The Mini Language Change Investigation - Reflection

My mini language change investigation was based on a 'private letter'.

We were given a letter in the form of an email from recent years sent from iraq to loved ones at home.

We then had too search for a suitable letter from an earlier time period of similar context to be able to compare the two letters and observe what language changes that can be identified. We found a letter from 1914 sent from a young boy in WW1 sent home to his loved one.

I felt our investigation was very successful and I enjoyed looking in depth at both letters as the changes of language were quite extravagant in comparison. We were able to identify many language features that were different including Lexis, Grammar and what is known as 'text talk'. We could also identify differences due to amount of impact of social view and believes changing for example 'Religion' and 'Racism'. Lastly we identified the effect of language change due to the ever growing world of technology and the now many ways we are able to communicate. Although there was a lot of language features we also found the meaning and sensitivity of both letters were very different, the 1914 letter was a lot more personal and intimate and the email being very general and sent to more than one person. We believed this to be due to the different circumstances each person was in, more so to do with more technology we have nowadays compared to WW1.

Out of all the mini investigations this investigation interested me the most, due to there being so much to analyse and knowing that there would most definitely be a lot of clear evidence to work with. It was also just interesting to see how different the way we communicate is, even though being in a very serious dangerous environment both situations both being as serious as each other.

Im both excited and apprehensive about the Language change investigation. More so at the minute due to being undecided as to what i want to investigate. I think it will be a useful experience and I hope to discover a lot about my chosen investigation, Which I will make sure is something that interests me and links in with some aspect of my life as to achieve the best and reliable results.

The websites and tools i think will be helpful is definitely the google search engine, being able to find information you need and gather quantitative evidence to support the investigation as well. For example N grams when looking the use of specific words over time.