Study Into My Spoken Language

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Leading up to this language assessment, I have been studying my own idiolect, including what words I say and why I say them. I researched different factors that affect not just my speech, but that of those around me and comparing and contrasting the two. In addition, I have looked into how the attitudes of those around me can influence my language choices and alter the way I speak. I made a transcript of a conversation between one of my friends and myself, and now, after looking into it at depth and applying my new found knowledge in the field of linguistics, I have picked up on certain features of my idiolect that keep recurring throughout the transcript. They include occasional use of fillers, hesitation indicators and false starts in my speech, but I will develop these points later on in my study. The subject of my transcript was the popular television programme, “I’m a Celebrity, Get me out of Here”, and therefore I used an informal choice of register. In the transcript, I used a fairly relaxed style of speech, which shows that I was in a situation where I felt comfortable, conversing with a very close friend and therefore I felt no need to adapt the language I normally use. I tend to use a colloquial register when talking to friends. This is illustrated in my transcript by the word ‘yeah’, which I use quite commonly, as seen a numerous amount of times in the conversation. I used mainly colloquial language in this conversation because I felt comfortable and relaxed. In addition, I was speaking with someone of my own age group and it is considered the norm to speak informally, in a ‘chatty’ style if you are one of the younger generation. However, if I was conversing with my mother, my language choices wold be a lot less colloquial, yet still informal as I would be in a relaxed situation, under no pressure to ‘impress’. This ‘chatty’ style of speech, named
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