therefore eventually decides to confront the man in a bid to find reasons for the negative attitude and the increased resentment. The man replies that he is too depressed to concentrate on anything. The three women can not understand men and claim that men are lazier than women. The two laugh as the narration by their friend progresses, they try to chip in their opinions but their friend the narrator gets the better of the conversation and continues to rattle out her experiences with the lazy moody man. the trio assert that men fear work and do not like assisting their women especially with the house hold chores. The women cannot understand how depression could possibly result in the man refusing to help with the household chores while her as a woman normally has to deal with more than one problem at a time. The story is informal which means that the story structure and the figures of speech used are not official and therefore prone to grammatical mistakes. It is clear that the narrator does not pay very close attention to her choice of words and the entire narration is filled with pidgin and inappropriate contraction of words. The narrator struggles to stay relevant in the story in terms of word selection and the tense of the verbs in the story. An informal conversation accepts the use poor sentence structure and as much pidgin as the subjects in the conversation would deem fit. The sole objective of such discussion is for the people engaged in the conversation understanding one another, whatever language and sentence structure they use to understand one another therefore becomes of less significance to the study. The use of language differs with the diversity of originality. Among some of the key aspects of language that differ with the diversity in language include word selection, depending on the type of society, certain words may either be overused or underused. Americans like cursing every misfortune. This way, they always use cursing words most of which are obscene. Every society has its unique word manipulation mechanism, this aspect of language in which users tend to codify the language to ease communication. In the process of doing these some newer words are created while some of the less often used words become continuously diminished. The conversation in the extract is most probably from an American community. This is evident in the narrator’s word manipulation prowess, she speaks fast enough to qualify for a native speaker, the use of the “gonna” to refer to “going to” is a commonly used phrase in the United States of America. It therefore becomes easier to mentally develop some of the possible pidgins created to deliberately used in the speech. Another aspect that changes and is unique to every occasion and user of a language is the sentence structure. Language structure refers to the choice of words used to develop a sentence. This is greatly affected by the locality in which one grows. The narrator in the exert understands the notion of effective use of language. She further understands that nearly all aspects of human life would change with the changes in the life experiences. These create her unique and articulate use of language, the everyday language use ifs made full of “verbal art” which refers to the unique use of verb depending on the context of a conversation (Coates, 2003). This is influenced by one’s competencies in the language. The narrator is engaged in an informal conversation with her close friends. In this context, formality is not a prerequisite, she is therefore free to say anything, and use verbs anyhow provided she communicate to her friend. Fortunately for her, her friends seem to be understanding her use and choice of words. They are comfortable with the conversation and keep laughing and trying to put forward their contribution. This is a pointer to the fact that they understand her despite her extremely informal use of language and choice of words. The context in everyday use of language especially in informal discussion is further influenced by a person’s geographical locations. The factors of life within a locality affect the use of language. This has resulted in every region creating its set of informal language referred to as pidgin. Funnily enough, this factor affects and influences even the formal user of language. The official English language spoken in the United Kingdom differs greatly with that spoken in the United States of America. The sue of words is categorically different with official words in the United Kingdom having different meaning in their usage in the United States of America. A pair of trousers to a type of clothe worn by men in their lower parts body, the very cloth in the United Kingdom is however referred to as a pair of long pants. Pants in the united states of American English are a type of underwear. The context with which these words are used interchangeably is influenced by the locality of the speakers. The United Kingdom is the originators of the language, English language is their own but spread to the united states through their colonization of the country. The new location had its inhabitant who had their language, in adopting the new language; they therefore included some of their previous words into the new language, which the United Kingdom had to accept as new words in the language. In the very context, as the use of English language spread to other parts of the world it further got influenced by the locations thereby experiencing changes in the use and choice of words. Such words as “safari” among many others are now perfect English words despite being originally pure Bantu words as used in the east African Swahili language. The widespread of the word and the global outlook it later came to acquire as more Europeans and Americans travelled to the region for tours and travel led to the widespread of use of the word thereby compelling the actual owners of the language to include the word among many others. Currently the word safari is in the oxford English dictionary and use in the same context both in the united states of America and the united kingdom, two of the greatest users and possible owners of the language. Language is an art, arts and craft borrow much on creativity and r\are perfected through continuous practice. Language is therefore also perfected through continuous practices and heavily riles on creativity of the user to communicate effectively. The creativity in language determines one as a smart user of language whiles the rest as being basic users of the language. There are different words communicating either similar or different meanings. The choice therefore to use one synonym over the other and the ability to perfectly maintain a unique choice of words and a fluent diction makes one an ultimate better speaker of the language than others despite the fact that all communicate effectively in the very language. This is similar to arts and craft, where it is very difficult for one to produce a perfectly similar artifact as the other. Even the very artist cannot perfectly produce a similar artifact as the previous. Different people will therefore say the same thing differently, even the very fluent speaker will say the same thing differently if made to say it again without having to refer to any recording or written piece. This is evident in the extract where the three women evidently have different abilities in the use of language. The narrator is very fast and makes her choice of word fast with a quick coordination between words. She does this so perfectly that some of her mistakes such as wordiness are not easily decreed. Her two friends try in more than one occasion to share their thoughts ion the same story but she eloquently out speaks them (Labov, 1972). The use of language relies heavily on practice and interest. This makes other people better speakers while other better writers. A better writer may not speak as eloquently as he writes. This is because the coordination between the brain and the tongue is not as fast as it is in the speaker. Writing requires a lot of thoughtfulness to adequately make the right selection of words and join them together in perfectly agreeing forms. The more an individual writes the more the words come naturally to him or her. This makes writing a lot easier than speaking. Some of the factors present presented by an audience of speech possibly intimidates one thereby causing faults in their speech. A speaker on the other hand is a more developed individual, bold and dominating. This makes one outlook the uniqueness presented by an audience to make a grammatically correct speech. Additionally, speeches vary with every context. An informal audience has unique requirements, very different from an official gathering. While an informal gathering allows the use of pidgins and informal words that may be injected and phrased depending on one’s audience, an official gathering requires the use of official language with articulate choice of words and correctly formatted sentence structures. This makes most speakers prepare prewritten speeches, which they simply later read. The nurture of a discussion is further influenced by a number of factors that subsequently determine the choice of word and the types of sentence structures used in discussion. These could be either formal or informal. Some of these include the academic level of the audience, through school people perfect their prowess in a language, a discussion among friends in eighth grade will therefore differ from the very conversation among friends of a graduate class in a university. The latter group has a better understanding of language. They make better use of their words and construct their sentences effectively. Different professions form their own jargons, a simple discussion among doctors sounds complex to the ordinary audience with a basic education (Coates, 1996). The age of the language users affect their choice of words and the age of an audience will also definitely influences the choice of words used by an speaker. It is a common understanding that the younger one is the less educated and less experienced in the use of words he or she is. In communicating to younger audiences therefore people make deliberate attempts to simplify their sentence structures and make use of simple, commonly occurring words, this change as the ages of the audience progresses. There are words, especially the obscene words commonly used in the American context that adults will be very comfortable with. The same cannot be employed while addressing a group of twelve year olds. In retrospect, language is an art just like any other. Following this understanding, it becomes natural to understand that different people will therefore have different abilities in the use of language. Additionally, language is never static; it changes with the societal structuring. Through time, English has evolved to be the formal commonly known English spoken in both the United States of America and the United Kingdom. The formerly Elizabethan English used by the likes of William Shakespeare in the early English society has constantly changed through time to be the distinctively different languages spoken in the different parts of the world. Different geographical locations have different factors that influence their societal structures, these further influences their use of language leading to the development of new words in an otherwise similar language. This is responsible for the different ascents and words spoken in the very language in different parts of the world. Bibliography Coates, J. (1996) Women Talk: Conversation between Women Friends, Oxford, Blackwell. Coates, J. (2003) Men Talk: Stories in the Making of Masculinities, Oxford, Blackwell. Labov, W. (1966) The Social Stratification of English in New York City, Washington, D.C., Center for Applied Linguistics. Labov, W.(1972) Sociolinguistic Patterns, Philadelphia, University of Pennsylvania Press. Read More