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English Controlled Assessment Essay

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English Controlled Assessment
The English language, although used by almost all across the United Kingdom, has been mutated and altered in so many ways that sometimes we cannot even understand it ourselves.
One of the main factors that affects our understanding of the language is one’s regional accent. Although most words and phrases will be comprehensible some phonetics may have changed so much that all we can do is hope that the context of what has been said makes sense in order for us to ‘fill in the gaps’.
My paternal grandmother, as related to me by my father, spoke with a West Country accent. ‘West Country’ refers to a large band of accents heard in the South of England, starting about fifty miles West of London and extending to …show more content…

My father works in a field where it is nearly impossible to rise through the ranks if you are not well spoken and do not show understanding of the subject in hand, which is usually done by using the semantic field associated with his profession, such as IMF- international monetary fund. PAYE- pay as you earn, and CT- corporation tax. By using his semantic field when he talks to his colleagues, he can distance himself from people who do not understand technical terms. For example, he works in a department called MTIC, which might seem confusing, but by using simple abbreviations, ‘Missing Trader Intra-Community’ can be said without everyone being able to understand.
His ability to converge supports Howard Giles’ ‘Accommodation theory’. His ability to adjust his speech with a variety of classes in the work place makes it easier to communicate, and helps the people that he is talking to to feel more comfortable and may make it easier for them to understand what is being presented.
For example, when he is explaining something to me, he uses a calm tone of voice giving examples that I can relate to. However, when talking to his boss he uses an assertive, confident tone, wider vocabulary and terms that are recognised in relation to the subject.
It isn’t essential to be able to converge and disguise your language using technical abbreviations but in my father’s profession, where there is an element of guardedness, it may be necessary that not everyone knows exactly what he

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