Reflect on Some Aspects of Your Own Personal Talk
Essay by nikky • May 24, 2012 • Essay • 474 Words (2 Pages) • 2,206 Views
Reflect on some of aspects of your own personal talk (idiolect) including perhaps some criticisms of it by adults
Idiolect is the unique language of an individual, the word choices people make and the way they form sentences that are specific to them. This means that the way someone talks is part of their identity.
An idiolect can be influenced by a large number of different things such as where a person is from, their hobbies (things like sports or past times where technical terms will be used specific to their hobby) what music or books a person listens to or reads may have a large effect, a particularly significant factor on someone's idiolect would be there family or who they are often surrounded by most at home.
My language print (idiolect) I feel is one that varies depending on who I'm talking to, for example if I am talking to a figure of authority such as a parent or another adult I will do my best to use as much formal language and to a certain extent cut out as much slang as possible. If I was talking to a sporting coach where I was answering a question I would use as many technical terms as I could to prove that I knew what I was talking about and not make it seem vague. On the other hand if I was with friends and people I feel much more comfortable with I still tend to use 'proper' English but may use slang every now and then and I start to you lots more ellipsis and elision. Although people have said to me that when I become nervous I use lots of fillers and tend to have a lot more false starts and if I'm talking about something I'm not too confident about I may use a lot of repetition which helps me to gain time to think of more things to say. If I become involved in a debate then I tend to overlap people, predominantly if I disagree with them but sometimes if I agree with them I may add something in to back up their point. When I get into a conversation with someone I'm friendly with but not necessarily friends with I start to use a lot of phatic language I use it almost as if it were large filler between conversations
If I were to change some things about my idiolect it would be that I would like to broaden my vocabulary so I don't use as much repetition with the same words and I am able to describe and portray my point much clearer. Also I would like to be able to not use so many Americanised words such as 'like' or 'awesome' because some people tend to disdain the use of them and they claim that it isn't proper English ...
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