English Language and Linguistics

School of Humanities University of Brighton

Category: Student posts

Dissertation stories: Meg’s inquiry into language of weight loss on Instagram

October 6, 2020 / / 0 Comments

The research question for my dissertation was How do influencers on Instagram use language to promote weight loss products?’. I decided to research this because, over the past few years, the use of social media has drastically expanded with a large number of users making huge quantity of content every day. It could be argued that this has had a large impact on women due to the expectations that they face regarding a certain body standard. Tiggermann and Zaccardo (2018) found that the majority of photos on Instagram are of very slender and toned bodies, which seem to put pressure on many young women to look the same way. A survey of Pew Research Internet Project has stated that Instagram has had the highest increase among all social media platforms since 2012. Therefore, I decided that this would be the most interesting platform to investigate, also in terms of weight loss products.

I collected fifty posts that promote weight loss products and explained how influencers use language to do so. To compile my dataset, I searched for the hashtag, ‘weight loss’ on Instagram and found a high number of posts. Next, I selected many of the hashtags that were being used on these posts, such as #skinnycoffee, #fitspiration, #beforeandafter, #fatlossjourney and #caloricountedmeals, which lead me to other examples of influencers promoting weight loss products. I decided to select fifty posts because it gave me a large and varied dataset, meaning I could investigate it and build a solid argument. I carried out a qualitative investigation by picking out common themes that emerged from the analysis and discussed how those themes were represented through different linguistic patterns. These themes included:

* anti-obesity, focusing on being thin, implying that being fat is wrong ;

* reinvention, that is the the idea of new beginnings and reinventing oneself in terms of diet and exercise;

* the convenience of the products: how easy it is to use a product, and how quickly one is able to lose weight when using it;

* follower orientation language, language focusing on benefitting the followers);

* and self-control, controlling ones diet and exercise routine

I decided to analyse the dataset through a Feminist Critical Discourse Analysis Framework because I found that the language used in the posts was aimed at women, generally telling them how to lose weight. The themes connote the idea that women need to look a certain way and achieve that way through weight loss products to be fully accepted in nowadays society.

I was enlightened by the variety of ways language was used to promote the products. For instance, I found that the underlying discourse of failure existed in most of the themes. For example, in the theme, ‘self-control’, it fixates on the idea that women should be able to control their eating and exercise habits. Therefore, if they are not able to control it, they have failed. The discourse of failure is also present in the ‘convenience of products’ theme through the use of adverbs such as ‘just’, for example, implying that it is simple to lose weight, possibly leaving customers feeling like they had failed if they are not to achieve their goals (and the influencers’ look) as easily. This kind of discourse was also present in the ‘Anti-obesity’ theme because it focused on the idea that a ‘bikini body’ was important for women, suggesting that if a woman is not able to reach a specific body type, then they are not able to enjoy the same activities that other people do in the summertime. ‘Reinvention’ also conveyed this type of discourse when idioms such as “off track” were being used to describe a person not being in the right place to reach their goals and therefore failing at losing weight. This common underlying meaning suggests that influencers are focused on succeeding and showing this to their audience. One can argue that this discourse emerging from the Instagram influencers can be damaging to young people because they have so much power and many people are inspired by them.

I really enjoyed writing this dissertation as I learnt a lot about the power of language and how influential it can be. There were, however, many components that I did not cover due to the word limit of 10,000 words. The promotion of weight loss on other social media platforms could be interesting to investigate, as it would be fascinating to see if there was a difference between the platforms, and thus explore the reason behind this. It would also be intriguing to carry out this study with a larger dataset, in order to see whether any more themes are revealed.

The best part about writing this dissertation was the fact that I had the creative freedom to write about whatever I wanted. I was particularly interested about weight loss culture on social media and how that is transferred through language. Therefore, that made the process of writing my dissertation an incredibly joyous experience. Furthermore, the support I had from my dissertation supervisor was brilliant, as she encouraged and praised me, yet challenged me when it was appropriate. I would encourage future students writing a dissertation to choose a topic that they are passionate about on a day to day basis because 1. The experience will be more enjoyable, and 2. You will discover so much information and background knowledge that you never even knew about.

Tiggermann, M, Zaccardo, M, 2016. ‘’Strong is the new skinny’: A content analysis of #fitspiration images on Instagram’, Journal of Health and Psychology, 9(8), pp. 1003-1011

Meg Donovan

A Folk Linguistic Investigation into the Attitudes Young Adults have towards Received Pronunciation

July 21, 2019 / / 0 Comments

by Kizzy Dennett, BA graduate in English Language and Linguistics

For my undergraduate dissertation, I investigated attitudes towards Received Pronunciation (a sub-field of sociolinguistics called folk linguistics). The results of my project contribute to sociolinguistic research in dialectology and language, but they also reveal interesting insights into attitudes towards gender. I believe that some of my results are thought-provoking and this post will share some of them with you!

To give you a brief overview of what my project was about and how I gathered these attitudes, I should begin by telling you how I created and distributed the survey online. The respondents were asked to rate the RP accent on attributes on a Likert Scale (a rating system created by Rensis Likert in 1932). They were asked a few open-ended questions too. With a little help from my supervisor getting the survey out there on social media, within a couple of weeks I was surprised to see that I had twenty-five survey responses! After collecting the surveys, I began investigating them, conducting both quantitative and qualitative analyses on the responses. In terms of the scaled numerical responses on the Likert Scale, I calculated the average result from the responses from the male and female respondents and put them into tables and then put the averages into a total averages table, so I could discuss the overall ratings of the speakers’ friendliness, trustworthiness, pleasantness, intelligence and educational background. As far as the responses to the open-ended questions go, I did a qualitative analysis on the responses to the question “what is your first impression of this person?” by grouping the responses into three fields: ‘Social Attractiveness’ (examples of responses for this are serious, friendly and kind), secondly, ‘Competence’ (educated and well-spoken) and finally, ‘Wealth and Status’ (posh and well-off). I also conducted a qualitative analysis to the responses to “what job do you assume this person has?” by simply listing the responses in two columns labelled as responses to the male RP speakers and responses to the female RP speakers. I believe that this particular question led the most interesting responses.

So what did I find?

First of all, the overall findings of my project were that the respondents of my survey believe that RP speakers can be regarded as highly competent, this having association with wealth and upper social class status. However, attitudes towards this accent showed negative reactions and it was perceived lowly in terms of social attractiveness among the twenty-five respondents. Although an interesting finding (as the accent was not particularly rated well despite its once prestigious status), what intrigued me the most was the gender stereotyping that can be found in the responses and the extent to which gender appeared to be a relevant aspect in the study. To list a few instances of this, a few respondents labelled the male speakers as dentists and doctors but the female speakers were labelled (dental) nurses. So, the men were regarded as holding a higher position in the same industry. As well as this, the women were regularly labelled “housewives and “kept women”. What intrigued me the most about the survey responses is how much gender presented itself as a relevant facet in this project and I can say that confidently, because since all of the speakers had the same RP accent, it insinuates that the gender of the speaker was a variable that influenced the results of the survey. Overall, I was surprised to see the extent to which the gender of the speaker played a significant role in influencing the results of the survey and I believe this is a phenomenon that should be investigated further. I will be doing more research into accents, identity and perceptions of accents in the near future, as I have just been accepted to do a Master’s degree in Applied Linguistics!

Joining “extraordinary singletons” on their quest for love or exploiting dating disasters?

July 21, 2019 / / 0 Comments

by Lucy Warren, graduate in BA English Language 

A critical discourse analysis of the narration of The Undateables and accompanying tweets.

Channel4 TV Corp

After watching the popular television programme, The Undateables (Channel 4, 2012), questions arose regarding how ethical the show truly is, specifically how empowering the show is to the participants and how much “awareness” the show actually creates. Following individuals with disabilities on “their quest for love”, the show has come under scrutiny for misrepresentation of the “undateable” participants from members of the public, journalists and sociolinguists. The show claims to show an “unprecedented insight into the dating lives of extraordinary singletons” however, as found in my study, this was not always entirely obvious.

By applying Sunderland’s discourse analysis technique (2004), the investigation examined various discourses such as infantilization, mockery and romanticism in the narration in two series of the show and accompanying tweets from the public. The investigation into the discourses presented in the narration and tweets, critically argued whether The Undateables exploits the disabled participants or is creating awareness, as the show claims.

After transcribing the narration of six episodes and investigating them manually, there were three clear discourses (i.e. set of ideas). First, The Undateable participants were often infantilized, whereby the emphasis of the pain and efforts come from the parents rather than the participants themselves. The narration treats them as if they are children despite all of them being over the age of eighteen, for example “His mum, Liz, hopes this could be a turning point in both their lives”. This was further evident in the tweets as the “undateables” were often described as “cute” or “sweet”, despite them often being older than the Twitter users themselves. The adjectives used by the public could be used to describe a new-born baby or a puppy, however the tweets equate this to the participants on the show despite many being over the age of thirty, living alone and in full-time employment much like any non-disabled adults.

Second, the study of the narration also found that the disabled individuals are overlooked as people, almost acting as if the disabled person was not worth addressing. Noticeably, the users often mention the parents rather than the “undateables” themselves. Thus, shifting the responsibility, pain and efforts from the disabled individual onto the parents. This creates sympathy for the parents rather than the “undateables”. This was particularly evident in the narration and further evident in the tweets, as both often referred to the Undateable’s parents, rather than the disabled participant. When romanticizing the “undateables”, both the narration and tweets capitalize upon the negative connotations of being single. The narration revolves around the idea that the ideal life trajectory is getting married and finding “Mr/Mrs Right” and creates a societal pressure to find “the one”. Failing to do so puts even more pressure on the disabled individuals and makes them look desperate and needy to avoid loneliness. Despite disability and relationships being two separate entities, the narration assumes that the “undateables” are aiming to cure themselves through love in order to be truly happy. To have a “fairy-tale romance” ensures happiness and thus the individual will be cured, with the responsibility being put on the “undateables” to find love and to ‘cure’ themselves.

The last discourse I identified was that of the “I’m glad it’s not me”. Whilst the show aims to promote awareness of the various disabilities and struggles, the show arguably crosses a line of laughing “with them” and this confuses the audience laugh laughing “at them”. It is questionable as to whether the humour is directed at the situation or at the “undateable” individual out of pity and mockery. The show says it aims to promote awareness of disabilities and learning difficulties, however this seemed to get misconstrued throughout the tweets with people just feeling pity for the helpless victims. Whilst the show claims to empower and raise awareness, the tweets and narration facilitate the never-ending cycle of dis/empowerment aimed at those who are disabled. Due to the cycle of dis/empowerment and the exploitation that comes from this, the societal view that disabled individuals are less able to find love will probably continue.

Disability in the media is still massively underrepresented, the social issue lies inherently within this as it is unlikely to ever be equal. After critically analysing The Undateables, it has shown me my own previous negative judgements and highlighted how discreet the disempowerment is in the narration and how this is portrayed in the public’s opinions. As the study went on, I became more and more disappointed in my own thoughts as I would find myself agreeing with the narration. Thus proving how embedded negative societal views are in relation to disability. Arguably, the show itself is a leap in disability empowerment; a show that follows disabled individuals dating lives is a new phenomenon. This does show a shift in society, regardless of any criticisms.

Sunderland, J. (2004), Gendered discourses, Palgrave Macmillan, Basingstoke.

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