Steven Robinson
English Investigation

Transcript of BBC News broadcast

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8NfTlSXuvZQ

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The duration of the broadcast is 13:38 minutes long. I Begin to transcribe into text at 3:32.

Female Reporter: Well here in Indonesia you only have to mention the word tsunami (.) and people immediately think back to what happened in two thousand and four, that huge Asian tsunami which devastated the provenience of Aceh here (.) killing about a hundred and seventy thousand people. (2) But, this time it seems that Indonesia has been spared the brunt of what’s happened in Japan. (1) There were some tsunami waves which hit the northeast of the country, but they were relatively small only about half a meter high and caused no damage (2) but some people still decided to spend several hours up in the mountains waiting it out (1) and that’s probably because (.) after what happened in Aceh people are fare more educated (.) about what tsunami are, and what to do when one happens (1) and the government has also put in place a tsunami warning system, which covers at least part of the country (2) and next week there was due to be a big international tsunami drill here in Indonesia (.) co-hosted with japan (1) the scenario was an earthquake which triggered a tsunami that fanned out across the region (2) for many people here since what’s happened in Japan (.) it’s a scenario which must seem frighteningly real.

Female Tourist: Well I’m in Hawaii, which is ugh, a small island west of the big island (.) and ugh we were evacuated ugh were on a south shore of Hawaii in ugh (.) a resort in a of town called Pawaypou umm right on the coastline and we were evacuated umm and told to go to higher ground (.) umm were about ten miles umm now, inland and…and north of Pawaypou umm (.) warnings ugh have been giving and umm to past the time when the first impact was scheduled to potentially arrive and ugh (.) and were still waiting to see if indeed umm a further, wave might come in and ugh and meanwhile the roads are closed ugh were in ugh a community college about ten miles umm north of the shoreline, and just sort of waiting and watching.

Male Reporter: The effects…were not…not expected to be particular dramatic here and seem to have passed largely without incident the, emergency management ugh officials here say some of there detectives they…they've barely registered ugh…ugh a blo…still people were told to keep away from beaches and were they were told that the waves (.) here could be over five and might for trouble knock you off your feet or damage boats in…in harbors and so on, so its that sort of a… that sort of a warning, but umm (.) tsunamis are taken seriously along the coast yeah particularly as…as you may well know the British Columbian coast is dotted with some very small and quite remote communities so getting word to some of them sometimes ugh has been a cause of concern so emergency plans kicked into effect, sirens went off, some people spent nights in…in school gymnasiums in ugh higher levels umm just to be on the safe side, umm because really the Falk line runs just off the coast here and ugh a major earthquake is always a possibility here and people want to be sure that they, they never take these thoughts of things to lightly.

Steven Robinson
English Investigation

Transcript of Fox news broadcast
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pxYnFONs 8c

Key:

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The duration of the broadcast lasts up 3:43 seconds, I begin to transcribe the report at 0:46 into it

Male Reporter: It’s a much different story in Sendai a lot of the videotape that we been rolling throughout the morning (.) when you see that water come across that farmland, Ugh…That is we believe the town of Sendai that what you see (.) ummm boats and homes and so much debris literally, washing to the side. Now we await the word (.) on what happens here in the US Bill Leaf is with me now, he is a Seismologist of the US Geological survey and Bill good morning to you, we are watching Hawaii..

Bill Leaf:                                           <Good morning…>

Male Reporter: Watching the west coast of the US (.) your reaction

Bill Leaf:                    <Brian…>

Male Reporter: to what has been an absolutely (.) horrific scene so far.

Bill Leaf: Oh I agree with you completely horrific… And duh and no doubt that this is gonna be historic, ummm (.) thee this is as you reported the (.) largest earthquake ummm (.) in, in modern history in Japan, its one of the five largest earthquakes, to have occurred in, in modern history, history ummm and its obviously produced a very large Tsunami ummm, on the coast of Japan and that’s that were finding out the impact of (.) across the pacific now…

Male Reporter: bill, bill you do this for a living (1)

Bill Leaf: <eh yes >

Male Reporter: Have you ever seen images like these? (2)

Bill Leaf: well, yes in fact in two thousand and four umm (.) the, the great earthquake in the Sumatra Undermaza Indonesia region that, ugh (.) that killed so many thousands, ten’s of hundreds of people ummm (.) ugh that was an earthquake actually even larger than this one (.) produced a Tsunami that propagated all the way across the India ocean there were similar scenes in Thailand and Sumatra ugh to the ones that were seen this morning in Japan.

Male Reporter: but to see it capture on tape like this I think is… is something the world is being introduced to (1) ugh…the fury of

Bill Leaf: <Yes>

Male Reporter:  Mother Nature and the power of mother nature bill…
Bill Leaf: yes it is quite remarkable.

Male Reporter: we are waiting for more word as to what happens in Hawaii, what happens on the west coast of US, up in Canada; down through Mexico and to South America, what is your expectation?

Bill Leaf: Its very difficult to predict (1) ummm…and the reason is that the local effect of a tsunami ummm (.) across the ocean, is dependent on the configuration of the land underground so (.) ummm if as you know ugh above ground we have rivers and we have mountains and the same situation is present underground and we call that befimatre and that befimatre, causes focusing or de-focusing of the wave so…so the wave can have locally (.) sometimes a very large amplitude because of a focusing affect on the coastline or it can ugh,  not amount to much, it could amount essentially being ugh very strong tide (2) umm…  and, and I do want to mention that these strong tides can have very significant effects we’ve seen that in, for…for example in Crescent City, ugh I understand that Crescent City California has been Evacuated and part…

Male Reporter:                        <In the (.) in the northern part of that state.>

Bill thank you, you’re a terrific guest.

Steven Robinson

English language 

My investigation consists of multiply news report covering the same event on a national scale, to compare the differences of lexical techniques, structure and presentation towards the public. To further understand the differences between each report I constructed two graphs; based on lexis and grammar on the Fox and BBC news broadcasts.

There’s strong evidence from each graph that show that the news reports each hold more differences than similarities for example: the BBC news report uses more complex sentences than simple in the broadcast, while the fox news report tends to use more simple sentences suggesting that the fox news report is more informal as compared to the BBC news which is more formal. This in turn also relates to the high use of conjunction in the BBC report and not so much in the Fox Cover, which suggests that the grammatical structure of the BBC report has a more formal approach than the Fox News Coverage. However the Fox news tends to use a lot more declaratives than the BBC coverage but also as a second note the fox report tend to use a more direct approach towards the audience as supposed the BBC who covers the topic with a more indirect approach.

However lexis plays an important role on the difference between each broadcast. The BBC news uses a lot more fillers, pauses, and hesitation than the Fox news, this maybe down to the informality of the BBC broadcast as they cover the topic in a more indirect way compared to the Fox news broadcast who use more direct approach. However the fox News broadcast uses a lot more lexical field choice than the BBC report does this suggests that the Fox news report wants to reinforce the Devastation of the tsunami in the mind of the viewers, this is supported by the fact that the Fox news report uses a lot more repetition than the BBC report to reinforce the issues that Japan face from this present disaster. However the BBC report uses a lot of Disjunction and jargon closely together to alter the more informative approach of the topic to a more serious discussion on the destruction it has caused.

Overall I do believe that both graphs support my hypothesis on the differences of lexical techniques, structure and presentation skills used by each news report in order to broadcast to the public in an effective way.

Youtube Clip of Child Arguement

Steven Robinson

Children Transcript Analyses

English Lang

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BMT6BfxR7w

 

The argument is between two four year olds debating the issue of who said no first and who is older. The conversation starts off with the Boy arguing that he is right suggesting that he has the most power between them “No, I won’t ever!” he uses the Ellison “won’t” because he cannot structure his sentence properly yet Not only this but the conversation is very informal which shows that kids of the age of 4 and below cannot structure there conversation properly as they tend to have slight grammatical errors with their sentences. But at the same time they know what they are saying but cannot express it, having to wait to process what they’re going to say but haven’t learned how to semantically structure it properly “ If I say y… Yes! If I say no, then NO!” this is evidence from Chomsky theory LAD (‘language acquisition device’).

 

Both kids use a lot of high frequent lexis as they cannot express their points across to each other in turn leads to a loop of adjacency pairs “I say yes!” “I said no!” There are a lot of discourse markers and simple sentences throughout their argument however the four-year-old girl is able to use a few compound sentences to get her argument across “you be quiet, I’m four, you not four” but at the same time the sentences lack structure and tend to be in the past tense or said incorrectly with irregular verbs which refers back to B.F Skinners theory that kids tend to use a lot more irregular verbs at younger ages “Yeah am I FOUR! You…Much Young!”

 

Both children show signs of the telegraphic stage, making more sense to each other in the conversation however, they tend to mistake the odd noun and verb with a bit of a muddle on structure. They both can come to terms with future; past and present tense e.g. “Now you be quiet now!”. An other thing to note is that the boy says: “No you Dis-res-pecting!” now the boy is too young to come out with such a complicated word, this suggest that he had heard his parents saying it and he copied them supporting the view that you tend to copy your parents or older siblings grammar this supports B.F Skinner theory.

 

They use personal and singular pronouns throughout the entire transcript “I say yes!” This is evidence of Vigotski theory that children are self-centered in conversation. The transcript is constantly submerged in virtuous errors “if I say y...Yes! I say yes. If I say no, then NO! But at the same time both kids tend to use utterances. Referring back to Steve Pinkman theory on how children use words that they have learned from others both children must have learned how to formulate their words from others to get their point across “Be quiet!” “You be quiet!”

 

 

Steven Robinson

Children Transcript

English Lang

 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_BMT6BfxR7w

 

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Boy: NO! (1) I won’t ever…

Girl: YYES!

Boy: NOOO!

Girl: If I say yes!

Boy: I said No!

Girl: if I say y…(2) Yes!, I say yes. If I say no, then NO! (.)

Boy: NOOOOOOO!

Girl: I said NO!

Boy: I said no first!!

Girl: I SAID NO FIRST!!

Boy: nuh! I said no First!!

Girl:         <I Said no First!!>

Boy:         <Be quiet!!>

Girl:         <you be quiet!>

Boy:         <Now you be quiet NOW!!

Girl: you be quiet, I’m Four, you not four!

Boy: Yea am I FOUR! You..(.) Much Young!

Girl: You! (.) ARE NOT FOUR…I’M FOUR!

 

Boy: No you…you DIS-res-pecting!

Girl: YOU ARE BAD!

Boy: No, you are BAD!

Girl: Imma tell your mom (.) you will go home

Boy: Go!