Teen Talk
Teen Talk
Text 1. (two excerpts)
Dear Dr. Erika,
There’s a girl in my class who thinks whenever she opens her big mouth everybody better shut up and listen. And at lunch she sits at the best table in the cafeteria, and woe! if you park there. She pitches a fit. She actually gets her way in everything. Even the teachers are scared of her and treat her different from the rest of us.
Reina, 14
Dear Dr. Erika,
I dread my second period class. There’s this girl who, like, brags about everything. When she makes a good grade she acts like she’s the smartest. When she has a birthday party, she goes like: “There’s never been another party like mine.” When she blabs about her family they’re like sooo rich! And she cuts people and makes me feel like dirt. Erica, 15 (Erika. V. Shearin Karres, 2010, “Mean Chicks, Cliques and Dirty Tricks”, p3)
Situational Characteristics analysis
(Biber and Conrad framework of analysis)
I. Participants
1. The addressors In both texts the addressors are teen-age girls identified by age and name, students at school. However, we could consider that their names and ages are assumed, they could be someone else and they want to remain unidentified, because they appear in a school magazine, on the Advice page. There are no on-lookers, they write some private messages to dr. Erika, waiting for advice from her.
2. The addressee The addressee is Dr. Erika, another person, female, adult, mentioned by name, so, known at least from the pages of the magazine.
II. Relation among participants The teen-age girls and the doctor (teacher) interact in writing, with different social roles (student-teacher), relation in which Dr. Erika has the status of power. The girls have different problems, they are fellow-students but don’t know each other, at least not overtly. They present their personal problems to the specialist in order to obtain a piece of advice that could help them interact
Text 1. (two excerpts)
Dear Dr. Erika,
There’s a girl in my class who thinks whenever she opens her big mouth everybody better shut up and listen. And at lunch she sits at the best table in the cafeteria, and woe! if you park there. She pitches a fit. She actually gets her way in everything. Even the teachers are scared of her and treat her different from the rest of us.
Reina, 14
Dear Dr. Erika,
I dread my second period class. There’s this girl who, like, brags about everything. When she makes a good grade she acts like she’s the smartest. When she has a birthday party, she goes like: “There’s never been another party like mine.” When she blabs about her family they’re like sooo rich! And she cuts people and makes me feel like dirt. Erica, 15 (Erika. V. Shearin Karres, 2010, “Mean Chicks, Cliques and Dirty Tricks”, p3)
Situational Characteristics analysis
(Biber and Conrad framework of analysis)
I. Participants
1. The addressors In both texts the addressors are teen-age girls identified by age and name, students at school. However, we could consider that their names and ages are assumed, they could be someone else and they want to remain unidentified, because they appear in a school magazine, on the Advice page. There are no on-lookers, they write some private messages to dr. Erika, waiting for advice from her.
2. The addressee The addressee is Dr. Erika, another person, female, adult, mentioned by name, so, known at least from the pages of the magazine.
II. Relation among participants The teen-age girls and the doctor (teacher) interact in writing, with different social roles (student-teacher), relation in which Dr. Erika has the status of power. The girls have different problems, they are fellow-students but don’t know each other, at least not overtly. They present their personal problems to the specialist in order to obtain a piece of advice that could help them interact
Bibliography: 1. Biber, Douglas & Susan Conrad (2009): Register, Genre and Style, Cambridge University Press 2. Halliday, M.A.K. (1978), Language as a Social Semiotic; The Social Interpretation of Language and Meaning. London, Edward Arnold. 3. Biber, D. and Conrad, S. (1994), Sociolingvistic Perspectives on Register, New York, Oxford, Oxford University Press. 4. Morarasu, N. (2011), Registers and Styles of English Language – a Coursebook and Workbook for Master’s Degree Students, Univ. “V.Alecsandri” Bacau