17th century text analysis

This text is a recipe from the 17th century, pragmatically, the audience would be the woman of the household as she would be incharge of the family's meals. This recipe is from a book, it is fairly formal as it was written for the use of a book. The discourse structure is a sequenced list for both the whole text and the recipes in their singular entity, the recipes are listed off numerically showing there is a structured order and shows the difference between the separate recipes.

Graphologically, all the titles for each paragraph are in italics, this indicates the content of the recipe and allows the housewife to understand what it is that she is making, as there is no pictures this is the only indication of what the end product will be, this was the main indication of the time period due to the lack of technology, enabling photographs to be taken and printed into the recipe books. Each recipe begins with a space, this makes it clear that there is a new recipe to be followed. Within the text the 's' are written as 'f', at the time this was the way 's's were standardised this way. Another example of the change of standardisation in the written form of letters is the written from of 'w', within the text it is written as two 'v', this is a representation of the change over time as we have merged this two singular letters to cause a new standardisation of the letter 'w'.

The lexis is within the semantic field of food and cooking as this is a book with a wide range of recipes. Within the text there are lexis which have undergone a semantic shift into a negative field, ie the second recipe uses the ingredient 'Mutton', during this time period it would have been taking for its literal meaning of a meat, however over time the lexis has shifted in to negative space and is used to describe a woman who is old that is dressed like a tart in the phrase 'mutton dressed as lamb', this shows that over the time period it has taken negative connotations to change its meaning. The lexical choice of  'Calves feet'  represents the transiation of language and culture over time, this dish is no longer a part of the British palette, this may be due to a wider range of flavour accessible to us via trade and globalisation.

Grammatically, there are many features within the text that show the transition and transformation of language over time. As this text is from the 17th century grammar rules were few, therefore those who were able to write wrote as they wished. This is shown in the irregular capitalisation of nouns within the text. For example, 'Spinage' 'Mutton' 'beef-suet', the first two examples are capitalised in the text whereas the last example is not even though it is a noun, this shows the lack of rules within language and grammar of the time.The text is full of imperative and declarative sentences as it is a recipe, which is a list of instructions which are to be followed in order to get the correct end result.

broken homes article

‘Broken homes damage brains of infant children’

After reading an article which revolves around the minds of neglected and undeveloped minds I agree with the fact that it is the fault of the parents that do not care and develop their own children’s minds. I believe that it is the parent’s responsibility to stimulate their child’s mental development and prepare them for their future education. For the first 3 years of a child’s life it is mainly spent in the company of their parents, therefor it should be down to the parents to teach them a basic vocabulary and a necessary skill set which will be needed when they enter reception.

As much as I agree with the content of this article I disagree with serval statements and ideas within it. For instance I do not agree with the idea that the lack of support at home damages they’re brains. Although they are not set at the same academic ability of those of the same age but stronger family backgrounds, they are not damaged, their minds are still fully capable of adapting and soaking up knowledge that other children of their age group have learnt at home. The will be hindered as they are learning at a slower rate and are catching up to others but there is no reason for them not to be able to academically succeed as they continue they’re education. The idea of coming from a broken home may also help them with emotional problems, although they will have come from a house of mixed emotions it may enable them to deal with emotions and have a sense of self control which those from nuclear homes may have not experienced.

I remain to agree with this article as it highlights key points about children with a lack of support beginning at a lower age mentality than others, I do not believe it is impossible to break out of and I believe that a broken home does not mean that they cannot go on to be mentally and academically capable in the future.

language change;gender

Spinster
The true meaning of spinster is that it is a woman who practices spinning for a regular occupation. The word originated from the 13th century where it began to be regarded with spinning. However, over time the word has semantically shifted towards a negative space and has undergone derogation and has taken the meaning of being a woman which no man wants. This derogation has always had a connection with a single woman as the hobby of spinning was believed to be taken up in order to fill time which would have been spent with a man and to prevent boredom from a single woman, however the shift has caused the idea of spinning to be dropped from the meaning but the idea of an unwanted woman has remained in the current connotations of the word.


Bachelor


The original meaning was that it was a knight who was of a young age and a lack of experience, due to his youth he was unable to support himself in the war grounds. The 14th century meaning still discuss' the idea of a male who is young, fresh and strong , which is still the association which the 21st century make with the lexis. The word has undergone derogation and now takes the meaning of a free spirited independent man who maintains a care-free lifestyle. The word is associated with the male youth however , due to the change in context (the  abolishment of knights) the word has semantically shift it has taken of positive space , it previously had connotations with cowards , whereas now it has connotations which being a 'lad' and freedom.


Mistress


The original meaning of the word mistress was a woman who has control and authority , mainly with regards to children. The initial spelling ('maistresse') differs from the recent spelling, this may be due to a shift in meaning or the an alteration in the pronunciation of the word. However, over time the word has differed from its initial meaning , its the 20th century definition discusses the idea that it is a woman , other than a husbands wife, who the male is having sexual relations with. This derogation as shown a semantic shift into negative space. The word now has negative connotations , whereas its 14th century meaning was associated with the positive idea of power and control , which caused those who had these features to be admired.


Master


The lexis master had an initial meaning of power and authority. However, as the female version of master shifted into a negative space overtime the male version remained the same. In the 21st century meaning has no shifted a far from the original meaning as it still is associated with the idea of having authority and power, mainly over children in regards to a school setting.

langauge and gender linguists

Deborah Cameron- Theory of verbal hygiene

Both men and women believe that they have certain expectations about the conduct and mode in which they verbally represent themselves. It is believed that women tend to follow stereotype and follow the instructions of which they are taught on how to speak, which translate into other areas of their gender such as the way in which they are instructed to dress.  However she investigated the learning of grammar and research shown that basic grammar orientated methods used to teach children, regardless of sex, contained verbal hygiene. This is where the content which is used during the cognitive stage of learning is gender neutral and gender holds no influence of the use or content of the information learnt, ie punctuation pyramid. From her findings it is apparent that the context of the situation and is dependent on the environment and topic which is being discussed. For example, a group of girls are likely to use girlification if they are discussing and gender stereotyped topic, such as makeup. She also discovered that we should use non sexes lexis as they can cause offence or segregation.

Muriel Schulz- semantic derogation

Schulz contrasted an essay which explains the semantic derogation of sexes. During her investigation she discovered that there was more negative connotations attached to the lexis associated with women than men. Her study was followed up Julie Stanley who recorded negative connotations which were made towards sexes and expanded her investigation by proving how these lexis shifted between positive and negative connotations via discovering their collocations. She stated that women are unable to shift out of the negative semantic space.

Sara mills

 Mills investigated the various lexical pairs and how they are lexical asymmetric to one another. She also did further research in the correlation between femininity and politeness and masculinity and impoliteness. She also considered whether the politeness used was hereditary. Essentially she focused on the way in which certain genders speak and the hereditary traits in which they entail.