Language & Occupation - Rounding off

Morning all,

This will be our last task on lang & occupation in order for us to round it off. Please spend some time over half term reading over all your notes on this topic to make sure you have a solid foundation of understanding of the theories and concepts.

Work your way through the tasks below - if you get a question on lang & occupation in an exam, this will make a good individual case study for you to refer to:

Task 1

Choose a profession. You are going to investigate language used in this profession. (Keep it college appropriate!) find 5-10 acronyms that are used in this occupation and their meaning.

Task 2

Many professions use occupational register and/or codes. Find out what these terms refer to in the U.S. Navy, and consider the reason for the development of these acronyms - why are they used? For what purpose? (Link to theory where relevant and possible)
Find some of your own examples too for the profession that you chose in Task 1:

• chow hall
• deck
• jarhead
• banjo
• rollers
• baboon ass
• salty
• maggot

Task 3

Occupational register is important. Here is an example of a letter written in an inappropriate register. Decide what the profession is, and then re-write it in an appropriate register.

Hey there Jimmy and Betty, 

You’ll never guess what your son’s gone and done now!! I mean he’s only gone and drawn a life sized picture of Smithy on the wall of toilets and I have to say, it’s harsh af.

Well, I had a bit of a chinwag with the governors and they agree with me that we should get rid of your toe rag of a son straight away because tbh we’re all a bit fed up with him. I just don’t know how you cope with him smh.

Laters

Davey

Task 4

Apply all you have learned about language & occupation to this transcript between a doctor and their patient. Complete a brief analysis of this transcript, discussing relevant linguistic features and ant relevant links to theories. To help you start off consider the following:

• use of interrogatives
• personal address
• avoiding embarrassing terms/euphemism
• informal filler/reassuring
• unusual preposition use
• verbal fillers
• Jargon - convergence