Referring to text P in detail, and to relevant ideas from language study, analyse the ways language has changed overtime.
Within this text, it can be said that it is aimed at those of parents and who know the experience of having a teenage son/daughter who may have been influenced by the youth culture to use their articulation in a particular way to fit in with the youth group and reduce the feel of exclusion. Its genre is a newspaper article from the Mail online; therefore it would only be accessible to those who have some form of technological advancements.
It is evident within the text that there is a form of divergence within the text. The use of youth language 'phat' meaning cool or great, or 'bait' meaning something very obvious creates a form of divergence through moving away from a certain way of speaking, for example by using standard English to suit the needs of the parents, this is now drifted away and language has now become closer to youth culture and become closer to their way of language.
It is also useful to note that this text could be known as covertly prescriptive. It does not directly tell you what language features within the English language are incorrect, nor does it tell you what the correct way to speak is. It does, however create assumptions that all teenagers speak similarly, through the use of ''words commonly used by teenagers'' and advertising the website 'gotateenager.org.uk' suggests to us that if you have a teenager, they are more likely to become influenced by youth culture, however this can be argued in terms of socialisation, and how they are brought up as individuals. The use of ''remove the language barrier'' almost highlights the fact that youth culture and their language is categorised as a complete different language, which could be argued that this would make teenagers feel as if they are alienated by the rest of society, and isolated through categorising their culture as a complete different thing.
It is useful to note that the use of slang identified such as ‘rents’ rather than ‘parents’ could strongly support Aitchinson’s theory on the ease of articulation. For example, the noun ‘parents’, known as a polysyllabic noun has gradually taken a change, and turned to a monosyllabic term, in this case ‘rents’. Through the use of ease of articulation, this can demonstrate how people are now much lazier to say the full term, and this also includes the influence of technological advancement and the media. As text messages would normally be seen as ‘rents’ society has now therefore made it socially acceptable to realistically say the term face to face. As a result, this signifies my point on ease of articulation, where people now want things in a fast pace, quick with no effort – thus creating more satisfaction for us as human beings.
